Thursday, April 9/2015

Camden Town. It's becoming, sadly, more and more generic. The distinctive aspects are disappearing. Camden Market is still thriving but Inverness Street Market is no more, or at least the fruit and vegetable aspect of it, and the man who weighed your tomatoes and called you luv. You can still buy t-shirts and souvenirs there if you want to. The supermarkets are there, though we can remember the Waitrose in its previous incarnations as Morrison's and Co-op. They've been joined by Lidl and a 99p store, the latter doing noticeably less business as the queues at Lidl lengthen. Gone too are the little stands on corners of Camden High Street selling oranges and apples and strawberries and grapes - often at better prices and of better quality than the nearby supermarkets. Lots of charity shops and still a few bakeries and a couple of pubs. But increasingly it could be a high street in any part of London with similar demographics.