Though I finished this quite a few weeks ago, I thought it only right to make sure that I blogged it before going on to write about my current read.
In Camden Town had been lent to me by a friend, an ex-colleague, from Hull College because I live (almost) in Camden Town – I actually live about 10mins walk from there and avoid it on weekends because of the volume of tourists.
This book was written in 1980, and is a fascinating read in terms of comparing it to the Camden Town of today as well as then seeing his own comparisons of the Camden Town of his time to that of the past – which he has done extensive research on.
Filled with characters at the time of his writing and local history (and how those characters fit into the local history) and characters of the past. It was interesting to learn about why the Regents Canal was built – because the railway line was initially not allowed to go any further into London than Camden – and how it was used for getting imported wood from the Docklands in the East to the new railway line that headed out north from Camden, thus leading to Camden being filled with wood warehouses, and cabinet and piano makers and French polishers (which might actually turn out to help my sister in finding out some finer details for our family tree about why our great grandfather – who was a french polisher – moved with his large family from London to Hull in the early years of the 20th century).
Whilst reading this book I felt a great urge/desire to begin to try and write about my local area in order to help to keep a record of what it is like in the same area at the beginning of the 21st century. Unfortunately, this hasn’t yet begun to happen as I don’t seem to spend enough time in the area on a day-to-day basis as work gets in the way of being able to wander and describe and observe the local landscape and characters – perhaps it’s a future project.
Lisa Kingo 