Tuesday this week I was working in Camden and thanks to the scheduling of the session I had over two hours free in the middle of the day. I was at the south end of Camden High Street, so I took myself off for a walk along it. I walked right up to Camden Lock, passed Camden Market and the eclectic mixture of shops there.
In the 80s and early 90s I spent a lot of time in that area of Camden. I’d often buy clothes from Camden Market and the collection of shops around there. At Camden Lock I’d regularly search through the second-hand book stalls looking for an “interesting read”. When I first came to London, back in the 80’s, Camden was this wonderful and exciting place. The market was full of all the different clothes I’d longed the wear and at prices I could afford (very important because I was doing low paid care jobs). There was also a buzzing gay life there, long before the rise of gay Soho. There were gay clubs and pubs, and even gay shops. Especially the old Zipper Store at the top of Camden High Street, this was more than just a sex shop (though not everything it sold was squeaky clean) and I brought many different novels there.
Moving to London was a great liberation for me, not just being to explore what it was to be a gay man but I was also able to live my life without anyone looking over my shoulder. I was my parents’ youngest child and while I lived with them they always wanted to know where I was going and when I’d be back. They also cast their opinions over all I bought. They weren’t cruel but they were over-protective. Leaving that was such a liberation and finding Camden, and all that went with it, was part of that.
In the mid 90s I moved to West London and less and less I went to Camden, also this time saw the rise in Gay Soho, an alternative place to go, and my meeting Martin. Things change and Camden wasn’t a place I visited regularly.
What was most surprising about walking through Camden this week was how little had changed. The pavements were new, wide and even, and some of the shops had different names, but it seemed so familiar. The Zipper Store had gone but so many things on sale were the same as when I was shopping there. The Arabic scarves, the same pre faded and pre ripped jeans, the same bright tee-shirts emblazoned with slogans. My taste in clothes has changed but it was strange to be confronted by my old taste on sale, on mass. 80s fashions are making a big comeback, so of course they’d be on sale in there, but it still felt as if Camden Market hadn’t changed at all over the years. That gave it a slightly unreal
feeling.
The 80s and 90s have been very much been in my mind recently. I’m writing a series of linked short stories, set between 1984 and 1994, about the events in a young gay man’s life as he leaves before the Evangelical Christianity he grow-up in. It’s a theme that does crop up in my writing. So there I was, walking up Camden High Street, confronted by all that 80s revival, as my mind is going over the stories I’m writing set in the 80s. Hey, my life’s like that.
Drew.
In the 80s and early 90s I spent a lot of time in that area of Camden. I’d often buy clothes from Camden Market and the collection of shops around there. At Camden Lock I’d regularly search through the second-hand book stalls looking for an “interesting read”. When I first came to London, back in the 80’s, Camden was this wonderful and exciting place. The market was full of all the different clothes I’d longed the wear and at prices I could afford (very important because I was doing low paid care jobs). There was also a buzzing gay life there, long before the rise of gay Soho. There were gay clubs and pubs, and even gay shops. Especially the old Zipper Store at the top of Camden High Street, this was more than just a sex shop (though not everything it sold was squeaky clean) and I brought many different novels there.
Moving to London was a great liberation for me, not just being to explore what it was to be a gay man but I was also able to live my life without anyone looking over my shoulder. I was my parents’ youngest child and while I lived with them they always wanted to know where I was going and when I’d be back. They also cast their opinions over all I bought. They weren’t cruel but they were over-protective. Leaving that was such a liberation and finding Camden, and all that went with it, was part of that.
In the mid 90s I moved to West London and less and less I went to Camden, also this time saw the rise in Gay Soho, an alternative place to go, and my meeting Martin. Things change and Camden wasn’t a place I visited regularly.
What was most surprising about walking through Camden this week was how little had changed. The pavements were new, wide and even, and some of the shops had different names, but it seemed so familiar. The Zipper Store had gone but so many things on sale were the same as when I was shopping there. The Arabic scarves, the same pre faded and pre ripped jeans, the same bright tee-shirts emblazoned with slogans. My taste in clothes has changed but it was strange to be confronted by my old taste on sale, on mass. 80s fashions are making a big comeback, so of course they’d be on sale in there, but it still felt as if Camden Market hadn’t changed at all over the years. That gave it a slightly unreal
feeling.The 80s and 90s have been very much been in my mind recently. I’m writing a series of linked short stories, set between 1984 and 1994, about the events in a young gay man’s life as he leaves before the Evangelical Christianity he grow-up in. It’s a theme that does crop up in my writing. So there I was, walking up Camden High Street, confronted by all that 80s revival, as my mind is going over the stories I’m writing set in the 80s. Hey, my life’s like that.
Drew.
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