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Penguin Island.


This was the traffic island opposite Camden Town tube where all the Irish navvies used to congregate on a sunday morning after church and prior to the pub back in the late sixties and early seventies, all dressed up in suits and ties. Hence the name.

ED as a down at heel housing action area, where you could get grants to do up your house.

Smoking on all public transport.

Separate little train compartments holding just 8 people, with slam doors (scary if you were stuck on your own with someone looking dodgy)

Being able to buy a flat in Clapham Common for ?19,000

Beautiful curved glass windows in the front of Heals, and it being so out of reach expensive and classy that it was like going into a modern V&A

Fox & Anchor pub - Smithfield Market. Grimy, gritty but great. Opened at 4.00am for market porters, night staff coming off shift from Barts Hospital (both sometimes in bloodstained white coats) and tired & emotional students on late night benders. Huge fry up breakfasts and pints of Guinness.


Now, sadly, 35 years later a Malmaison Hotal.

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