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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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    • But all those examples sell a wide variety of things,  and mostly they are well spread out along Lordship Lane. These two shops both sell one very specific thing, albeit in different flavours, and are just across the road from each other. I don't think you can compare the distribution of shops in Roman times to the distribution of shops in Lordship Lane in the twenty first century. Well, you can, but it doesn't feel very appropriate. Haa anybody asked the first shop how they feel? Are they happy about the "healthy competition" ?
    • ED is included in the 17 August closure set (or just possibly 15 August, depending on which part of the page you trust more) listed at https://metro.co.uk/2025/07/25/full-list-25-poundland-stores-confirmed-close-august-23753048/. Here incidentally are some snippets from their annual reports, at https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/02495645/filing-history. 2022: " during the period we opened 41 stores and closed 43 loss-making/under-performing stores.  At the period-end we were trading from 821 stores in the UK, IoM and ROI. ... "We renogotiated 82 leases in the year, saving on average 45% versus the prior lease agreement..." 2023: "We also continued to improve our market footprint through sourcing better store locations, opening 53 and closing 51 stores during the year." 2024:  "The ex-Wilco stores acquired in the prior year have formed a core part of this strategy to expand our store network.  We favour quality over quantity and during the period we opened 84 stores and closed 71 loss-making/under-performing ones."
    • Ha! After I posted this, I thought of lots more examples. Screwfix and the hardware store? Mrs Robinson and Jumping Bean? Chemists, plant shops, hairdressers...  the list goes on... it's good to have healthy competition  Ooooh! Two cheese shops
    • You've got a point.  Thinking Leyland and Screwfix too but this felt different.
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