Fire hits Camden Market

Photo source: Eric Braun/AP

Reports are that Camden Market in London, has gone up in flames tonight and large parts or even most of it may be destroyed.

I'm absolutely dismayed because Camden was my absolute favourite place to visit or just be in London - both when I was a visitor and during the time I lived there. I first came across it on my first visit to London - it was listed there in the guidebook that I picked up at the airport, under 'markets'.

The brief description could never do justice to the amazing, fascinating, earthy, funky cauldron of culture that Camden is. The crammed markets with all kinds of funky, irreverent or exotic clothing and tid bits, the strong punk culture and the sight of punks with 3-foot tall spiked pink hair and 6 inch black platform boots strolling the streets, the fantastic, frilly 50s prom style dresses sold in the stores, the bars lined with genuinely interesting, slightly rock and roll folk - it's fantastic. And the heart of it is Camden Market.

The first time I went, I actually took a British friend along with me who had been born and raised in London. Somehow she had never been to or even heard much of Camden but she loved it, exclaiming that she couldn't believe she had never been there all the years of her life.

When I spent a year in the UK doing my master's, I made sure to visit Camden every time I visited London. Even if I had little or no money to spend in the markets, just walking around in Camden was fun.

I actually got the chance to live in Camden for two weeks towards the end when I was interning in London. The house-share I had signed up for wasn't available yet so I ended up bunking with a friend of a friend who was staying with some other friends. The first month or so of my stay in London was traumatic, bouncing around from house to house, but my stay in Camden was great, even though I was skint. It was such a vibrant place that even walking up the road to the tube station to go to work on Mondays was a great experience.

I also always thought that it was great how the British tourist authorites proudly promoted their open-air, slightly unruly, vibrant markets as tourist attractions, rather than as some embarassment to be hidden away, the way we treat our vendors and markets in the Caribbean.

The success of that strategy is evident in the fact I can't imagine Camden with the market gone. It just won't be the same. :(