The Good Mixer in Inverness Street

• AFTER the peace and quiet of lockdown the extension of restaurant and café tables onto the pavement has vastly improved the atmosphere of Inverness Street.

When we moved into the street 20 years ago, the multi-generational fruit and veg traders with their numerous stalls had provided a lively local community hub since before war.

Since their sad demise we have struggled with increasing levels of corner drug-dealing, drug-taking, gang-fights (I have seen knives and machetes brandished many times), litter, public urination on our doorstep, and general hooligan behaviour.

As a proud Camden Towner for 40 years it was depressing what a poor advertisement for Camden Town our scruffy street across from the tube had become (neighbour playwright Alan Bennett wrote at length in the Camden New Journal specifically about the ruination of Inverness Street).

There are many flats in our building on the corner of the High Street, with our front opening on Inverness. Many of us get a bird’s-eye view of happenings on the street.

We in recent times have all been impressed with the improving situation outside since café society arrived. Punters enjoying elaborate cocktails outside Made in Brazil like they were in the Rio sunshine.

The colourful patrons of The Good Mixer are clearly more comfortable drinking at table benches than squeezed behind the railings like 1980s football fans.

The stalwart market traders who return in all weathers have become friends over the years. In recent weeks they have re-established themselves among the diners and the much-appreciated restaurant security staff patrol and the place feels like it recovered its mojo.

In the past we have seen stalls attempting arts and crafts, speciality foods and such like, but they never stick around.

Whenever the street was really crowded with stalls on odd weekends in the past, they all seemed to be selling exactly the same tacky T-shirts and fingerspinners or such. Disillusioned tourists wander up and down with a confused expression on their faces… “Is this it?”

The al-fresco dining brings more to the street than more of the same stalls have ever done.

Good luck to the new developments on the lock and the high-concept Buck Street eco-market but here is the real Camden, a much-loved market street once the heart of the community, organically enjoying a new lease of life.

Any suggestion that more stalls – to the detriment of our new café society – is not a step backwards, should be resisted.

HOWARD GRAY, NW1