Nick Roumana at the British Boot Company in Kentish Town Road

NICK Roumana has worked at his grandfather’s boots shop a few doors down from Camden Town underground station since he was 10 years old.

Forty-two years later, he has lamented that the British Boot Company in Kentish Town Road is now one of very few independently run shops left in the area and warned against it becoming like any other high street.

“The problem is people are too busy buying stuff online,” he said. “They don’t realise that’s why every British high street is dying on its feet. People are supporting the likes of Amazon and private equity groups that don’t contribute back to the UK economy.”

Mr Roumana said his grandad sold hobnob boots to the largely Irish workforce which populated Camden in the 1950s. Then, they became one of the first stores to stock Doc Martins and grew into a staple for the emerging punk crowd. In the 1970s the office for 2 Tone Records, which produced ska bands like The Specials, was above the shop.

Today, a string of Docs and Solovairs signed by Madness and The Pogues have been strung up along the ceiling. Mr Roumana said that many of the band members still pop into the shop.

“I remember coming in here when I was six or seven years old and the shop was full of Irish navvies, because that was our trade back in the day,” he said. “And big punks and skinheads. I was terrified so my grandad took me out the back and gave me a lolly just to calm me down. That was my first introduction to the shop.”

He added: “Camden was buzzing in the 80s. I couldn’t wait to come in here and start working. These stores were seminal in putting Camden on the map but there aren’t many original stores left now.

“I mean I can remember Camden when there was a fishmongers there, there was bakers, a butchers, there was three very good independent record stores. Mod Father clothing is Camden. Oi Oi the shop is Camden. Some of the more punkier, original shops like All Ages Records is Camden. We’re Camden. You want to come to Camden to see independence and originals.”

But Mr Roumana added that those independent shops are disappearing, increasingly replaced by chain stores.

“You want tourists and locals that are wanting to support local businesses,” he said. “These businesses don’t survive on thin air, they don’t survive with people taking pictures and walking out, they survive on selling things”.

He added: “We just want Camden to survive. We don’t want Camden to become another Oxford Street, another generic shop­ping centre, another Bluewater, another Westfield. Camden is independence. It’s original shops that have got original stock that are run by families.

“That’s Camden.”