Mitch Tillman outside the Oak and Poppy

• IN the article about the opening of a new “pub” in Hampstead, the owner, Mitch Tillman, presumably wishing to show us his pub credentials, talks condescendingly about The Brighton pub in Camden Town where his father was “an investor” describing it thus: “The Brighton was this Irish pub, spit and sawdust, lots of old Irish boys in there and it was falling down.

“We turned it into a cocktail bar and I fell in love with the business. The atmosphere, the people, the stickiness of the Optics and filling up the juice bottles, it all went from there.”

Mr Tillman plans to reopen the old Rosslyn Arms in Hampstead under the new name “The Oak and Poppy”.

Anyone who was around in the 1970s to the 1990s will know about Camden’s Irish heritage. When people like Mr Tillman wouldn’t have set foot in a Camden pub, the Irish were there.

It was only when Camden ­became a tourist attraction and property prices rocketed that the Irish pubs started disappearing and the area is poorer for it.

Pubs like The Brighton – packed and full of atmosphere – were the centre of communities with a real mix of people in all of them. It’s where you met your neighbours.

These days Camden bars are full of people that live somewhere else and behave as if they are in Magaluf.

The Brighton was a hotbed of Irish traditional music, and has more history than any of these new cocktail bars will ever have, and probably earned more money than they ever could.

When you walked in these places, even if it was heaving, you would get served quickly – if you were a regular they would start pouring as soon as they saw you. Getting served nowadays is always a chore.

I remember The Brighton and there was nothing wrong with it. I wish there were more “spit and sawdust” pubs still around, I know where I would rather drink.

Mr Tillman’s sneery dismissal of Camden’s Irish community was patronising and it seems they’re the only group you’re going to get away with slating.

These “old Irish boys” would spend more money in an evening than any of the Oak & Poppy’s would and they’d be in every night.

Calling any of them pubs is also misleading; the clientele will be a load of Hampstead yummy mummies – the market Mr Tillman is aiming at – and they will be earning their money from overpriced food.

It’s also telling that the upstairs will be flats or commercial spaces, the driving force behind reopening the place no doubt.

If Mr Tillman wants to open establishments like this he’s more than welcome to but to denigrate the previous incarnations of these places and Camden’s illustrious Irish history is crass and insensitive.

I’m surprised your esteemed organ lets closet racism, not to mention sneering at the working class, like this onto its pages, you have an excellent record for covering the Irish community and acknowledging their place in Camden’s heritage.

AIDAN McMANUS
Address supplied