Pubs can be a living room for many. A home away from home where they can go for warmth and the comfort that only human interaction can bring. For many older patrons the bar staff at their local can often be the only person they talk to all day.

I understand first hand the need to be immersed in life and feeling as if you’re living, just not existing and having a break from the same four walls.

18 years ago I rented a tiny studio council flat at the end of the road this pub is located on. It was an illegal sublet with only a blow up mattress and was cheap. It had no other redeeming features.

I drank in here (Tommy Flynn’s Irish pub as was) at least 5 nights a week and it became a place called home. That solace in a big isolated city where the staff became surrogate family was valued beyond measure.

Every visit there was a seasoned bloke from the old country, unsteady on his feet and using a cane, who always drank alone at his regular seat in the corner.

He reminded my wife of her favourite English teacher ‘Mr. Flowers’ back in Ireland.

He was happy with his own company but we’d always have a chat, make a fuss of him and shout him the odd drink. I like to think he appreciated it. But behind the smiles there was a heavy sadness in his demeanour. He was very lonely.

Others before him would have come to dig canals and repair the roads. A private man only interested in chitchat we never knew his story. I wished I had discovered more about his history and life. But you don’t intrude and I’d be certain he’s now long in his grave. I hope he had family round him that loved him or friends who were with him at the very end. Sadly I feel that was not the case.

Old Irish boys don’t sit in the corner in Camden Town pubs anymore. Their time there has gone, as has mine. The environments they loved and craved have been replaced with cocktail bars and coffee shops. Cosy snugs are now restaurants with escalators projecting a West End nightclub scene.

The traditions of the pub going past and those who embraced them have, on the High Street at least, mostly disappeared in NW1. Although there are still a few decent backstreet boozers in the north by the canal, Camden Town is rubbish now. Far too sanitised and commercial it’s soul and indi way of life died long ago.

Although diluted by globalised corporate greed to become just another bland High Street with the familiar chains, at least we still have our treasured memories of a once vibrant area and cherished way of life.