Fields and villages
"The Fields lie sleeping underneath". Camden historian Gillian Tindall found that the town "is simply disguised countryside". This, Tindall says, is "the actual land, lying concealed or destroyed beneath the surface of the 20th century city." It consists of the worn tramlines, hedgerows and old stone walls of pastoral memory.
The same might be said of the community.
We interact in transposed social bubbles, whether online, in the virtual ether of the SMS or bars, clubs or restaurants during the weekend. We seem to meet in places that are not our "own". It has long been a cliche that this London is a chain of villages, all interlinked.
What kind of places are these villages? Are they thriving or being worn away?
It's fascinating to find out about this place and people who shaped it in the past: the railwaymen of Kentish Town; the piano and false teeth makers who both transformed and left their mark on the Grafton Road area; the market traders of Queen's Crescent. The solidarity that brought St Pancras through the blitz and regenerated the slums.
That solidarity is still there underneath. Hopefully we can use the internet to encourage the village to raise its head.
