Putting a pin through the past.

The welcoming scene to greet me as I arrived at Camden Road Overground Station last night was that of a drunken old tramp relieving himself against a tree. It was good to be back in the old neighbourhood and to see that so little had changed since I finished working here almost six months ago. I was meeting the last of my old work crew as they were finally being shown the door after a much drawn-out downscaling program that politely but firmly ushered us all out onto pastures new.

I was running late, but had to stop when I saw this piece of art-work on the window shutters of a closed tobacco shop. Even through the twilight of a drab March evening, the colour and energy and noise of the piece grabbed my attention and I had to take a photograph.

By the time I joined the newly unemployed gang at the bar, their sorrows were already three quarters submerged and spirits were running high, but it was still no time to start waxing lyrical on the virtues of the London street art scene. The moment, after all, is just as important as the audience, and neither seemed fit for that kind of talk given the circumstances of our get together.

We raised a glass to an uncertain future and no sooner had we one down that I ordered us a round of doubles. 

“Thanks, Richy,” says one lad to me.

“Don’t mention it,” I answer. “I’ll be putting it all on the boss’s tab anyway.”

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