I went down a few blind alleys before coming to the conclusion that if you don’t look after your own back yard no-one else will do it for you. I’d moved to Kentish Town at around the same time, and finally understood that a person with strong feelings about their environment would struggle with their sanity if they relied on the local planning authority to encourage creativity and beauty – or even just to keep things in check.
And that’s how four years ago I joined the opinionated bunch at the volunteer-run Camden Civic Society, manned by folk who know what is going on and who is doing it. Even better, they were educated and informed about what makes a good place tick.
Plenty of organisations are interested in local matters, but civic societies focus on single issues; they have a more extensive and borough-wide role, whether arguing for better designed housing or making sure buses services and cycle paths are adequate.
More succinctly, CCS committee member Aileen Hammond (left) says a civic society, and, more particularly Camden Civic Society is an organisation of ‘curious people.’ And the committee members of Camden Civic Society are, by their own admission, curious about their own back yard.
Graphic designer Ivor Kamlish, who has produced Camden Civic Society’s newsletters since the 1960s, agrees with this view and goes further: ‘A civic society is really there to make people aware of their surroundings and to improve them. It would be a mistake to suppose we’re only interested in preserving the past.’ As if to prove his point Ivor lives in an elegant modern block of flats and has jettisoned the Letraset he used as a young designer to embrace the iPad with the fervour of a teen.
Amongst CCS’s successes have been the reopening of Mornington Crescent tube and a better design for Gordon Ramsay’s York and Albany restaurant (right). They moderated some of the grosser redevelopment at the British Museum and welcomed the decision to make St Pancras the terminal for Eurostar.
But perhaps their fondest achievement is the annual competition for Camden schoolchildren run by Aileen and her trusty band of essay markers. Each year the children are asked to write a letter about Camden, designed to encourage their interest in their local streets and buildings and to develop their skills as active citizens.
In past years the competition focused on what is good and bad and what can be made better about Camden. According to Aileen, dog poo, rubbish and pickpockets come up regularly on the downside, while Hampstead Heath is a great love. This year, in accordance with all things Olympic, CCS changed tack and asked the children to write about what tourists here for the Games would think of the borough. Fourteen schools in Camden entered the competition. In my bundle of marking I was delighted to read that two boys felt that visitors to Camden would need more sweetshops and another imagined that visitors would like our streets because they were wide enough for skateboarding.
But currently occupying the minds of CCS is the future of the group. Although unexpectedly relevant once again amidst all the vogueish talk about community, volunteering and sustainability, most of the committee are in their seventies and eighties. They began in the early 1960’s angrily opposing the extension to the M1, and next year will celebrate their 50th anniversary. And they’re eager to hand over to a more energetic generation with different ideas. Without new committee members their 50th anniversary might be their last.
Tiva Montalbano, in her early thirties, newest and youngest of the committee, is seeking members. She says:‘CCS provides the long view and it would be great to combine that with the fresh perspective of newcomers. There’s a real need for an independent and wide ranging voice in the borough. We care. We live here.’
Words & Photos: Susan Sheahan. Susan is a freelance journalist.
