Simon Watney, 65, living With hiv Since 1997
SINCE TIME IMMEMORIAL, wagons groaning under the weight of fresh farm produce would come trundling down the roads north of London every morning before dawn, supplying the markets of the City and of Westminster a few miles to the west. The route downhill from Hampstead met the route from Highgate at the crossroads where Camden Town underground station now stands. Gallows stood here, as at so many crossroads, and it was doubtless some kind of local folk memory explains the names of the two ancient inns which stood nearby: The Mother Red Cap, which its owners pointlessly renamed The World’s End in the 1980s, and on the opposite side of the street, The Mother Black Cap, long since abbreviated to The Black Cap. While The World’s End thrives, The Black Cap has been unceremoniously and without warning closed down in April.