David Thomson

In Camden Town

Hutchinson, 1983.

- There's some very bad people get into the park at night. There's ways in when it's shut and no keepers about...I've seen some - you know two of them well, but I'm not saying - and I've seen them at Claridges next day and with carrier bags. They get the job if the chef spots the bag and they get enough to keep anyone for a sennight for what's in the bag, and get the day's work as well.
- What's in the bag then?
- Wild duck and sometimes young geese, but geese are nasty. You can get hurt

Bill, the author's informant, has just come in to the Engineer pub from the Regent's Park lake, where he has fed the ducks and the younger geese every day 'until some got to know him and came when he whistled.' Thomson suspects that this may have something to do with 'a bulky Tesco carrier bag which I hadn't noticed when he came in.'

Fat short Maria-like women streaming through Queen Mary's Garden gates unconscious of our wanting to get in - talk kept them and their men busy.

This account of the years 1980-82 when the author lived in Regent's Park Terrace begins with a description of the Rose Garden on a Sunday evening in August. Maria turns out to be the Thomsons' cleaner, too busy working to save up for a house back in Portugal to have time for Sunday walks.