Primrose Hill before it was posh: Will Wain meets Eugene Manzi
I met Eugene Manzi at one of Primrose Hill’s many patisserie/coffee shops, this one (or was it the place next door?) stocked with a minimalist display of startlingly coloured cupcakes. Eugene and I opted for tea and croissants – not a classic pairing, but preferable to any of the whirly child’s-paintbox confections on offer. Eugene as a small boy lived above his father’s shop at 105 Regent’s Park Road from 1944 to about 1955, and recalls a mixed ‘Bohemian’ and working-class neighbourhood of artists and students, immigrants, small factories and workshops that seems a world away from the swish ‘village’ of today.
His earliest memories are of... Read the rest of this article on the Primrose Hill history site here...