• TO continue a theme of praising quiet individuals who enrich Camden, I’d like single out my predecessor Cantelowes Labour councillor, Gerry Harrison.

He moved away from Kentish Town a decade ago (he now lives near Glyndebourne) but he has retained his passion for Camden despite his now advanced years.

I give you two examples from just the past couple of years.

He has co-ordinated the quest for recognition with an English Heritage Blue Plaque to celebrate the Trinidad-born black American activist Claudia Jones, who was deported from the USA to the UK in 1955 and who once lived at 58 Lisburne Road, Gospel Oak. She was also one of the founders of the Notting Hill Carnival in 1959.

Most recently Gerry has been seeking to secure a safe future for the house where the esteemed French poets Paul Verlaine and his lover Arthur Rimbaud (whom he shot in 1873) lived while in London in the early 1870s at 8 Royal College Street.

The aspiration is to co-ordinate the run-down property’s purchase and to turn it into a European-style poetry house, saving it for posterity.

Both properties are part of Camden’s incredibly rich cultural history. We should wish Gerry success.

PAUL BRAITHWAITE
Bartholomew Villas, NW5