Such an utter disappointment. Being going to Camden for many years and always felt home and included as someone of the alternative community, until December last year.

I was introduced to a stall in 2020 called ‘your name in minutes’ where they engrave names onto rings’ I have had two occasions where I used their service with no issue (October 2020 and May 2022) In December of last year I took my best friend for us to get friendship rings and knew I wanted to go to this stall as they did a great service. But when we got there it was awful. For context, I am part of the alternative community where I dress in black and wear make up (as expected in Camden) and never had an issue beforehand, but as soon as the guy at the stall saw me and my friend he already started to judge us and when we wrote our names (mine being a Slavic name and my friends name being Irish) he had the rudeness to ask me ‘are you foreign?’ Which took me back considering he was Greek. To which I said I have a Serbian name and to which he refused to engrave the rings believing mine and my friends name were satanic . I encouraged him to look up both our names and the meanings to prove they hold nothing satanic, in which his response was that he has no signal (which was a lie as he was shortly on his phone plus his contactless card was working) when confronting him about his bigotry and judging me and my friend over our style, I had to remind him that people in camden dress like this and the fact that he is stereotyping. Even when showing him photos of previous rings I got he still refused. As someone who was baptised an orthodox Christian I tried to explain to him that looks are not everything. To which he tried to interrogate me on my knowledge on the bible. When trying to educate him that religious figures such as Catholic nuns wear black he replied saying Catholic isn’t proper Christianity… to which I demanded to know what branch of Christian he identifies (to which he kept saying ‘the proper one’ ) eventually he said he was Greek,in which I called out his hypocrisy as orthodox priests wear black.

I was shocked ,offended and felt discriminated over my name, ethnicity and my alternative style. I tried contacting the market by email and phone so which the email didn’t exist and the call cut off. Camden council said they couldn’t get involved due to being in private land (but is open to the general public?) I am more appalled over Camden market for not having the contact information to report this blatant hate crime and a police report has been filed over this stall.