Antonia Moore, Paul ‘Brad’ Bradley, Colin Cookson and Baz Hurrell

MANY of the old faces from a bygone era – now a little heavier, a little older behind the eyes – reunited back at the ‘The Steeles’ on Friday night in what was an emotional grand reopening for one of Camden’s best-loved pubs.

The Sir Richard Steele pub in Haverstock Hill is often spoken about in the same breath as the A list pop stars and TV faces who used to drink there in the 1990s.

But it holds a special place in the heart of many long-standing residents of Camden, not for its celebrity connections, but its special brand of raucous nights and anything-goes atmosphere.

The Sir Richard Steele is open again

For over a decade now its regulars turned their backs on it but now Jimmy McGrath – who ran the pub back in the 1980s with his son taking over in the 1990s – has bought it back on a 20 year lease.

The old guard had come out in force for the reopening with the main bar heaving full and spilling out into the garden.

Liam Joplin said: “I’m  feeling massively overwhelmed. I’ve been hit by a freight train of nostalgia. I grew up here, had my first pint here, my first job here, first girlfriend here.

“I’ve been waiting for this day for the last 11 years. I was here for the last shift [when it was still Jimmy’s pub]. It was a free for all, it was chaos, it was insane. And a lot of the people who were there that night are here tonight. It’s so good to be back. I literally walked through the door and shouted ‘we’re back baby!’

Kat Joplin and her brother Liam Joplin, 31, outside the pub they grew up in

Bar manager Steven Rooney asks: What will it be?

Paul “Brad” Bradley, who lives opposite the pub in Haverstock Hill where he first went for a drink in 1978, said: “You look round and you can see all the old faces. I’ve met so many people I’ve not seen for years because everybody boycotted it.

“It was always you could come in here and you’d know if someone was ill or in hospital.  It was a community place you could always walk in and end up talking to somebody. The old guys who used to be here were characters. We’re the old guys now! I was only 22 when I first came in.”

Crucially, the pub looks and feels like it used to – with even the painting of Sir Richard Steele – the old aristocrat the pub is named after – back on the wall where it used to be.

The upstairs had already been lost to flats, after a long planning battle with former owners Faucett Inn, while the toilets are now downstairs.

Last month Mr McGrath told the New Journal how he was really looking forward to welcoming back so many old friends, old regulars, and new ones too”.