Peter Marshall | >Re-PHOTO

Baisakhi Mela, Bengali New Year – 1998

Baisakhi Mela, Bengali New Year: Back in May 1998 I went to the celebrations of the New Year taking place in a crowded Brick Lane and photographed the people on the streets, mainly in black and white and a few in colour.

Baisakhi Mela, Bengali New Year, Brick Lane, Spitalfields, Tower Hamlets, 10 May, 1998, 98-513-66

I’ve recently digitised the more interesting of these pictures and have posted 35 black and white and a few colour pictures on Flickr.

Baisakhi Mela, Bengali New Year, Brick Lane, Spitalfields, Tower Hamlets, 10 May, 1998, 98-512-46

Baisakhi Mela, Bengali New Year, Brick Lane, Spitalfields, Tower Hamlets, 10 May, 1998, 98-515-62

Of course I was then working with film. I can’t remember exactly which two cameras I was using that day, but I think most likely one would have been my favourite Minolta CLE with a 28mm lens. Minolta had previously worked with Leica to produce the Leica CL, a more compact Leica using Leica M lenses, but for some reason two companies had parted company for the improved version of this, which came out under Minolta’s name. Perhaps its improved metering made it seem too modern for Leica.

Baisakhi Mela, Bengali New Year, Brick Lane, Spitalfields, Tower Hamlets, 10 May, 1998, 98-512-14

The Minolta 28mm M-fit lens was a fine performer, actually out-performing its Leica equivalent. Sadly I had to bin it years later as fungus growth within it had damaged some of the internal glass beyond repair when I had hoped to use it with an appropriate adaptor on a Fuji digital camera.

Baisakhi Mela, Bengali New Year, Brick Lane, Spitalfields, Tower Hamlets, 10 May, 1998, 98-513-41

Konica were another company that produced a modernised rangefinder Leica, the Hexar RF using their version of the Leica M-mount which accepted all Leica lenses. The viewfinder was perhaps not quite as bright as a Leica, but was better for 28mm lenses, and it not only had a good autoexposure system but also motorised wind-on of film and rewind. But that only came out a in 1999 after these pictures were made, when it became my ‘Leica’ of choice.

Baisakhi Mela, Bengali New Year, Brick Lane, Spitalfields, Tower Hamlets, 10 May, 1998, 98-514-51

Probably the black and white images were made with an earlier Konica camera, the Hexar F, a 35mm fixed-lens, fixed focal length autofocus camera. Film loading, advance and rewind was motorised and automatic. It wasn’t promoted much in the UK, and I had to order mine from the USA, I think in 1993. The 35mm lens was superb, but I did have some self-made probelms with this camera, mainly due to my fingers. It was all too easy for them to wander over the exposure senor on the front of the body, causing extreme over-exposure, and I often managed to get greasy fingerprints on the front of the lens which had no lens hood.

Baisakhi Mela, Bengali New Year, Brick Lane, Spitalfields, Tower Hamlets, 10 May, 1998, 98-514-31

Baisakhi Mela, Bengali New Year, Brick Lane, Spitalfields, Tower Hamlets, 10 May, 1998, 98-515-12

Baisakhi Mela, Bengali New Year, Brick Lane, Spitalfields, Tower Hamlets, 10 May, 1998, 98-516-46

Brick Lane was full of sound for the Baisakhi Mela, but both the Minolta CLE and the Hexar F were quiet in operation and the Hexar even had a ‘silent’ mode that made it hard for even me to know if I had taken a picture – so I seldom used it. Many of those in these pictures would have been immersed in the event and so unaware that I was taking their photographs, though others were and were clearly happy to be photographed.

Baisakhi Mela, Bengali New Year, Brick Lane, Spitalfields, Tower Hamlets, 10 May, 1998, 98-512-52

The picture above is the first black and white picture from the Mela in the album, and clicking on it will take you to Flickr where you can then go through all 35 black and white pictures.

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LSE Cleaners Strike For Equality And Dignity – 2017

*‘Life NOT Money at the LSE’ protesters chalked on the roadway and lay down, blocking the street*

LSE Cleaners Strike For Equality And Dignity: The protest by cleaners at the LSE on Thursday 11th May 2017 was just one more in a long series of weekly one-day strikes demanding parity of terms and conditions with other staff there who were directly employed by the LSE.

The cleaning was outsourced to cleaning contractor Noonan, who employed cleaners under considerably inferior terms – pay, holidays, pensions etc – compared to those workers employed on the site by the LSE. I had been at the meeting in September 2016 when with their union, the United Voices of the World, they began their campaign for parity of treatment and had also photographed their protests.

The UVW were eventually successful after a series of strikes featuring “flashmobs, salsa, zumba, poetry, art sessions, teach-outs” and “after 10 months of struggle, and the then largest cleaners strike in UK history and the highest number of strike days of any group of outsourced workers in UK higher education – outsourcing was ended and all cleaners were brought in-house as LSE employees! Their fight against institutional racism was the first “to force a British university to end the practice of outsourcing cleaners!“

My post told the story of the event in picture and captions which describe the harassment by police and others of some of the supporters, particularly those from Class War. Here is a brief edited version.

*Noonan employs the cleaners at the LSE and the cleaners get low pay, low status and terrible management*

*They work in the same place and deserve equal treatment. Their claims are supported by students and LSE staff. Trenton Oldfield brought his daughter with him to show solidarity with the cleaners.*

*LSE Security have closed the area in front of the library normally open to the public. The road is a public highway*

One police officer starts harassing Sid Skill of Class War who has come to show solidarity. Sid refuses to talk to him and moves away – and eventually fled fearing arrest followed by two police officers, escaping them by jumping on a bus as the doors closed

A woman who works in the LSE comes to tell the cleaners they are making a lot of noise and disturbing her day and then hugs the police officer and smiles when she sees I am photographing her. The cleaners say they have to make a lot of noise as the LSE management refuse to talk with them and their union.

Cleaners make a noise – they want management to talk to them and to recognise their union. They also want to be treated with dignity and respect at work, a living wage and equal pensions, sick pay and other benefits.

A man comes to complain to Class War about their support for the cleaners. He says that they don’t have any right to be there. Jane Nicholl puts him right. He seems to have no idea what class war is and no understanding of class solidarity. And as I suspect Jane put it is a stupid prick. Though she may have been less kind.

The protesters march around the campus to visit a couple of other sites from brief protests in Lincolns Inn Fields and then Sardinia St before going to the Student Union, where there were speeches an poetry from Grim Chip of Poetry on the Picket Line.

Meanwhile Life Not Money at the LSE had been at work, painting their message in chalk on the road and then sitting down on the Portugal St in front of Old Building, stopping lorries entering or leaving the LSE building site.

You can read the full version with more pictures and text at LSE Cleaners strike.

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Goodbye to Wandsworth – 1990

Goodbye to Wandsworth – 1990: The final post on my walk on Sunday 4th March 1990 which had begun at Clapham Junction in Battersea with St John’s Road & East Hill, Battersea – 1990. The previous post on this was walk was Point Pleasant and the Thames.

It wasn’t of course the last time I went to Wandsworth – I was even back there a couple of weeks ago, walking through the same areas, though much of it now hardly recognisable.

*West Hill Primary, School, Broomhill Rd, Wandsworth, 1990, 90-3c-25*

The school building is locally listed and its address is 5 Merton Road, but this is the view from Broomhill Road.

*London Theatre School, Chapel Yard, Wandsworth, 1990, 90-3c-26*

On a second image I made of this building I can just about make out the inscriptions on the frontage as at left ‘Erected 1573, Enlarged 1685 and on the right ‘Repaired 1809 – 31, Rebuilt 1882’. You can read all four plaques lower on the building on the London Remembers site.

This is Wandsworth Chapel and possibly the site was first used by Huguenots, though perhaps only rather later than this. Another plaque lower down mentions a Dutch congregation but from 1713-87 this was the ‘French Church.’ Later from 1809 it was Congregational and a plaque states they continued to use it for mission work until 1939 after moving to a new church on East Hill in 1860. Its history reflects the many immigrants who settled in Wandsworth and set up industries along the Wandle using its water and the power it could generate.

The current building with a hall which could hold 500 people opened in 1883 and is locally listed. Since housing the London Theatre School it became the National Opera Studio.

*Pizza Delivery, Scooters, Wandsworth High St, Wandsworth, 1990, 90-3e-65*

Pizza Delivery began in the UK in the mid-1980s, but back in 1990 you had to phone for a pizza, with on-line ordering only becoming widespread in the late 1990s. It was still fairly unusual in 1990 and HIPPO PIZZA with this row of five scooters ready and waiting for a call was something of a pioneer.

*Entrance, Car Wash, Wandsworth High St, Wandsworth, 1990, 90-3e-66*

‘Welcome, Please Drive In’ for a ‘Guaranteed Complete Clean’. At at right someone sits waiting. There is still a ‘HAND CAR WASH’ here on the High Street.

*Gas Holder, Armoury Way, Wandsworth, 1990, 90-3e-51*

I walked up Ram Street again to Armoury Way and took a few more pictures of the gas holder – which I’ve written more about in earlier posts about this walk.

*Gas Holder, Armoury Way, Wandsworth, 1990, 90-3e-53*

I think I then looked at my watch and hurried to Wandsworth Town Station taking no more pictures to catch a train rather than have to wait another half hour for the next one.

Finally, here is just one picture from the area I made on my last visit in April 2026, looking across where Bell Lane Creek and the River Wandle join. On ‘The Spit’ is a sculpture, ‘Sail’, by Sophie Horton placed there in 2003, financed by the Wandsworth Challenge Partnership. It was inspired by the sail of a dinghy, though I don’t think these have ever sailed up here. But perhaps in the new Wandle Riverside they will.

The flats are part of a new development on the former site of the Wandsworth Gasworks. And where I was standing to take this picture where there is now a riverside path leading to the River Thames was, back in 1990, part of the Shell Oil Terminal.

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Atos Kills Disabled People – 2011

Atos Kills Disabled People: On Monday 9th May 2011 I photographed a London protest in a ‘National Week of Action Against Atos Origin‘ organised by disability activists, claimant groups and anti-cuts campaigners and supported by over 50 groups around the country.

There were around a hundred people, many with disabilities at the protest when I arrived outside the offices of Atos Healthcare in Triton Square, London. The coalition government was replacing Incapacity Benefit by Employment and Support Allowance (ESA). Atos were being paid by the government to carry out computer-based tests to assess whether disabled people were capable of working. Many people clearly unable to work were being labelled as ‘fit to work’ and their benefits stopped.

The tests were designed to misrepresent the situation of claimants, not recording their actual responses to questions but giving the people carrying them out a choice of stock phrases. Often the replies chosen did not properly reflect the situation of the claimant.

A report commissioned by the government had found that Atos was not carrying out the tests properly, but their contract was still renewed. Many of those carrying out the tests were not qualified doctors, and are only allowed a short time to reach a decisions on what are often complex cases. They were also set clear targets for the proportion of claimants they must fail.

The design of the tests and the way they were being applied clearly discriminated against those suffering from mental illness and those with intermittent or fluctuating conditions. Many who are failed and refused ESA go to appeal and after some months a majority get their benefits restored – only to have them taken away again by another round of Atos testing. This cruel system had led to a number of those who had been refused benefits taking their own lives.

Among the groups taking part in the action were Disabled People Against Cuts, London Coalition Against Poverty, Mad Pride, Right to Work, Winvisible and Solidarity Federation.

Many disabled people are unable to travel to protests like this because of their disability and the failure of our Underground and train systems to provide support for disabled travel. The support needed is still very patchy and often unreliable. As well as physical protests such as this, there were also on-line protests taking place during the week of actiona.

Other disabled people fear taking part in protests might prejudice their Atos assessments with assessors concluding if they were fit to protest they are fit to work. If better support was provided more would be keen and able to do so.

You can read more about the protest on My London Diary and see more pictures at Disabled Protest Calls Atos Killers

Southbank Centre

*Urban Fox sitting on the edge of the gallery*

On my way home from the protest I stopped and took some pictures here.

More at Southbank Centre.

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Rain Hit May Queen Festival – 2010

Rain Hit May Queen Festival: Saturday 8th May 2010 was a day of cold rain in southeast London, and the organisers of the London May Queen Festival had to abandon the usual procession by several hundred girls around the village of Hayes.

Instead the ceremonies went on in a crowded Hayes Village Hall, though there was room only for the London May Queen’s retinue, the 26 realm queens and small groups of their attendants, along with their family members. I’d photographed a number of previous events had been invited by one of the mothers to come and take photographs.

Photography was a little of a challenge as the light was fairly low and rather mixed, with cloudy daylight coming through the windows of the hall and long fluorescent tubes coming down from the roof of the hall. Though I did take some pictures by available light, the great majority of these were made using flash as the main source. Fortunately the Nikon SB-800 Speedlight with its i-TTL through the lens metering was an incredible advance on older flash systems and performed (with a little help from me) admirably.

Because we were packed into the hall, most of the time I was working very close to at least some of the people I was photographing and using my Nikon wide-angle zoom. This creates problems with uneven lighting – a person 1 metre away from the flash will receive 9 times the light of someone 3 metres away.

The main hall didn’t have a ceiling I could use to bounce light from (I could in some side rooms), but I did have a small diffuser and sometimes was able to angle the flash away from the near subject to give greater illumination on people further away. Edge fall-off from flash is normally a problem in wide-angle pictures, but sometimes you can put it to use.

Nowadays it is far easier to apply some compensation for uneven lighting in post-processing, but then it was still rather tedious and I don’t think I did so on any of these. As usual I took all pictures as RAW images, adjusting them in software (Lightroom) for contrast, colour balance and exposure. I think all are uncropped; it isn’t a religion for me, but I do like to get things framed right when I expose.

In my account on My London Diary for 2010 at Merrie England & London May Queen I give a fairly detailed description of the day. You can find out more about the history of the event and the texts of the event in earlier posts (or in the preview of my book London’s May Queens) and pictures of the event as it took place in fine weather in other years including 2005 elsewhere on this site.

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Barnes Cray & the Cray – 1994

Barnes Cray & the Cray: Panoramas made with a swing-lens camera on a walk in September 1994 from Barnes Cray to Crayford Marshes in the London Borough of Bexley.

In 1750 Miles Barne, son of a wealthy London banker of the same name, inherited the large May Place Estate on the death of his father-in-law. Various members of the Barne family played important roles in the development of the area, with their names incorporated into Barnehurst and Barnes Cray.

Barnes Cray House had an interesting life not least when it was home to a farmer who went to the High Court to stop neighbouring land being used as a firing range by the company which became Vickers. Vickers eventually bought the house as a home for the man in charge of their Cray works, but when their factory moved away gave it to the local council who opened it as a maternity hospital. This closed in 1936 and the house was demolished.

River Cray, Crayford Flour Mill, Barnes Cray Bexley, 1994, 94-907-23

Industry came to the area in the Victorian era with a calico printing works using water from the River Wansunt, later making rubber goods, felt and finally making ‘Brussels Carpets’ – patterned carpets which have the loops of the pile uncut before being demolished in 1890. The Wansunt is a tributary of the River Cray which it joins close to here.

*River Cray, Barnes Cray, Bexley, 1994, 94-904-61*

The First World War led to a great expansion in the arms industry and Vickers built thousands of homes in Barnes Cray to house its huge workforce – at one point almost 15,000. The development was of good quality homes for workers with a nod to the ‘Garden Village’ vision. The development took the name Barnes Cray.

*Crayford Flour Mill, Barnes Cray, Bexley, 1994, 94-904-32*

An iron mill on the Cray was replaced in 1735 by a saw mill which in turn became a flour mill. In 1927 this began making Vitbe flour, with added wheatgerm to increase its Vitamin B levels, widely used by many bakereries including those of the Aerated Bread Co. In 1956 the company was renamed Vitbe Flour Mills Ltd and it was acquired by Associated British Foods in 1961.

*Landfill site, Crayford Marshes, Barnes Cray, Bexley, 1994, 94-904-22*

*Crayford Marshes, Barnes Cray, Bexley, 1994, 94-904-11*

I went for a lengthy walk on the Crayford Marshes, taking many panoramic images, but cannot remember the exact locations. Here is one of them but there are quite a few others on Flickr – you can browse this by clicking on this or other images in this post.

*Crayford Marshes, Barnes Cray, Bexley, 1994, 94-904-31*

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Kings Cross, Israel and Anti-Zionists – 2002

Kings Cross, Israel and Anti-Zionists: Like the rest of the country I was appalled by the stabbing in Golders Green a week ago, clearly by a very disturbed individual, who had earlier in the day carried out another attempted murder in Great Dover Street in Southwark. But I was also shocked at the reactions of some politicians; clearly Wes Streeting’s interview that day on Radio 4 can only be described as ‘hate speech‘.

At least in part the increase in tension has been caused by political tirades against supporters of the Palestinian cause and the many peaceful protests they have carried out, with the repeated condemnation of them as ‘hate marches’ for calling for a just peace in Palestine.

Something politicians and the media should reflect on is that all of these marches have been attended by large number of Jewish protesters, present in a much greater proportion than their overall presence in the country.

Some of them have marched in a Jewish bloc to make their presence obvious on the marches – though the media generally and the BBC in particular have apparently decided to fail to notice this. But many others are there with other groups or as individuals – always an important part of the British left. And of course there always is a small group of highly visible ultra-orthodox anti-Zionists.

We need to defend free speech and the right to protest – including those by those whose views we find abhorrent, although there are limits which most of us support against clear incitement to violence and illegal acts. But our government seems bent on moving the goalposts on these limits – for example in its proscription of Palestine Action.

Back on the Early May Bank Holiday Monday in 2002 I came to London to cover a large pro-Israel rally, taking the opportunity also for a short walk before the protest, as well as covering an anti-Zionist counter-demonstration. I was working mainly with film cameras – black and white and colour – and there are still quite a few pictures I have yet to digitise.

I hadn’t by May 2002 made the plunge to buy a professional digital camera. The colour pictures here were taken on a small consumer digital camera, a 2.2Mp Fuji MX-2700. The quality wasn’t bad, certainly fine for web images, and I had some pictures to post immediately. I think I also took some pictures on colour negative film that I’ve yet to digitise 24 years later.

“6 May was Bank Holiday Monday and I started with a walk round Kings Cross to see how the redevelopment there is going. The site which used to have the famous gas holders was just an empty hole in the ground.

“Then to Trafalgar Square for a large pro-israel rally on . It was quite crowded and I was pleased to see evidence that some of those attending were trying to take a balanced view.

“There were a few arguments and scuffles, but the largest surprise for me was the almost total lack of black coated Orthodox Jews in the crowds.

“Then I went to photograph the counter demonstration at the south-west corner of the square, only to find a group of Orthodox Jews arm in arm with the Palestinians and others demonstrating against Zionism.”

More pictures from both protests on My London Diary for May 2002.

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Manchester – May 2017

Manchester – May 2017: On Friday 5th May and Sunday 7th May 2017 we stopped in Manchester for a couple of short walks around the centre of the city on our way to and from an event in Rochdale. I had lived in Manchester from 1963-70 but hadn’t really looked at the city since I left.

*Two canals (Bridgewater and Rochdale) and four railways make this site exemplify Manchester’s contribution to the industrial revolution*

One major change since the 1970s had been the opening up of the canals, including those which run through the centre of the city. These had played a large part in the industrial revolution which had really established the city and on the Friday we went for a walk along the Rochdale Canal from close to Piccadilly Station where our train had left us and along to the Bridgewater Canal – the first canal in Britain which did not follow the path of an existing river, and the second ‘modern’ canal in our industrial revolution. It opened on 17th July 1761 to bring coal from the Duke of Bridgewater’s mines at Worley to the then rapidly expanding cotton town of Manchester.

On My London Diary you can read more about our walk and our return to the centre of Manchester which we had hoped to make beside the River Irwell, but had to detour where paths were closed.

*St Georges Island and Bridgewater Canal*

It was perhaps this walk which decided us to return the following year to stay in Manchester for a few days and see more of the city.

We had less time on our way home on Sunday and spent an hour at the highly recommended People’s History Museum but I did take a few more pictures as we walked to the station.

More pictures on My London Diary at Manchester.

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Global Marijuana March 2002

London May 4th 2002

Global Marijuana March: According to Wikipedia, the “Global Marijuana March (GMM), also referred to as the Million Marijuana March (MMM), is an annual rally held at different locations around the world on the first Saturday in May.”

The Wikipedia article goes on to say it was first held in 1999, then tella me that “Since then, hundreds of thousands of people have participated in over 1034 different cities in 85 nations and subnational areas.”

The first march was in New York City, but although London was one of those 1034 cities it doesn’t get a mention. There have been various events in London over the years calling for legalisation of cannabis, but in more recent years these have mainly taken place on ‘420’, April 20th.

The name ‘420’ came from a group of friends in San Rafael, California, who called themselves the Waldos. They had agreed to meet after school one day at 4.20pm to search for an abandoned cannabis farm, using the term ‘420’ as shorthand for their (unsuccessful) quest. After this they carried on using ‘420’ as a coded way to talk about marijuana particularly when teachers and parents were around.

The Waldos were fans of The Grateful Dead, very much a part of the counterculture and associated with cannabis use, and the term spread to other fans of this Californian rock group and on worldwide.

I only wrote a short paragraph on the event in 2002:

“Saturday 4 May was some kind of World Cannabis Day, and those who could still stand made it down to Kennington and marched down through Stockwell & Brixton to Brockwell Park, were we we danced, ate, drank and did all the kind of things people do at festies.“

*Legalise Cannabis Festival, Brockwell Park, Herne Hill*

My experience of cannabis remained only through from thick secondhand smoke as I wandered through the event taking black and white and colour pictures. There are a few more black and whites on My London Diary.

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Cleaners at Clifford Chance – 2013

Canary Wharf, Fri 3 May 2013

Cleaners at Clifford Chance: Clifford Chance is now the third largest UK based law firm and one of the five members of the “Magic Circle” of leading London-based multinational law firms. Trainees there apparently now start on £56,000 and after qualification are on £150,000 a year, though hours are long. But as with many other leading businesses the cleaners there were not employed directly and the cleaning was outsourced to MITIE.

The cleaners complained of bullying, race, sex and disability discrimination and victimisation of trade unionists by cleaning contractor MITIE. Their trade union, the IWGB had been trying to get a meeting with MITIE for a month to discuss the dispute at Clifford Chance without success, so they decided to go there and protest.

*Some manage to enter and protest in the foyer*

The offices are in a tall block on the Canary Wharf estate, a private estate with its own security force, and protests were definitely not allowed there. Nor for that matter is photography, though many tourists are there taking pictures. And although I’ve taken photography students and workshops there in the past without problems (sticking to a strict no tripods rule) I have twice been stopped by security – and once actually escorted off the estate. So both I and the IWGB were a little worried about the reception we might get.

On Friday May 3rd 2013 I travelled with around 30 protesters to Canary Wharf station on the Jubilee Line for a surprise protest, and at the station after a short briefing they quickly got out their union flags and a couple of placards and marched rapidly to the nearby Clifford Chance offices.

There some managed to get through the doors before the building security managed to stop them and I went with them. They were careful to cause no damage and after a few minutes when they were politely requested to leave did so, continuing the protest on the pavement outside.

Canary Wharf Estate security men soon arrived, in uniforms which seemed to me to be impersonating police officers (an offence under the Police Act 1996) and were soon followed by the Head of Security. He tried to speak to the protesters telling them they had to leave.

There were arguments and a few minor incidents, particularly after the security officers began to push the protesters who told them that this was an assault, and particularly when one officer hit a woman and some tried to grab the cleaners’ leader Alberto Durango.

But after this things quietened down. The protesters assured the Head of Security they would leave shortly.

There was a short period of noisy protest and then a speech in which Alberto made clear they were protesting because MITIE were treating the cleaners with disrespect and their only response to the many and lengthy complaints made by the union had been to banning union representatives and victimising union activists.

We then made our way back to the station. Despite my fears I had at no point been asked to stop taking photographs, and you can see many more of them on My London Diary.

Cleaners at Clifford Chance

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