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Apocalypse, Cold Blow Lane, Millwall & Surrey Canal

The previous post on this walk is Evelina, Sassoon, Queens Road, Montpelier and Mazawattee. The pictures here come from the final film on my walk on 18th December 1988. I only finished the film and developed in it January 1989 so they appear in my Flickr album for 1989.

*Mural, Sanford Walk, New Cross, Lewisham, 1988 89-1a-61*

‘Riders of the Apocalypse’ was painted by Brian Barnes on the end property of Sanford Housing Co-operative in 1983. Student Co-operative Dwellings (SCD) was founded in 1968 by John Hands and colleagues and campaigned for five years lobbying parliament and looking for land until the government and Lewisham Council agreed to allow them the build Sanford Co-operative Dwellings. This was the first purpose-designed co-op scheme for the young and mobile, and was completed in October 1974.

*Cold Blow Lane, New Cross, Lewisham, 1988 89-1a-63*

Cold Blow Lane in the 19th century led to Cold Blow Farm, now long gone. In the 1850s the Croydon Railway built several tracks over it, and one of these went on the bridge whose two piers can be seen in this picture though the bridge has gone. Railway tracks still go over the lane, and I took this picture close to the exit of the long tunnel that goes under them. At the end of the lane is Mercury Way, and Cold Blow Lane turns at 90 degrees to go south.

Straight ahead, under another railway line, was ‘The Den’, then the home of Millwall Football Club, and I think the top of a stand is just visible in the picture. On the wall at left, among other graffiti is the message ‘Home of the Lions’

*Surrey Canal Road, New Cross, South Bermondsey, Lewisham, 1988 89-1a-51*

I think I made this and the next picture from a footpath just to the north of the Surrey Canal Road. The contact sheet gives a grid reference 356781 and this may show part of the area which is now Millwall’s ground in Senegal Fields.

Surrey Canal Road, New Cross, South Bermondsey, Lewisham, 1988 89-1a-52-Edit — *Surrey Canal Road, New Cross, South Bermondsey, Lewisham, 1988 89-1a-52*

You can still see this long range of buildings on Stockholm Road, just south of The Den. and parallel with Surrey Canal Road, occupied by a range of commercial companies. I imagine they date from when the Surrey Canal bed was filled in and the road bulit by Lewisham Council in the early 1980s.

Footpath, Senegal Rd, New Cross, South Bermondsey, Lewisham, 1988 89-1a-54-Edit — *Footpath, Senegal Rd, New Cross, South Bermondsey, Lewisham, 1988 89-1a-54*

Since 1993, the Millwall football ground has been on Senegal Fields. The footpath now runs next to the new Millwall Stadium and then under the railway lines which have some very impressive Victorian brickwork.

These are most of the lines out of London Bridge Station which begin to diverge in this area. You can see all three bridges in this picture. This was a very run-down area and the abandoned parts of a moped at right seemed an appropriate way to express this.

*Hill, Bridgehouse Meadows, New Cross, Lewisham, 1988 89-1a-56-Edit*

I turned around here and walked back south across the Surrey Canal Road and to Bridgehouse Meadows.

This was the site of the former New Cross Stadium opened as an athletics stadium in the early 1900s but from the 1930s used for greyhound racing and speedway before its closure in 1969. For some years Millwall FC whose old ground was next to it used it for training. The stadium was demolished in 1975 and there were ambitious plans for it be part of the site of a new ground for the club – but these fell through and the new stadium was eventually built further north.

Factory, from Bridgehouse Meadows, New Cross, Lewisham, 1988 89-1a-42-Edit — *Factory, from Bridgehouse Meadows, New Cross, Lewisham, 1988 89-1a-42*

This factory has been demolished and new housing built in its place. I think this site was also part of the over-ambitious plans for expansion by Millwall who wanted to take over a huge area.

Path, Bridgehouse Meadows, New Cross, Lewisham, 1988 89-1a-43-Edit — *Path, Bridgehouse Meadows, New Cross, Lewisham, 1988 89-1a-43*

The path through the meadows crosses the Surrey Canal Road on a bridge you can see in the distance, no longer present. Both sides of the park area now have new housing.

Ilderton Rd, New Cross, Southwark, 1989 89-1a-44-Edit — *Ilderton Rd, South Bermondsey, Southwark, 1989 89-1a-44*

This is part of a site for travellers on Ilderton Rd and this house is still there, though there were no Christmas window decorations when I last walked past – but that was on a housing protest march in March 2017, where we stopped briefly at the Bermondsey Travellers Site. Behind is the railway line from South Bermondsey Station next door to the site where my walk ended.

This was the last picture from my walk on December 18th and completed a series of walks around this part of South-East London. My walks in 1989 began around the Elephant.

Evelina, Sassoon, Queens Road, Montpelier and Mazawattee

This is another post on my walk on 18th December 1988; the previous post was Pepys Road and Nunhead Cemetery.

GHM, Evelina Rd, Nunhead, Southwark, 1988 88-12e-56-Edit_2400 — *GHM, Evelina Rd, Nunhead, Southwark, 1988 88-12e-56*

GH Metals is I think still operating in Evelina Rd, although its premises are now covered by graffiti and there are no prices on the list of metals still above the shopfront. Their web site states the family have run successful scrap metal yards all over South London and in Peckham since 1968.

Evelina, or the History of a Young Lady’s Entrance into the World was the title of a novel by Fanny Burney published in 1778 but I suspect the road like the Evelina London Children’s Hospital was named after the English wife of the wealthy Austrian Baron, Ferdinand de Rothschild – she died in 1866, probably around the time the street began to be built up.

R E Sassoon House, St Mary's Rd, Peckham. Southwark, 1988 88-12e-44-Edit_2400 — *R E Sassoon House, St Mary’s Rd, Peckham. Southwark, 1988 88-12e-44*

From Evelina Road I went up St Mary’s Road, photographing the strangely squat St Mary Magdalene Church (not digitised) , described on the Twentieth Century Society’s web site as “a bold and innovative 1960s landmark” but sadly demolished by the Church of England and replaced by a building “of no architectural merit”. Designed by Potter and Hare it was built in 1961-2 and demolished in 2010.

Sassoon House designed in an International Modernist style by Maxwell Fry is Grade II listed and was built as a part of the Peckham project around the neighbouring Pioneer Health Centre in 1934 to provide high quality social housing. The Sassoon family were one of the wealthiest in the world, known as the “Rothschilds of the East“ amd when R E Sassoon, the amateur jockey son of the philanthropist Mozelle Sassoon, was killed steeplechasing in 1933 his mother commissioned this block in his memory.

Queens Road, Peckham. Southwark, 1988 88-12e-32-Edit_2400 — *Queens Road, Peckham, Southwark, 1988 88-12e-32*

I’ve only digitised one of the six frames I exposed on Queens Road, where there are several listed buildings on the corner and just to the west of St Mary’s Rd. This is Grade II listed as ‘QUEEN’S ROAD (South side) Nos.156 and St Mary’s Court (No.158)’ and the houses date from around 1845.

Montpelier Rd, Peckham. Southwark, 1988 88-12e-21-Edit_2400 — *Montpelier Rd, Peckham. Southwark, 1988 88-12e-21*

Montpelier Road (single L) was apparently named in 1875 after Montpellier in France (2Ls) which was a fashionable resort at the time and is now the seventh or eighth largest city in France. As well as one of the oldest universities in the world with an historic centre and the famous the Promenade du Peyrou from which you can on a clear day see the Meditteranean, Montpellier was also well-known for its wine. Montpelier Road has none of these and previously the road had been called Wellington Villas. It may have taken the name from the nearby Montpelier Tavern in Choumert Road, which although in a more modern building probably dates back earlier.

This unusual terrace of houses is fairly typical of most of the west side of the street which ends at Meeting House Lane.Those further up the street are a little more decorated.

London Customs, Hart Lane, New Cross, Lewisham, 1988 88-12e-25-Edit_2400 — *London Customs, Hart Lane, New Cross, Lewisham, 1988 88-12e-25*

I walked back along Queen’s Road towards New Cross where there is now no trace of the building at No 3, though these is still a garage workshop, now 3a. But the name that had attracted my attention has gone. I imagine it offered the service of customising cars rather than any interest in the customs and traditions of the city. I thought it might make a good title picture.

Cold Blow Lane, New Cross, Lewisham, 1988 88-12e-13-Edit_2400 — Cold Blow Lane, New Cross, Lewisham, 1988 88-12e-13

I made a single exposure while walking north up Brocklehurst Street (not digitised) showing the window detailon this long street of identical houses, probably pressing the shutter out of boredom, and then turned into Cold Blow Lane, where there are the solid brick piers of a dismantled railway bridge leading to a narrow tunnel still takes the road under the railway, followed by a newer brodge under more lines with a slightly wider roadway underneath.

It was a rather scary walk underneath, though not as scary as it might be had it been a match day at the Millwall stadium nearby – still then at the Old Den in Cold Blow Lane.

Elizabeth Industrial Estate, Juno Way, Cold Blow Lane, New Cross, Lewisham, 1988 88-12e-15-Edit_2400 — *Elizabeth Industrial Estate, Juno Way, Cold Blow Lane, New Cross, Lewisham, 1988 88-12e-15*

Juno Way was between the railway bridges over Coldblow Lane, but is now closed off at this southern end by a continuous fence between the bridges and can only be entered from Surrey Canal Road.

The building with the tower carrying the estate name was once the Mazawatee Tea factory, purpose built for them in 1901 when they were the largest tea company in the world. As well as tea they also processed coffee, cocoa, cakes, sweets and chocolates here and doubtless some raw materials would have come here on the Surrey canal from the London docks. It employed up to 2000 people but was heavily damaged by wartime bombing. The name is from the Hindi ‘Maza’ – pleasure – and the Sinhalese ‘Wattee’ – garden – and thus reflects two of the areas from which they brought tea. It was the most advertised brand in the UK until the Second World War.

The tower building was renovated from a complete shell in 2011 and ‘Unit 13’ now houses 12 self-contained studios with high ceilings and good natural light, including the 2300 square foot Tea Room Studio and a number of smaller spaces on the top floor.

I still had a little way to go on my walk and a few more pictures – I’ll post the final instalment of this walk later.

Isle of Dogs and Class War

Isle of Dogs and Class War: The weather was fine on Wednesday September 3rd 2014, with some nice clouds which made it a good day for some more panoramic photographs, and I went up earlier in the day to continue my pictures around the Isle of Dogs before covering an evening protest by Class War in Aldgate.

Isle of Dogs – Island Gardens to South Quay

Back in the 1980s I set out to photographed extensively in London’s docklands, part of a wider project on the de-industrialisation of the city, partly a response to changes in technology and globalisation, but greatly accelerated by the Thatcher government which saw great opportunities for their supporters profiting by a switch from manufacturing to service industries.

The government policies perhaps made some sense at the time – and certainly made some large profits for the friends and supporters of the Tories, but in many ways we are paying for them now, particularly for their ‘selling off the family silver’ by privatising utilities and other publicly owned activities.

In the docks the main changes were due to containerisation and other efficient ways of handling cargo. Much larger vessels came into service and the long journey up the River Thames to London’s Docks was difficult or impossible, as well as adding significantly to turn-around times. Only Tilbury, miles closer to the sea remained viable.

The changes to Docklands could have been managed for the benefit of the existing populations to the area, with development being carefully planned and managed locally. Instead we got the London Docklands Development Corporation which overrode local interests to benefit those of corporations but did produced a more rapid development than would otherwise have taken place. But it was a huge give-away to private developers, resulting in dramatic changes, and one that the area will continue to suffer from for generations.

Many of my pictures from the 1980s in colour as well as black and white are now available on Flickr in a https://www.flickr.com/photos/petermarshall/albums number of albums and there are also a number of books available on Blurb (in print and as PDF) with the Isle of Dogs being included in City to Blackwall ISBN: 978-1-909363-09-0 which has a working preview.

My walk in 2014 began at Island Gardens DLR station, where I had finished a previous walk, and I continued along the riverside path to the Blackwall Entrance, across to Poplar Dock and Blackwall Basin, down Prestons Rd and Manchester Road to East Ferry Road, and then up and around a little on my way to South Quay Station.

In 2014 I was mainly making digital panoramic photographs, with a horizontal angle of view of around 145 degrees – much greater than can be achieved with a normal rectilinear perspective. These pictures use a projection which keeps vertical edges straight and also gives a straight horizon line (so long as the camera is kept level) but other lines and objects away from the centre of the image curve. Similar projections were used by artists such as Canaletto. These images here have a aspect ratio of 1.9 to 1.

There are two posts on My London Diary with many more panoramas and a few ‘normal’ views from this walk:
Isle of Dogs
Isle of Dogs Panoramas

Class War ‘Poor Doors’ picket Week 6 – Aldgate

I got back a few minutes early to where Class War were to stage their sixth weekly protest against the separate doors for the wealthy residents and social housing tenants in the block ‘One Commerical St’. The entrance for the rich is on Whitechapel High St next to Aldgate East station while the poor door is down an alley on the west side of the building.

Unlike in previous weeks there were police already there and waiting for the protesters, a sign that the police were taking a firmer stance against the protests here. Almost certainly they were responding to pressure from the owners of the building, and their activities against the protesters were to heighten further in later weeks.

When the protesters arrived, officers immediately came and talked to them, making it clear that they were not to block the doorway for people entering or leaving the building.

More police arrived, outnumbering the small group of little more than a dozen protesters who had come to hand out leaflets to people on the street outside. Many passing expressed surprise that this kind of segregation of rich and poor was allowed to happen in London and showed support for the protest.

It was perhaps the smallest of the series of thirty or so ‘Poor Doors’ protests outside this building. There were quite a few arguments with police officers but no arrests on this occasion.

More pictures at Class War ‘Poor Doors’ picket Week 6.

Notting Hill Carnival 2004

If you live in or near London there is a fairly good chance that you will be among the millions on the streets of Notting Hill today, although people sometimes come long distances for London’ and possibly Europe’s biggest festival. Many years ago I remember being a little surprised to see a poster advertising the event in St Denis on a visit to Paris, though post-Brexit it may be a little more difficult to travel here.

Although I’ve lived in the London area for most of the years carnival has been running, it was only around 1990 that I first went and experienced it. I’d probably been put off by the bad press it usually got, with the media making much of the crimes and battles with the police that occasionally took place.

But given the number of people attending and the relatively high level of policing the number of arrests at least in recent years is relatively low – and as a Huffington Post investigation into police figures shows, fairly similar to Glastonbury taking into account the number of people attending. In 2019 the number of arrests was dominated by those for drug offences, two thirds of the total, and relatively few for violent incidents, some of which were almost certainly simply reactions to heavy-handed policing. 23 years after the Macpherson report our police are still institutionally racist and certainly Cressida Dick did little to change that – we can only hope Sir Mark Rowley will do a better job, but my hopes are not high.

I’m not sure how many days I’ve spent at carnival over the years, but it is probably around 30, and I’ve yet to see any violence. Of course I’ve been offered drugs, though probably rather less frequently than in some other streets in London, and there was an almost omnipresent reek in any of the crouds announcing that what some were smoking wasn’t just tobacco. And although personally I kept to Red Stripe, I think by the end of some days I was experiencing something of a high from secondary inhalation.

I did one year encounter a rather incompetent pick-pocket. In 2004 I was standing still with some difficulty in a tightly packed crowd moving to the beat of a giant sound system and trying to take pictures when I suddenly became aware of a hand in my left trouser pocket. It wasn’t mine and I grabbed the wrist with both hands and slowly pulled it out to find it holding a wallet. But that wasn’t mine either and it was empty.

The main after-effect of carnival was always on my ears, which sometimes took several days to recover and for me to lose a ringing sound. In years when the bank holiday came of the 31st of August, this often meant I was back at work the following day, and it was difficult when I couldn’t hear properly. Sound at Notting Hill is phenomenal in places, with the ground and every organ inside your boddy vibrating, you feel it rather than hear it.

Of course there were some years I was away from London for various reasons – often because it wasn’t me who booked the holiday. In 2005 I was suffering badly from a knee injury but was still determined to go. I got ready and slowly limped my way to the station, where I had to climb a footbridge. A few steps up I collapsed in pain, pulled myself up and then came to my senses and realised I wasn’t going to be dancing on Ladbroke Grove that year, sat down and rested for a while before making my slow way home.

But I’ve not now been since 2012. I went on the Sunday, Children’s Day, stayed around three hours taking pictures and didn’t really want to return for the big day. So I didn’t. I’m not sure if its that I’ve changed – getting old – or if carnival has. But since then I’ve often been away from London but even when I’ve been here I’ve decided to go on a quiet country walk with family instead. So I don’t think I’ll be there today, but I might change my mind.

The pictures in this post were all taken in 2004, when I went on both Childrens Day which was the 29th August and the Carnival proper on the 30th, taking my son – then in his twenties – with me on Sunday. He didn’t want to go back the following day.

A Mattress, Pub, Cinema, Listed Pipe & Naval Baroque

My walk on Sunday December 18th 1988 began on Lewisham Way in New Cross, where I think I must have got off a 172 bus from Waterloo and begun by walking a short distance south-east down Lewisham Way.

Lewisham Way, New Cross, Lewisham, 1988 88-12b-41-Edit_2400 — *Lewisham Way, New Cross, Lewisham, 1988 88-12b-41*

A Mattress, Pub, Cinema, Listed Pipe & Naval Baroque: This shop was on the corner with Malpas Road, and there is still a shop there, looking a little different but still selling second hand furniture the leaning post was seeking, though that post is gone, with a street sign in a fairly similar position. And the pavement is now often crowded with secondhand furniture.

This was the second of two frames made here as my first picture on the walk.

New Cross Rd, New Cross, Lewisham, 1988 88-12b-42-Edit_2400 — *New Cross Rd, New Cross, Lewisham, 1988 88-12b-42*

I turned around and walked back up Lewisham Way to New Cross, taking no more pictures until I came to the junction with New Cross Road, where I found this fine group of buildings on the north side of the street. At left is the New Cross Inn at 323 New Cross Road. There was a pub on this site at least by 1783 but this impressive but unlisted building dates from 1890. It does appear to be an area where the worst prejudices of Nicolaus Pevsner prevented many fine late Victorian buildings getting a mention.

Next to the right is the site of the former New Cross Kinema built in 1925 to seat 2,300. You can read more about the building on Arthur Lloyd’s Musical and Theatre History Site. It closed as a cinema in 1960, and much of the building behind the facade demolished for an office building. It was empty for some years but when I made this picture was a furniture store. Its first floor dance hall became an Irish dance hall, the Harp Club which also hosted an indie music venue lower down. In 1989 the nightclub The Venue opened there, soon becoming a leading music venue with groups including Oasis and Radiohead playing there as well as Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine – you can find some long lists on the web. The exterior was restored in 2006 and The Venue took over the ground floor as well. It had to close for Covid and I think has yet to re-open.

At the right is the former Midland Bank, built in 1903 and Grade II listed, probably the least interesting of the three buildings.

New Cross Rd, New Cross, Lewisham, 1988 88-12b-43-Edit_2400 — *New Cross Rd, New Cross, Lewisham, 1988 88-12b-43*

The door and window of a shop on the New Cross Road, cluttered with advertisements and fliers which reflect the large local population of African and Afro-Caribbean heritage. I’m only sorry that the ISO 100 Kodak TMX tabular fine grain film I was using has failed to record the finer details, lost in its grain pattern.

Part of the problem may have been that it was a rather dark corner, and I probably made the exposure with the lens at fairly wide aperture where the resolution would not have been as good as usual. I think it’s another example of where a larger format or digital would have done better.

New Cross Rd, New Cross, Lewisham, 1988 88-12b-44-Edit_2400 — *New Cross Rd, New Cross, Lewisham, 1988 88-12b-44*

Pagnell Street drops steeply down from New Cross road and this slightly odd window is actually on the first floor of a block of flats, probably council-built in the 1950s or 1960s with shops on the New Cross Road frontage. Empty when I photographed it, in recent years this has been a restaurant. At right you can see the ground floor of the building.

New Cross Inn, pub, New Cross Rd, New Cross, Lewisham, 1988 88-12b-31-Edit_2400 — *New Cross Inn, pub, New Cross Rd, New Cross, Lewisham, 1988 88-12b-31*

In the foreground is the decorated ventilation pipe which is a listed building while the New Cross Inn behind is not. The pipe and lamp post, made in 1897 by MacFarlanes of Glasgow apparently derives from a design by noted Glasgow architect Alexander “Greek” Thomson for Glasgow’s Egyptian Halls. This column once stood on top of underground public toilets nearby on the junction with Lewisham Way. The pub is another noted music venue in the area.

This is at the top of Clifton Rise, where supporters of the Socialist Workers Party gathered to oppose the National Front march on 13th August 1977. Police stopped them here and used horses to try to push them down the hill away from the march route. The SWP had refused to cooperate with other anti-fascists in the various London Anti-Fascist Committees who together with many local residents were able to oppose the march more effectively, preventing it reaching its destination of the centre of Lewisham. Unfortunately I was away from London at the time or I would probably have been there. Camerawork magazine – I was a subscriber – devoted the whole of its Issue 8 to it, and you can see it in the Four Corners Archive if you don’t have a copy.

Deptford Town Hall, New Cross Rd, New Cross, Lewisham, 1988 88-12b-32-Edit_2400 — *Deptford Town Hall, New Cross Rd, New Cross, Lewisham, 1988 88-12b-32*

Deptford Town Hall was designed by Lanchester, Stewart & Rickards in 1905 for the Metropolitan Borough of Deptford which existed from 1900 until 1965. Its baroque style includes various figures on the frontage including a ship’s prow and a depiction of a naval battle as well as statues by Henry Poole of four naval figures including Drake and Nelson, appropriate to the naval history of the area.

After 1965 it was used for various purposes by Lewisham Council and was acquired by Goldsmiths College in 2000.

Deptford Town Hall, New Cross Rd, New Cross, Lewisham, 1988 88-12b-22-Edit_2400 — *Deptford Town Hall, New Cross Rd, New Cross, Lewisham, 1988 88-12b-22*

Apparently according to the Grade II listing these are “Tritons as corbels supporting large oriel bay with carving of ship and marine symbols at its head.”

My walk in New Cross will continue in a later post.

Chariot Festival, Olympic Site and Notting Hill

Chariot Festival, Olympic Site and Notting Hill. Sunday 27th August 2006, sixteen years ago was a busy day for me, travelling to East Ham to photograph a colourful Hindu festival, then on to Stratford for a short walk along the High Street and Bow Back Rivers, before taking the underground and ending up on Ladbroke Grove for the Children’s Day of the Notting Hill Carnival.

It was part of a very full few days for me, having got back to London after a couple of weeks in Paris and a few days with family in Beeston. Friday I’d put my folding bike on the train to Greenhithe and spent a day cycling around there and Swanscombe, Saturday I’d walked around 12 miles on the London Loop and after the events here on Monday I’d returned to Notting Hill for the carnival itself, after which I needed a few days rest. The text here is taken from My London Diary – with a few corrections, appropriate capitalisation and some additional comments. There are some more details in the captions on the picture pages of these events.

Sri Mahalakshmi Temple Chariot Festival – East Ham

Sunday morning found me in East Ham, where the Hindu Sri Mahalakshmi Temple was holding its chariot festival. It was a colourful and friendly event, but I soon felt I’d taken enough pictures and left.

It’s hard to show the flames when the offerings of food are made to the god, and difficult to catch the colour of the occasion.

more pictures

Lea Navigation and Bow Back Rivers – Stratford

On my way back from East Ham I stopped off at Bromley-by-Bow and walked up to Stratford High Street and along the rivers and channels there.

Parts were so thickly covered with bright green growth that they looked as if I could have walked along them.

There was another site demolished on the high street, with new housing starting to go up.

more pictures

Notting Hill Carnival – Childrens Day – Notting Hill

But the big event of August is always Notting Hill Carnival, and I was there both on the Sunday afternoon for Childrens’ Day and for the main event on the Monday, shooting both black and white film and colour digital.

[I noted back in 2006 that when I would get round to processing the black and white film is “anyone’s guess”. I think it was around ten years later that I finally admitted I wasn’t going to develop the chromogenic black and white films myself and the chemicals were probably past their best and I sent them for commercial processing. Though by then I wasn’t sure whether I had taken them in 2006 or 2007. But back to my 2006 post.]

Perhaps it’s because I’m getting older, but I didn’t get the same buzz from this year’s event as in previous years, though most of the same things seemed to be around.

Perhaps this was the problem; most of them did seem to be the same, two years on from when I last photographed the event. Last year, 2005, I tried to go, dragging myself to the station with a knee injury, but the pain was too much to continue. This year my knee held out, though I was glad to sink into a seat on the Underground at Latimer Road at the end of the day.

I didn’t take many colour pictures on Children’s Day, and most weren’t of children, and I think I probably didn’t stay long, but there are many more on the pages which follow on from there taken the following day.

more pictures

Twickenham Riverside – December 1988

River Thames, Eel Pie Lisand, bridge, The Embankment, Twickenham, Richmond, 1988 88-12a-51-Edit_2400 — *River Thames and bridge to Eel Pie Island, The Embankment, Twickenham 1988 8812a-51*

Twickenham Riverside – December 1988
I was teaching on Tuesday 13th December 1988, and together with a colleague took a group of photography students from the college to Twickenham, possibly to view an exhibition at the Orleans House Gallery, or perhaps just as a photographic outing.

My first thought when I looked at the contact sheet today was that it could be for the show I helped to organise there in 1988, city news urban blues…. It had been an interesting show, with images from ten of us who were part of a group called Framework, each showing their own group of pictures – those exhibiting were Carol Hudson, Peter Jennings, Terry King, myself, Tony Mayne, Derek Ridgers, John RJ Taylor, Laurence Ward, Randall Webb and Anton Williams. Terry was the main organiser and I worked with him to keep the group running.

But on checking I find that show was rather earlier in the year and I think we were just taking college students to a reasonably safe and interesting area a short train journey away where they could first be taken for a walk to suitable locations around the riverside and parks and then be left to work unsupervised taking pictures while their tutors probably took a lunch hour rest in a riverside pub.

It was surprisingly difficult to get some students to actually take photographs, so we arranged outings such as this where we would provide a suitable location and brief to make sure even they had some material to work with in the darkroom. They were all required to make at least 36 exposures so they had a film (black and white of course) to develop and make prints. Some students made sure they had time to get to a pub too, though there were enough in Twickenham for them to avoid the same as their two tutors.

River Thames, The Embankment, Twickenham, Richmond, 1988 88-11f-55-Edit_2400 — *River Thames, The Embankment, Twickenham, Richmond, 1988 88-11f-55*

But I did take some pictures myself during the outing, and here are a few of them. I took two versions of this image, looking upriver from the west end of the Embankment, one with the new Minox GTE and the second I think with a Leica M5 using the 35mm Summilux f1.4 lens. The image above is with the Minox, which had a MC Minoxar 35mm/2.8 lens and is just a little sharper, though the difference might well be in the exact focus distance chosen. But though the Minox was incredibly small and light – the smallest 35mm full-frame camera ever made, it could deliver exceptional results.

River Thames, Twickenham, Richmond, 1988 88-12a-32-Edit_2400 — *River Thames, Twickenham, Richmond, 1988 88-12a-32*

You can still launch boats at Twickenham, where at the junction of Church Land and Riverside a roadway leads down into the river. When the tide is low you can walk down this and get a view downriver. On the right boats are moored by Eel Pie Island and in the centre of the image you can just see Richmond Hill between the trees.

And although there is a footbridge across to Eel Pie Island as shown in the top image of this post, residents still need to keep tide tables handy, as the Twickenham Embankment end of the bridge still floods on those days when the moon aligns with the sun at full and new moon to give Spring Tides.

River Thames, The Embankment, Twickenham, Richmond, 1988 88-12a-36-Edit_2400 — *River Thames, The Embankment, Twickenham, Richmond, 1988 88-12a-36*

The balustrade is around what is now Champion’s Wharf Play Beach, and the wall is around the end of the riverside section of York House Gardens and a part of the archway leading through to this is just visible. The previous picture showed the narrow sloping pebbles above the waterline which I walked out on to take this picture.

Surprisingly I don’t appear on this occasion to have walked through York House Gardens and didn’t photograph the ‘Naked Ladies’ or Italian Fountain just through that gateway and on the left, but continued along Riverside, taking a few pictures of the houses beside it before reaching the splendid building of the White Swan pub.

You can now drink The Naked Ladies, the bestselling beer produced by Twickenham Brewery, a 4.4% golden ale made with Herkules, Celeia and Chinook hops and CAMRA’s 2019 Champion Golden Ale of London. But the brewery only opened in 2004, and Naked Ladies was first launched in 2013, so I can’t recall if or what I drank there in 1988. But I have enjoyed it at the White Swan and elsewhere more recently.

River Thames, Twickenham, Richmond, 1988 88-12a-15-Edit_2400 — *River Thames, Twickenham, Richmond, 1988 88-12a-15*

Before going in a pub we did go down to the riverside a little along from the White Swan, and I made several pictures of this boat covered in vegetation. Apart from this it seemed in quite usable condition and was still firmly moored. The Thames here is still tidal, though the Richmond half-lock downstream stops the water entirely flowing out.

River Thames, Twickenham, Richmond, 1988 88-12b-64-Edit_2400 — *River Thames, Twickenham, Richmond, 1988 88-12b-64*

A second picture in much the same area shows a smaller boat in rather cleaner condition, firmly moored and roped down on the mud. In the background at right is the white house on the corner of Lebanon Park and Riverside. This is where Twickenham Ferry used to run across the Thames to Ham House, passing just downstream of Eel Pie Island.

The ferry was licensed by the owners of Ham House, the Dysart family (and sometimes known as Dysart’s Ferry) and the first written mention of it was in 1652. I last went across with my father to see Ham House in the mid-1970s, not long before it ceased operation. There had for some years been a dispute about its right of way on this slipway. I took the photograph below in 1979 when the river was flooded and there were boats moored there which were those used for the ferry in better weather to row people across and there were still notices for waiting passengers still on the fence.

Twickenham Ferry, River Thames flooding at Twickenham, Richmond, 1979 — *Twickenham Ferry, River Thames flooding at Twickenham, Richmond, January 1979*

My contact sheet from December 1988 shows we walked further on, with pictures of moored boats close to where the still operational Hammerton’s Ferry, a Johnny-come-lately from 1908, still runs when weather and water conditions allow. An on one of these frames (not digitised) a small figure by the water’s edge stands taking a photograph, with the balding head of my teaching colleague, another Peter. This was where I made my final image of the day, after which I strongly suspect we made our way back towards a riverside pub before meeting our students for the train back to college.

Aylesbury, Newington & City Nights

This post looks at the end of my walk south of the river on Sunday 13th November 1988 – the previous post was Flats, A Square, Bread & Funerals – Walworth – and finishes with a few pictures taken at night in the City of London.

Wendover, Aylesbury Estate, Thurlow St, Walworth, Southwark, 1988 88-11c-12-Edit_2400 — *Wendover, Aylesbury Estate, Thurlow St, Walworth, Southwark, 1988 88-11c-12*

Southwark Council built the Aylesbury Estate between 1963 and 1977. It was one of the larger if not the largest public housing developments in Europe, with around 2,700 homes. Wendover, designed by the boroughs architects, was completed in 1970. I think it’s two blocks contains around 471 flats as well as a learning centre and tenants hall.

Like many council estates it was poorly maintained over the years and parts of the estate were deliberately used by the council to house people and families with various social problems, something exacerbated by the Conservatives plans, particularly under Thatcher, to get rid of social housing, resulting in it increasingly becoming housing for the most deprived members of society.

The estate has a central boiler for heating and hot water, which has increasingly suffered from failures which residents say the council is very slow to take action over. The flats also have fallen behind more modern standards of insulation etc, and are in need of some refurbishment, though the council drastically overstated the costs of this when making their case for demolition.

Wendover, Aylesbury Estate, Thurlow St, Walworth, Southwark, 1988 88-11c-14-Edit_2400 — *Wendover, Aylesbury Estate, Thurlow St, Walworth, Southwark, 1988 88-11c-14*

I’ve in recent years been inside quite a few flats on the estate, often lovingly maintained and decorated by their residents who have been fighting a long battle against council plans to redevelop the area.

Although the council carried out a long PR campaign against this and the neighbouring Heygate Estate – including Tony Blair making his first speech as Prime Minister here and launching the party’s programme of regeneration of housing estates.

Its relatively open and fairly traffic-free nature along with convenient location made the estate a favourite for “grim backdrops to murder scenes, gun and drug storylines and gang-related crimes in soaps and gritty dramas” until pressure from local residents forced Southwark Council to ban filming in the area.

Channel4 took footage from the estate to use in their channel ident, adding to it, according to Ben Campkin of UCL quoted in Wikipedia, “washing lines, shopping trolley, rubbish bags and satellite dishes” to show it as “a desolate concrete dystopia [which] provides visual confirmation of tabloid journalists’ descriptions of a ‘ghost town’ estate.“

Residents wanted refurbishment rather than demolition – which will lead to many of them moving much further away from the centre of London. But councillors salivated at the thought of profits and handouts from the developers and never seriously considered anything other than demolition and replacement. Their decision lead to a series of occupations by housing activists of properties due for demolition. The complete destruction of the estate seems likely to take around another ten years with the final phase beginning next year. You can read much more about what has happened – and the duplicity of Southwark Council on the Southwark Notes site.

Trade Counter, Lambeth Rd, Newington, Southwark, 1988 88-11e-62-Edit_2400 — *Trade Counter, Lambeth Rd, Newington, Southwark, 1988 88-11e-62*

I walked on through both the Aylesbury and Heygate estates, both estates with a bad reputation for crime, but where I never suffered an uneasy moment despite having around £10,000 of equipment in my camera bag. I didn’t stop to take many pictures after those of Wendover, probably because I was getting tired. I did took a few frames on the New Kent Road and then walked on past the Elephant.

This entrance on Lambeth Road was one I’d photographed previously and probably I made a slight detour to do so again. I’d made an earlier picture using the tiny Minox that lived in my jacket pocket and it was severely underexposed. I had to send the camera for servicing. It was distributed by Leica, who told me it couldn’t be repaired, but offered me a replacement at considerably below the shop price. I had it in my pocket on 13th November taking my first test film, and took it out and made another exposure with it which was fine – and very similar to this, made on an Olympus SLR. Both are online on Flickr.

Frank Love, Lambeth Rd, Newington, Southwark, 1988 88-11e-63-Edit_2400 — *Frank Love, Lambeth Rd, Newington, Southwark, 1988 88-11e-63*

The previous image was the trade entrance at No 47 for Frank Love at New XL House, No 45 Lambeth Rd. Its signs read PLUMBERS BRASSFOUNDRY COPPER TUBES AND FITTINGS but I think the works had closed when I made this image. You can view an earlier image of the whole frontage by Bedford Lemere & Co in the Lambeth borough archive, and see some of their advents on Grace’s Guide. I think these were the last pictures taken on my walk which ended at Waterloo Station.

Dagwoods, St Alphage Highwalk, City, 198888-11e-41-Edit_2400 — *Dagwoods, St Alphage Highwalk, City, 198888-11e-41*

Dagwoods offered Quality Sandwiches to city workers in their lunch hour but the area was pretty empty at night, although there are still a few lights in the offices. The large area of pavement emphasises that emptiness.

I think I was probably coming back from an event at the Museum of London and had decided to take a little walk with my camera, though from some of the other pictures it seems clear I had come without a tripod.

Night, Bassishaw Highwalk, City, 1988 88-11e-42-Edit_2400 — *Night, Bassishaw Highwalk, City, 1988 88-11e-42*

Another deserted area of highwalk, and the sharpness and depth of field suggests I was able to steady myself well to produce this handheld – it will have been taken at a pretty slow shutter speed. This section of highwalk and the office building at right is still there though looking rather different.

Too much of the older London remained for the planners’ dreams of the separation of pedestrians from traffic to ever really be feasible except in a few small areas of the city – and there are very few escalators or lifts where the elderly and disabled can access them.

Night, Bassishaw Highwalk, City, 1988 88-11e-45-Edit_2400 — *Night, Bassishaw Highwalk, City, 1988 88-11e-45*

One of my favourite modern buildings in London, and one I’ve photographed several times in daylight. I suspect it was this building that really prompted me to make this short walk at night. After the four frames (only one digitised) I made here I did wander around an make a dozen or so more exposures, but nothing which really caught my interest when I was deciding which to put on-line.

65 Basinghall St is Grade II listed as “Former exhibition hall, magistrates court and offices, now converted to offices, 1966-69, by Richard Gilbert Scott of Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, Son and Partner” and was built in 1966-9. There is a long essay in the listing text. But perhaps sufficient to say its roof is one of the finest uses of concrete at least in the UK.

Music, Spoken Word and Protest

Music, Spoken Word and Protest. A week or two ago I received a Facebook invitation suggesting I listen to a monthly radio show on Riverside Radio, the Colin Crilly Takeover, a monthly show with hosts Andy Bungay and Colin Crilly. In this edition they were to “be playing SONGS with a political/social angle, and discussing the issues raised.”

Colin Crilly is someone I’ve often met and photographed on protests in London and who has on occasion asked me to be interviewed for the show, but I’ve never done so. Radio isn’t really an ideal medium for photography.

Riverside Radio is a local station covering a wide area of southwast London, mainly the boroughs of Wandsworth, Richmond and Merton but available to everyone on the web. I didn’t log on to the live show live as it airs for two hours from 11pm on a Saturday night, a time when I’m usually exhausted and only ready to fall asleep. Or if I’ve had a particularly busy day covering events I might still be editing the work.

But a few days later, Colin sent me a link to a recording of the show on MixCloud and I began to listen to it. I’ve not managed to hear the whole two hours and I found MixCloud a frustrating experience as, perhaps because I haven’t subscribed, I couldn’t skip forward and when I took a rest it reverted to the start of the track. Since radio doesn’t come with pictures (except in the mind) I’ve added some of my own to this post.

*Billy Bragg supports IWGB strikers 2018*

It was good to hear a track by Anne Feeney, the late great US folk musician, singer-activist and lawyer who died in 2021. Her ‘Have You Been To Jail For Justice?’ and her lines “A rotten law stays on the books til folks like us defy it, The law’s supposed to serve us, and so are the police, And when the system fails, it’s up to us to speak our piece …” are very relevant now. It led to some interesting discussion by Colin and Andy, but perhaps it could have been related rather more to the approaches of groups such as Extinction Rebellion and Insulate Britain in the UK.

*Sheffield Samba Band on march to Aldermaston, 2004*

Next up was Paul Hardcastle’s ’19’, about the Vietnam War, but released in 1985, which apparently made a huge impression on a then-young Colin. It really was a ground-breaking release in several ways, but like the interview with John Lennon which followed – and preceded his ‘The Fool On the Hill’, did give the show seem rather an academic and historical approach to the subject.

*Samba band, Carnival Against Capitalism, 1999*

I didn’t get much further in listening – and I think these were the only songs in the first hour of the show, though I might have fallen asleep a bit – there was a lot of long discussion. George Michael on BBC Hard Talk in 2002 came into it. It’s perhaps a shame that there wasn’t a playlist on the MixCloud page.

Among the hashtags there was #london and I didn’t think I’d heard much about London or protests there in the part of the show I heard. Nor did I get to hear the promised Wood Guthrie, whose songs I used to play and sing badly from a much dog-eared paperbook in my youth, though fortunately seldom in public.

But many of the protests I’ve attended over the years have included performances by singers as well as spoken word performers, and of course the sound of almost all marches in recent years has been the samba band. How or if the recent act designed to prevent effective protest alters this remains to be seen.

I’ll just mention a few of those I’ve been impressed by – and have photographed in London. On his web site is this description of Cosmo, based in Wales as well as a number of music videos featuring him and his friends.

Cosmo is “a one-man folk-punk phenomenon.” (Miniature Music Press). Over the course of 14 albums and 30 years of touring, he has established himself as a formidable voice on the UK and international underground.
He has appeared at Glastonbury, the Edinburgh Fringe and other major UK festivals, as well as touring across the UK, Europe, North and South America and the Middle East. In that time, he has shared stages with Billy Bragg, Frank Turner, Grace Petrie, John Cooper Clarke, Mark Thomas and more. Cosmo has won awards at the Edinburgh fringe and Hay fringe festivals.
An activist as well as a musician, Cosmo has also performed at countless picket lines, protest camps, rallies and demos, as well as being involved with community organising.
https://www.cosmoguitar.com/about/

I’ve photographed Cosmo several times, particularly at protests with Class War and always been impressed by the lift he gives to protesters.

*Grim Chip (left) outside the TUC, 2017*

Quite a few rappers and poets have also performed at events I’ve photographed. Poetry on the Picket Line does exactly what the name suggest. Poets in the group, including hip Hamer, Janine Booth, Nadia Drews, Joe Solo, Tim Watts, Tim Kiely, Owen Collins, Repeat Beat Poet, Mark Coverdale, Lantern Carrier and Michael Breen, reading their work in the spirit of solidarity
on picket lines and at rallies.

*Potent Whisper performs ‘Estate Of War’ at Class War’s Newspaper Launch at the White Cube 2017*

Georgie, a London based rapper and spoken word artist performs as Potent Whisper. Dog Section Press published his ‘The Rhyming Guide to Grenfell Britain‘ including the text of nine full-length pieces, I think all of which I’d heard him deliver at various demonstrations as well as in videos, including The Rhyming Guide to NHS Privatisation, Estate of War and Grenfell Britain. The book is worth getting if you can find a copy. An article by him in the New Internationalist includes a link to his ‘You’ll Never Edit Grenfell‘ and you can view more on his YouTube channel.

National Gallery, Tate, Sikhs, Kashmir, Iran, Sewol & Sotheby’s

National Gallery, Tate, Sikhs, Kashmir, Iran, Sewol & Sotheby’s. I thought to myself “nothing much ever happens in London in the middle of August” as I began to think about writing this post for August 15th. Then I looked back in my diary to 2015 and found out just how wrong I was, and there were also some other years where I’ve photographed several events. But on August 15th 2015 I photographed seven protests as well as taking a few pictures as I walked around London.

Three of the protests in 2015 were about labour disputes, all in the cultural sector, at the National Gallery, Tate Modern and Sothebys, while the other four were over things outside the UK, in India, Kashmir, Iran and South Korea. Just another day in London.

National Gallery 61st day of Strike – Trafalgar Square

It was the 61st day of the strike by PCS members at the National Gallery against the privatisation which will outsource the 400 galley assistants in what is called “modernisation” but which actually is just a cost-cutting exercise.

People who work at the gallery would no longer be employed by the gallery and would lose the terms and conditions they currently have from a responsible employer. Outsourcing companies cut costs and extract their profits from the contracts by increasing workload and reducing pay and conditions for the workers, treating them extremely poorly in ways that a public body such as the National Gallery itself never would.

The dispute had also become one demanding the reinstatement of PCS union rep Candy Udwin, sacked for her trade union activities. The PCS picket who had arrived earlier as on every strike day were joined by supporters from other unions.

Equalitate at Tate Modern – Bankside

From Trafalgar Square I took a bus to St Paul’s Churchyard and then walked across the footbridge to Bankside and Tate Modern. There and at Tate Britain visitor assistants whose work has already been outsourced get £3 an hour less than directly employed colleagues, are on zero hours contracts and get far inferior employment rights.

This was the first public demonstration by Equalitate, who supported by the PCS are fighting to get equal pay and conditions for all staff doing the same job. They stood on the busy public riverside walkway in front of the gallery and handed out fliers. Many who took them were shocked to hear about the unfair treatment, but mainly they were tourists and not UK residents.

Sikhs call for release of political prisoners – Indian High Commission

A shorter bus ride took me back to Aldwych and the Indian High Commission. It was Indian Independence Day and Sikh protesters from Dal Khalsa were there supporting the call by hunger striker Bapu Surat Singh, for the release of Sikh political prisoners and for the ‘2020’ campaign for a referendum for an independent Sikh state, Khalistan. He is 82 and began his hunger strike on 16th January, 8 months ago.

The Sikhs are the “indigenous people of Punjab” and say they “have a historical homeland, a separate religion and have the right to self-determination” which was ignored at the time of the 1947 partition of India, with their land being split between India and Pakistan. They intended to hold the referendum in the state of Punjab and among Sikh diaspora living in America, Canada, United Kingdom, European Union, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Kenya and Middle Eastern Countries.

Kashimiris Indian Independence Day call for freedom – Indian High Commission

Kashimiris were also protesting at the Indian High Commission on what is celebrated in Kashmir not as ‘independence day’, but as ‘black day’ against the Indian military occupation of much of their country. There are also areas of this disputed country occupied by Pakisatn and China.

There is one Indian soldier for every 14 Kashmiris in the country, and more than 100,000 people have been killed since the current uprising against Indian occupation began in 1987. Many Kashmiris, including women and children have been tortured and some deliberatly maimed or blinded by the Indian Army. Pakistan has been less repressive with fewer human rights violations in the areas it controls, but also has a policy of continuous suppression, exploitation and bullying of Kashmiris.

Kurdish PJAK remembers its martyrs – Trafalgar Square

Another short journey took me back to Trafalgar Square, where on one part of the North Terrace Iranian Kurds from the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK) were remembering its fighters killed in the fight against Iran and ISIS for self-determination.

There are a bewildering array of Iranian Kurdish political groups listed on the UK government web site, including the PJAK. Like the PKK, PJAK owes allegiance to Abdullah Öcalan and the ideals of the Rojava revolution and was possibly an offshoot of the PKK, but unlike them is not banned in the UK as its activities are directed largely agains Iran. It operates from northern Iraq. According to the UK government site it reached a ceasefire with the Iranian authorities in 2011 but is still engaging in underground activities in Iran.

16th ‘Stay Put’ Sewol silent protest – Trafalgar Square

A small group, mainly Koreans continute its monthly silent vigils to remember the victims of the Sewol ferry tragedy, mainly school children who obeyed the order to ‘Stay Put‘ on the lower decks as the ship went down. The call on the Korean government to raise the ship for a thorough inquire, to punish those responsible and bring in regulations to prevent similar tragedies in future.

United Voices – Reinstate the Sotheby’s 2 – Mayfair

I met members of the United Voices of the World trade union at Oxford Circus, along with other supporters including Paula Peters of DPAC and Candy Udwin, the victimised PCS rep from the National Gallery and some of the other PCS strikers, Class War and others.

They marched from there to protest against Sotheby’s who had sacked two union members, Barbara and Percy, for protesting for proper sick pay, paid holidays and pensions.

Police harassed the marchers and stopped them outside Sotheby’s attempting to move them onto the pavement on the opposite side of the road. The marchers sat down and blocked the road, ignoring the police requests. It’s a very minor route with plenty of alternatives but in a very wealthy area.

Finally they got up and marched around the block, with union officials Vera and Petros going into shops on the way and handing out leaflets explaining why the UVW were continuing to take action against Sotheby’s and asking shop owners and workers to complain to them. Police harassed them and tried to stop them doing this.

They returned to the street in front of Sotheby’s for a short rally – with again police trying without success to move them off the road – and then set off to march around the block again. This time police made an effort to stop them marching, holding UVW leader Petros Elia, and blocking the road, but other protesters simply walked past them on the pavement and marched around the block again.

They returned for a final short rally in front of Sotheby’s before deciding it was time to finish and marching back to an alley close to Oxford Circus, where and I was pleased to at last be able to go home.

You can find more pictures and text on these at the links below on My London Diary, where there are also a few more ‘London Views’, mostly taken from the top of buses, my favourite way of travelling around the city when it is too far to walk. But London’s traffic congestion means the Underground is often much faster.

United Voices – Reinstate the Sotheby’s 2
16th ‘Stay Put’ Sewol silent protest
Kurdish PJAK remembers its martyrs
Kashimiris Independence Day call for freedom
Sikhs call for release of political prisoners
Equalitate at Tate Modern
London Views
National Gallery 61st day of Strike