Political Issues | >Re-PHOTO

Islington in the Dark

Another cyclist dies, killed on a main road on his way to work when a van drove into him on a mandatory cycle lane. Roads like the Pentonville Rd need protected cycle paths, and Islington has not built a single protected cycle route in over 20 years.

Vigil for Islington cyclist killed by HGV

It really is time to get moving on better facilities for cyclists, which would not only stop deaths like this, but also encourage more people to get on their bikes for some healthy exercise, at the same time helping to reduce London’s terrible levels of air pollution and reduce congestion. Everybody wins from getting more people to cycle safely on our roads – even those black cab drivers who lobby against it.

And of course long past time when vehicles designed with highly restricted driver vision were allowed to be built and to drive on our roads. Better mirrors and, where necessary built-in CCTV, would prevent these deaths. It wouldn’t be difficult to improve vehicle design and not very expensive to make them safe.

But we continue to suffer from years of a failure to invest properly in facilities for cyclists – and we all suffer, whether pedestrians, cyclists or motorists. Stop Killing Cyclists are doing a great job in bringing the issues to greater attention through events such as these, and through the detailed studies that they and others associated with them make to lobby the London Mayor, Transport for London and others.

As usual there were a series of speeches followed by a die-in, with police holding up traffic to allow this short protest to take place. Police do seem to have developed a greater appreciation of the problems faced by cyclists now that a number of them patrol on push bikes.

I’d like to see our driving tests have a cycling proficiency test as a prerequisite – with those medically certified as unable to ride a bicycle or tricycle being allowed to qualify in some kind of virtual reality. Back many years when I rode in France, driver behaviour towards cyclists seemed so much better, perhaps because many more French drivers had cycling experience. Not only might it improve attitudes towards cyclists, but I think would be a safer and cheaper way of learning how to use our roads sensibly. But this is probably one of those common sense ideas that is totally impracticable.

The protest took place outside Islington Town Hall, not far from where the death occurred. I don’t think it is sensible to call any of these deaths accidents when there are so many reasons why they happen.

It’s surprising how dark it can be just a few yards from a major road in London. I struggled with light levels as you can see in the pictures. For some I used the LED light, but most relied on whatever ambient there was, with just a couple where flash seemed the only possibility. Particularly when photographing candle-lit vigils like this it’s important to try and retain the feeling of the lighting, but candles seldom really give quite enough light, especially if there is any movement.

Candle flames are also pretty bright in themselves, and an exposure which retains detail in them often is just too underexposed over most of the frame. The D750 and D810 do a pretty good job, but it isn’t always possible or entirely predictable, and the preview on the camera back doesn’t work quite well enough to let you know which highlights can be recovered in Lightroom.

Colour temperature is also a problem, and I should have remembered to use the amber filter on the LED, which is roughly daylight balanced, to bring it closer to the candles. It doesn’t matter too much what white balance you set the camera to when working in RAW files, as this can be adjusted later. I think I had the D810 set on Auto WB and the D750 on ‘Tungsten’ and can see no real difference in the adjusted images.

Vigil for Islington cyclist killed by HGV

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On my way back to the station I stopped to talk with a friend outside the squatted bank and was invited in and took a few pictures.

Groups like this are important both in bringing attention to homelessness when we have so many empty buildings, and also providing at least short term shelter to a few of the homeless. It would make sense to change laws on empty properties to persuade their owners bring them back into use, or allow councils to compulsory purchase them.

ORAL Squat empty NatWest Bank

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All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

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LSE Homophobic Abuse

During the successful campaign to get the LSE cleaners the London Living wage, another problem affecting one of the cleaners emerged and was taken up by his union, the United Voices of the World.

The UVW made complaints about to both the LSE where the cleaners work and the direct employer, Noonan, about the continual harassment suffered at work by Daniel Gichia, the first Kenyan man to marry another man, because of his homosexuality.

Noonan who claim to be one of the market leaders in cleaning services in Ireland and the UK, “carried out by our own, well trained and highly motivated, people. Our cleaning teams work under the management and supervision of professional managers with deep industry expertise.”

Apparently part of the deep industry expertise is in allowing what the UVW describe as “vile, homophobic harassment” and they say both Noonan and the LSE have always stubbornly and callously refused to take any action against Daniel’s harassers, despite admitting that some of his compliants were true.

The UVW took his case against Noonan to an employment tribunal, but the harassment was continuing. The protest took place at the time when the LSE as hosting as hosting a talk, “LGBT Rights: what next?”, which the protesters felt was hypocritical when the LSE was refusing to take action – or pressure its contractor to act – over a clear case of discrimination on grounds of homosexuality taking place in its institution.

A few days before this post was published, the employment tribunal eventuually published its decision, finding Daniel was harassed on multiple occasions at the LSE merely for being homosexual, finding that he was told that “homosexuals were not human”, and that he should “sleep with women to cure his problem”.

As well as this personal victory for Daniel, the tribunal also found that that there existed at the LSE a culture whereby it was acceptable to make such comments, and that Daniel was called “a woman” for having raised his grievance in the first place. Clearly the LSE management now has to take seriously the standards the institution has long stood for and used in its own promotion and apply them in its own practices.

More at: LSE against Homophobia

Photographically the main problem was lighting. The area around the back of the building where the protest began was very badly lit. For most of the pictures there I used the cheap LED light source, the Neewer CN-216. It doesn’t have a huge light output, and, run from 6 AA cells the output falls off fairly rapidly after a few minutes of use. It’s best to keep switching it of after taking a picture, but that slows you down as you have to put it back on for the next.

I’m only gradually becoming used to using very high ISO on such occasions, and while it would have been better to have taken most of these pictures at ISO 12,800 there are quite a few at much lower ISO. And a few at 12,800 were still seriously underexposed, which isn’t a good idea. Almost every image was made with lenses wide open, and shutter speeds varying from around 1/30s to 1/100s, sometimes not fast enough when people were moving.

I did make a few using flash. There was more light at the front of the old main building where people posed with banners in the lowest of the pictures, but it fell off leaving those furthest from the camera in deep shadow. The SB800 flash without a diffuser doesn’t cover the whole field at 18mm and by swivelling a little towards the right gave little illumination to the already brightly lit steps while adding enough to the more distant protesters. It did need a little dodging and burning in Lightroom to even out the coverage. The flash also is considerably warmer than the ambient light and I quite like the effect here (again in some areas with a little help from Lightroom.)

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All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

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Class War Return to the Ripper

Class War and London 4th Wave Feminists protested again outside the Jack the Ripper tourist attraction in East London, calling for it to close. They say the so-called ‘museum’ exploits violence against women, making money from images of sexually mutilated women, and encourages attitudes that lead to violent sexual assaults.

One of the women taking part in the protest had recently called the police after finding a 17-year old woman collapsed at her doorstop who had been raped several times on the streets. Tower Hamlets council has found the shop in breach of planning applications over its shutters and signage but has failed to enforce its decisions.

It was a difficult protest to photograph because the pavement outside the shop is narrow and a car was parked in front restricting access. Police were trying to keep a clear way through past the shop, and, together with the two female security staff specially brought in by the shop, trying to make it easy for customers to enter and leave the premises.

As can be seen from the picture at the top of the post, there was a considerable amount of pushing by the security staff at times, and also some angry reactions from a few customers. Considering it was a Saturday afternoon there seemed to be very few of them, and I think some stopped and listened to the protest and turned away. Most tried to avoid the eyes of protesters as police and security took them in or out.

There were several short speeches about the reason for the protest, the failure of the local authority, the lives of the victims and the attacks on women which still take place in this area as everywhere else. Violence against women is a problem across the world, and the protesters pointed out to the police that they were failing in their duty to protect women from it while coming to protect tourist attractions which promote and allow people to come and take a prurient, unhealthy interest in it.

There were some heated arguments with the police, and Patrick, playing the part of ‘Father Brannigan’ continued to call out the demons with the aid of a rather makeshift cross.

After an hour or so of protest, the group retired to a nearby pub, and I was about to leave when the police raided the place, coming in to arrest a trans-gender woman alleged to have assaulted an anti-trans activist during a protest at Hyde Park in September. She has pleaded not guilty and her trial opens shortly.

I was obstructed by a member of the bar staff who showed me her warrant card as a special constable while attempting to follow the police as they left and she later tried to stop me taking pictures on the pavement outside. I’m pleased to say that the police officer in charge told her to stop, telling her that I was quite entitled to photograph what was happening. I decided at the time I would not post these pictures until after the case had ended or been dropped.

More pictures at: Class War back at the Ripper

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All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

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Justice for Palestine

A protest took place during the celebrations to mark the 100th anniversary of the Balfour declaration, a letter written on November 2nd, 1917 and signed by the
United Kingdom’s Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Lord Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish community, for transmission to the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland:

“His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country”.

The protest which marched from a rally outside the US Embassy, then still in Grosvenor Square, was to point out that although the state of Israel had been established, the second half of the declaration had sadly never been taken seriously, and both the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine have virtually entirely neglected.

Equal Rights & Justice for Palestine

Back when I first became aware of politics in the 1950s, attending Labour and Cooperative party youth events (mainly for the girls and the free cigarettes) I think we all regarded Israel in a very positive light, a country which was providing a new home for many survivors of the holocaust and had shaken off the colonial yoke. Several people I knew went to work on a kibbutz, which were seen as the forerunners of a new society, a socialist utopia “dedicated to mutual aid and social justice; a socioeconomic system based on the principle of joint ownership of property, equality and cooperation of production, consumption and education; the fulfillment of the idea “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs“.

Things have changed since then. Both in Israel and here, and now almost all of those on the left, both Jewish and non-Jews feel the need to support the rights of Palestinians against the actions of the Israeli state. That in no way implies we are being anti-Semitic, though does mean we will be accused of being so.

I was born shortly before the state of Israel and still remember people talking about terrorists, who then were mainly Israeli, with the Irgun led by Menachem Begin, notable for blowing up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem killing 91 people of various nationalities, with one of their members also dying. There was also Haganah, but it was the Stern Gang who made the greatest impression on us kids, probably because of their name. Dissolved in 1948-9 they are often said to be the last terrorist group to proudly describe themselves as “terrorists”. To many of us they seemed heroes.

We now know rather more about their exploits following the release of various classified documents over the years, some of which are discussed in an article on Haaretz last December (though you may need to subscribe to read it.) One of the favoured devices of both Irgun and the Stern Gang was the sending of letter bombs, one of which Sir Anthony Eden carried around all day in his briefcase but, fortunately for him, was retrieved by security before he opened it. Other targets included Winston Churchill, and most other senior British politicians and cabinet members including Prime Minister Clement Attlee, Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin and Chancellor of the Exchequer Stafford, Cripps.

Stern also attempted to blow up Dover House, the headquarters of the Colonial Office in Whitehall, London, managing to successfully plant a powerful bomb with 10 sticks of explosives. Had it gone off there might have been an even larger death toll than at the King David Hotel, but the fuse was incorrectly fitted and it failed to explode.

The Stern Gang got its name from Avraham (“Yair”) Stern, its founder in 1940, though it was officially named Lehi. In 1941, as the Jerusalem Post controversially reminded its readers, Stern “with the Final Solution already under way in all but name, sought out German cooperation in the setting up here of a Jewish state on a national and totalitarian basis.” It twice offered the Nazis an alliance to oppose British rule in Palestine in exchange for the release of Jews from Nazi hands. The Germans turned them down.

Stern continued after Stern’s death under the leadership of Yitzhak Shamir, who around 40 years later became Prime Minister of Israel, to move closer to Stalinist Russia, a move which lost them many followers. (See Wikipedia and The Los Angeles Times archive.)

History is history – and the sources of this history are incontrovertible. It isn’t because what Ken Livingstone said was false that got him attacked, but because it was at least largely true. I cite this history not to be thrown out of the Labour Party – I don’t belong – but simply to expand a little on my own very mixed feelings about the state of Israel and the Balfour declaration. But whatever you think about Israel, it seems blindingly obvious that today Palestinians are being treated abysmally by the Israeli state and its army, and that the international community should be actively trying to improve their situation.

My problems at the embassy rally were rather different. The weather with the odd bit of rain didn’t help, but the real problem was red light. Most of the light falling on the speakers was coming through the red roof under which they were speaking, producing a red cast on their faces that seemed beyond correction.

I should perhaps have used flash, but it would still have been a problem, and though I could perhaps have turned up the flash to overwhelm the red light, the results would have had a brutal flattening. So I stuck with the red, hoping I would be able to make it acceptable in post-processing, by tinting the faces with some blue and green.

This did help a bit, but was time-consuming and doesn’t quite work as shadow and highlight areas were more or less affected by the red. In the end I gave up and as you see converted them to black and white.

I don’t like doing this. I take things now almost exclusively in colour and work for colour, and things taken in colour and converted seldom look quite right to me. It often annoys me greatly when others convert their digital images to black and white, thinking it somehow makes them look more ‘authentic’ or more documentary. Though of course if they really think in black and white I wouldn’t notice.

Equal Rights & Justice for Palestine
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All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

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Halloween in South Ken

As darkness fell, another Halloween-themed employment-related protest was taking place, this time in one of the richest neighbourhoods of London, South Kensington, and involving some of the poorest workers in the capital, the two cleaners who have kept the Ferrari and Maserati showrooms of H R Owen spotless on the legal minimum wage for the last 12 years.

Both Angelica (below) and Freddy (above) are Spanish speaking migrant workers and members of the United Voices of the World trade union, whose members and friends had come to support the protest, meeting outside South Kensington Station. The posters they are holding sum up the issue, though they are not asking for parity with the bosses, simply for enough to live on, the London Living Wage. Not a fortune, but over 20% more than they were getting paid.

As is so often the case, the owners of the showrooms, H R Owen, the worlds largest luxury car dealer, say that it is not their responsibility. They put the cleaning out to tender and give it to the lowest bidder, in this case Templewood Cleaning Services Limited, who make their bid the cheapest by keeping wages and conditions to the minimum and cutting corners in various ways. While reputable companies would feel bound to pay a decent rate, provide proper sick pay, pensions and holidays in excess of the legal minimum, provide proper safety equipment, materials and training and give workers the time needed to do the job to a good standard, cleaning contractors generally have no such scruples.

The UVW, as legally required, held a strike ballot to support the workers claim for a Living Wage after this had been turned down. Unsurprisingly it got a 100% support in a vote with 100% turnout. The employer’s response to the workers’ demand was to suspend them. The day before this protest at the end of a a five hour grievance and disciplinary hearing they gave the workers a choice; promise not to strike at Ferrari and accept your poverty wage, or find work elsewhere.

This had been meant to be an unannounced protest, but the lengthy gathering outside the station and the rather noisy march along the road gave the showroom management plenty of notice, and when the protesters arrived the doors had already been locked, and the protest took place on the street outside. It blocked the road, causing considerable disruption with traffic including buses having to be diverted around nearby streets, and I’m sure greatly annoyed some of the wealthy neighbours.

Eventually after 30 minutes of protest the police arrived and tried to talk to the protesters, without a great deal of success. They were told why the protest was taking place and that the protesters would move when they felt they had made enough of a protest.

They did leave soon afterwards, but only because one of those supporting the protest, the president of the IWGB trade union persuaded the protesters to march to protest at another location where cleaners in the IWGB are under threat. I didn’t go with them as I had promised to be elsewhere.

This story did have a happy ending. This protest achieved some publicity in the newspapers and TV, and perhaps those wealthy residents in the area also put on some pressure (quite a few people passing the protest had actually stopped to find out why the protest was taking place and expressed shock at the low pay of the cleaners) but for whatever reason the next protest planned for a week or two later was cancelled at short notice as the dispute had been settled with the cleaners back at work and on the London Living Wage.

Halloween protest for living wage at HR Owen
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All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

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Pregnant Then Screwed

In June 2017 the results were published of a research programme commissioned by The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and the Equality and Human Rights Commission to investigate the prevalence and nature of pregnancy discrimination and disadvantage in the workplace. This report showed that every year 54,000 women lose their job for getting pregnant, a figure has almost doubled in the last 10 years.

It also demonstrated that 1 mother in 5 felt they had experienced harassment or negative comments related to pregnancy or flexible working from their employer and /or colleagues, and that 1 in 10 had been discouraged by their employer from attending ante-natal classes. It also showed how difficult it is for those suffering discrimination because of their pregnancy found it to access justice, with less than 1% raising a tribunal claim.

And not surprisingly the reaction of the government was to say thank you very much for telling us about it and then to take the usual action of putting the report to one side and hoping it will go away. Nothing has happened and campaign group Pregnant Then Screwed decided to give them a reminder.

That reaction had an unusually long gestation period and only emerged kicking and screaming 15 months later, at Halloween and wrapped not in swaddling clothes but in bandages with the odd saw or axe in the head in best zombie fashion. It also came with some clever captions and posters and a tablet with various messages including ‘Stop Ovary Acting‘.

Although it would be easy to make fun of such vital issues as ‘Creches on Film Sets’ it is of course an issue that effects all women, not just those in well paid middle-class jobs, and though those on minimum wage have less to lose, its loss may be even more devastating. I think I was one of the 82,965 supporters who signed the petition that was being carried in a box on the protest.

It obviously is important that employers make it possible for women to work and not to discriminate against them for being pregnant or being mothers. As the organisers of the protest stated, “the Government has stalled and stalled, paying lip service to the issue but doing naff all to improve the outlook for working mums. And in that time 70,000 women have been pushed out of their job for daring to want both a family and a career.”

Many of those taking part had gone to some lengths to dress up for the occasion and there was plenty to photograph – and plenty of photographers there to do the business. You can see quite a few of the pictures that I took on My London Diary.

Pregnant Then Screwed March of the Mummies
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All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

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United Families and Friends march

Every year there are new families grieving the loss of a family member and calling for justice after a death in police custody or prison or secure unit. Most often those who have died have been young men, mostly black and usually in good physical health, though some have mental health issues. Although some of the many deaths each year many be accidental or through natural causes, many seem to be the result either of direct actions by police or custodial staff, sometimes by failing to exercise proper care, but more often by failing to observe proper procedures and at least on occasion by deliberate use of inappropriate force.

Of course the police have a difficult job and often have to deal with difficult people, and like the rest of us sometimes get things wrong. But their actions should be subject to proper and independent scrutiny, and where appropriate they should be prosecuted for their actions. Instead we see a failure to properly investigate, a widespread conspiracy to cover up actions, ineffectual complaints procedures and organisations, a Crown Prosecution Service that works hand in hand with police to brush things under the carpet and a judiciary, inquest and court system which has far too often failed. Of course not every highly suspicious death at the hands of police was criminal, but many should have resulted in verdicts of manslaughter and some of murder – but none of the hundreds have.

Ajibola Lewis, the mother of Olaseni Lewis killed by police in 2010

The United Families and Friends Campaign (UFFC), is a coalition of of people killed by police, in prisons, in immigration detention and in secure psychiatric hospitals and includes some who have been trying to get justice for deaths for 20 years or more. This was apparently their 19th annual march of remembrance – and I’ve photographed most since 2003, when I commented:

these are the friends and families of those – mainly but not entirely black – who have died while in police custody, in prison or in psychiatric care.

roger sylvester, david davies, joseph scholes, christopher alder, ricky bishop, rocky bennett, sarah campbell, mikey powell, brian douglas, james grafton, jimmy ashley, orville blackwood, alphonso coley, wayne douglas, joy gardner, glenn howard, paul jemmott, shiji lapite, alton manning, leon patterson, kenneth severin, ibrahima sey, aseta simms …

there are some 1500 names on the posters, listing those who have died in custody since david oluwale’s death in 1969. on the bottom of the list it says: “there are still more whose names we do not know. all these individuals have died in the custody of police and prison officers or in secure psychiatric hospitals – many in suspicious and disgraceful circumstances.

Kadisha Brown-Burrell, the sister of Kingsley Burrell, killed by poiice in 2011

You can see more about the campaign and why it is necessary in the full-length film Injustice, about black deaths in custody from 1993–1999. The film was released in 2001 and received wide-spread showings despite efforts by the Police Federation and individual police officers to prevent it being shown with threats of legal action and it received various documentary film awards. The TV companies refused to show it, although it was shown in many cinemas, at community groups and elsewhere, and it forced a review into the Crown Prosecution Service, but this produced no real change. A special edition CD updated with extra material is now available.

Since 2003, the only main change has been that the list has grown longer, now with well over 2000 names. Many of the families of those listed above have given up the struggle to get justice, tired of beating their heads against the wall of officialdom. Sarah Campbell’s mother Pauline Campbell is another name that belongs on that list; having thrown herself into campaigning for prison reforms after her daughter’s death she died from a drugs overdose close to her child’s grave with its message in black granite, “Her mother left broken hearted“, five years later. Having met and corresponded with Pauline, her death saddened me greatly.

As usual the march proceeded at funeral pace down Whitehall, this year with a banner at its front with the message “Police Have Licence To Kill” which unfortunately seems to be confirmed by events such as the shooting of Mark Duggan, Mohammed Yassar Yaqub and Jermaine Baker. There were perhaps slightly fewer banners than in some previous years, with some families not coming this year, but there were some new ones too. And there were also two French campaigners whose problems with police violence are even greater than ours.

At Downing St there was a rally, blocking the south bound carriageway, with speakers from a number of the families. I had to leave before the rally finished and there were still others waiting to speak.

UFFC annual remembrance procession
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All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

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Class War Levitation Squad

On the 21st October 1967, 50 years ago at the height of the anti-Vietnam War protests in the USA, Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman, together with Allen Ginsberg, the Fugs and others marched to stand around the Pentagon and chant ancient Aramaic exorcism rites in an ‘exorgasm’ which was intended to get it to “rise into the air, turn orange and vibrate until all evil emissions had fled.”

Ed Sanders of the Fugs had researched the event, drawn out a flier for those taking part explaining the “magic rite to exorcise the Spirits of murder, violence and creephood from the Pentagon“.

The 10 stages of the rite included the exorcism text:

In the name of the amulets of touching, seeing, groping, hearing and loving, we call upon the powers of the cosmos to protect our ceremonies in the name of Zeus, in the name of Anubis, god of the dead, in the name of all those killed because they do not comprehend, in the name of the lives of the soldiers in Vietnam who were killed because of a bad karma, in the name of sea-born Aphrodite, in the name of Magna Mater, in the name of Dionysus, Zagreus, Jesus, Yahweh, the unnamable, the quintessent finality of the Zoroastrian fire, in the name of Hermes, in the name of the Beak of Sok, in the name of scarab, in the name, in the name, in the name of the Tyrone Power Pound Cake Society in the Sky, in the name of Rah, Osiris, Horus, Nepta, Isis, in the name of the flowing living universe, in the name of the mouth of the river, we call upon the spirit to raise the Pentagon from its destiny and preserve it,

the placing of love-articles and clothing – “beads, feathers, rock & roll records,books and the sacred Grope Relic” onto the Pentagon and ended with the chanting by all present of the peace mantra:

a-ri-ia-ad-da-li-is Dim-an-za sar-ri ka-si-i hu-u-e-hu-u-i-ia tap-pa-as-sa-it sar-ri ti-ia-mu hu-i-hu-i-ia”

The Yippies had actually applied for and were granted official permission to levitate the Pentagon, though some hard bargaining by the authorites led to a cutting of the permitted height rise from the original 300 ft down to a mere 3 ft. Accounts by eye-witnesses of what actually happened differ, perhaps largely depending on what people had been smoking.

Class War‘s Ian Bone and shaman Jimmy Kunt (aka Adam Clifford) along with a few co-exorcists went to celebrate the anniversary by attempting similar feats of levitation at Kensington Town Hall and later outside the Daily Mail.

Adam called out the demons of councillors responsible for the disastrous fire at Grenfell Tower, including Nicholas Paget-Brown, Rock Feilding-Mellen & Elizabeth Campbell on the steps of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea town hall and attempted to raise it to over 70 metres into the air, shouting . “Out, demons, out! Out, demons, out!” and ignoring the pleas of the security officer on duty.

Unfortunately I failed to capture the decisive moment of the building in mid-air; afterwards Ian Bone repeated a well-known quote from 1967 “You mean you didn’t see it, man?”

The team went on to repeat the performance outside Northcliffe House, the home of the Daily Mail, where they were met with greater belligerence from a small group of security staff, apparently terrified of the effect removing demons might have on editor Paul Dacre, or perhaps that it might scratch the Rolls-Royce outside, before leaving to refresh themselves after the spiritual ordeal in the nearby Prince of Wales.

It seemed a strange choice of pub, though perhaps Charles has done more to discredit the monarch than most.

Class War levitate the Daily Mail
Class War levitate Kensington Town Hall

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All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

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City Airport Docklands

King George V Dock, 1984

Back in 1984 I got permission from the Port of London Authority to photograph inside the areas of the Royal Docks which they had closed down three years earlier. I’d been photographing around the edges of the docks occasionally over the past three years and needed to get inside to complete my project. A few pictures were shown and published from it over the years, and in 2013 published the book of the project on Blurb as ‘The Deserted Royals‘. Still available as either a reasonably priced PDF or expensive paperback, and there is a extensive preview on the Blurb page.

By the time I took the picture above, the public planning inquiry into a Docklands STOLport as a city centre air transport gateway on this site six miles from the centre of London had been going for around a month, though detailed planning permission was only granted in early 1986. Work started immediately, and the first aircraft landed in May 1987, with the airport opening for business on 26 October 1987, though the Queen came and did the formal opening a few weeks later.

Like all airports it grew, and the promises made to the planning inquiry were soon forgotten. There are still some limitations on traffic there, but it is no longer used by the whispering turboprop STOL aircraft it was built for, but people close to the flightpath for miles around suffer from deafening jets which often seem to approach at lower heights than promised. The number of flights allowed has grown hugely over the years and in 2017 there were over 80,000 take-offs and landings – an average of around 220 per day. Fortunately there have been no crashes on approach or take-off but given the highly built-up areas around a major catastrophe remains likely.

I went to the airport with protesters from HACAN East, led by John Stewart, local residents who want their views on the airport and its future to be taken into consideration and are calling for no further expansion, no increase in air or noise pollution and for and end to the concentrated flight paths which have made life a misery for those under them.

They had planned a event to attract media attention rather than a confrontation with the airport, with a team dressed as bakers carrying a 30th birthday cake from the terminal entrance to the airport offices, though in the event only one local newspaper photographer and myself arrived to take pictures. HACAN want a constructive engagement with the airport, and City Airport’s Director of Public Affairs Liam McKay who met them stressed that the airport also wanted to be a good neighbour – though quite how possible that will be is questionable. The airport owners – who now include a Canadian-led consortium and the Kuwait Investment Authority – will be rather more interested in increasing returns than the health, safety and sanity of East Londoners.

In a civilised gesture we were invited in for tea and coffee, and to share a slice of the birthday cake, though McKay refused my request to photograph him cutting it. It was good coffee and the cake was fine – and I hope the the City Airport office staff enjoyed the rest of it after we left.

30th Birthday cake for London City Airport

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My London Diary : London Photos : Hull : River Lea/Lee Valley : London’s Industrial Heritage

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

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Faces from the Forest

Guardians of the Forest, indigenous leaders from Latin America, Indonesia and Africa, came to London on their way to the COP23 UN Climate Change Conference in Bonn where they were to argue that the continuing maintenance of the forests by their indigenous inhabitants is vital in the fight against climate change, and that the clearance and devastation has to be stopped.

Their rally in Parliament Square commemorated the many who have lost their lives defending the forests against exploitation by mining companies, clearances for timber and agriculture such as the production of palm oil, much of it carried out by companies registered and listed in London. A few of those who have been killed for our profits were shown in photographs held up by some of the protesters, but most of the deaths over the years have gone unrecorded and, except by their families and tribes, unmourned.

Profit and “progress” has eliminated many who have stood in its way, usually with little thought and less conscience, seeking short-term gain for rich investors but ignoring the death and distress their activities cause.

But in the longer term it is not just the forests and the indigenous people who are suffering, as these forests are a vital part of our global life support system. We need them and we need them to be maintained sustainably. And while the exploiters are thoughtlessly destroying them, the people who live in them have hundreds or thousands of years of experience in living with them and keeping them alive – and are truly the ‘Guardians of the Forests’.

It was a privilege to meet these people and to photograph them. Here are a few pictures of their strong faces which so impressed me.

You can read more about the event at Guardians of the Forest – COP23.

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My London Diary : London Photos : Hull : River Lea/Lee Valley : London’s Industrial Heritage

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

To order prints or reproduce images

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