May, 2009 | >Re-PHOTO

Banstead May Fayre

I started photographing May Queen festivals in 2005, when writing a lecture about photographer Tony Ray Jones who died tragically young in 1972, I came across a picture he had taken at the London May Queen Festival in the 1960s. This seemed to fit rather nicely into the work I’d been trying to do about suburban life, and Google and a fair amount of persistence led me to take the train to Hayes, Kent, where I had found the annual crowning of the London May Queen was still taking place almost 40 years on.

Taking pictures of young girls isn’t always without problems, but I talked to people about what I wanted to do and most of them were happy – and certainly once they had seen the pictures from that event I got invitations to photograph at other May Queen events. By last year – when I photographed two events in April and three in May (as well as some maypole dancing) I felt I had enough work for an exhibition and book – but was disappointed when a show at a major venue was called off on financial grounds at the final stage. I’m still hoping it will happen at some point and a book still seems likely, though it may not be for several years.

This year I’ve been working on other things, but I decide to take another trip to Banstead, where I’d photographed their May Fayre in 2006, as this year they were celebrating their 25th May Queen. As well as this year’s May Queen there were ten previous Queens in the procession.

The May Queen plays an important part in the May Fayre at Banstead, which also involves many other local groups. In 2006 there had also been local press photographers taking pictures, but the local press has now more or less disappeared. Of course there were many amateurs taking pictures, doubtless some of them taking good pictures (as yet none appear to have found their way to Flickr) but I think it’s important to record events such as this as a part of a wider context.

More of my pictures from the event on My London Diary.

May Day the Stalinist Way

Hearing on the radio the news of Stalin’s death in 1953 is one of my earliest precisely datable memories. At the time it was still possible to think of him warmly as ‘Uncle Joe’, whose stand against Hitler had made it possible for us to win the war. Without him history would have been different, and Britain would most likely have suffered a German conquest and occupation.

But of course we now know much more about the ‘Great Terror’, the ruthless purges, the show trials and the estimated 20-30 million who died under his orders. Few of us would now want to march behind his portrait, as a number of groups in the May Day march in London do.

As well as the usual large groups of Turkish and Kurdish communists, there are also many other groups in the march, headed by a number of trade union banners. It’s a real shame that May Day is not a Bank Holiday, when a rather larger and more representative event might be expected.

The rally in Trafalgar Square is dominated by the trade unions, and many marchers didn’t stay. The final speeches were the most interesting, especially with a very lively Tony Benn who now seems to be getting younger with every public appearance.

One trade unionist missing was Jack Jones, whose funeral Tony Benn and some of the others had attended earlier in the day.

On the march was a sizeable block of Sri Lankan Tamils who went on to join the continuing demonstration in Parliament Square against the continued assault by government forces on civilians and Tamil Tigers confined in a small area a couple of miles wide. Considerably unwelcome was another group of Sri Lankans, the Sinhalese JVP, a party now part of the Sri Lankan government, and whose intervention stopped the government considering a federal solution and led to the all-out attacks on the LTTE.

The JVP on the March

More about the event and lots of pictures on My London Diary.

No Half Measures

Green campaigners demonstrated opposite Downing St on Thursday 29 April against the Government’s intention to allow the building of new coal-fired power stations with only limited carbon capture.

© 2009 Peter Marshall.
Joss Garman from Greenpeace addresses the demo
Coal is inherently the ‘dirtiest’ of fuels, releasing large quantities of carbon dioxide on burning. Current carbon capture and storage technologies can cut emissions by around 20%, still leaving a massive pollution.

Our government want to build new coal power stations despite this, promising that in 15 years time unless all the carbon can be captured they will be close. As several speakers, including Green MEP for London Jean Lambert pointed out, it is by no means certain that 100% CCS will be achievable, and almost certain that if it isn’t no government will close down these dirty power stations.

More on the demonstration on My London Diary.

WMD in London

April 28 is International Workers Memorial Day, recognised in many countries around the world. Consultations are taking place over recognition by the UK government, with construction workers union ICATT pressing for it to be made a Bank Holiday, but at the moment although WMD was observed in various places in the UK it remained rather easy to miss in London.

People do get killed at work. Many if not most are not killed by ‘accident’ but because of a deliberate flouting of safety practices. ‘Accident’ rates are higher among small firms and sub-contractors, where the financial incentive to ‘cut corners’ is higher.

The main London demonstration started at the statue of the Unknown Building Worker in the pavement by the south side of the road at Tower Hill. Unless you are catchng a bus there you are unlikely to see it as most pedestrians walk along the underpass and miss it. There were apparently great problems in finding a suitable location for this statue, but it is a shame it isn’t in a rather more prominent place – just a hundred yards or so west near Tower Terrace would be better.

Most of those taking part in the march and rally were construction workers, many in work clothes and carrying hard hats. Also present were relatives of some of those killed – there are roughly 80 such deaths a year (as well as many more who die from exposure to asbestos.)

Not far away the march stopped for a short period of silence outside a site where a worker was killed in March, before going on to the London offices of the Health and Safety Executive. HSE staff there complain about the number of inspectors being cut – and less inspections being made. There are very few prosecutions brought, and even when these are successful, penalties are often virtually negligible. We need much tougher laws, better enforcement and sensible sentences to improve safety at work.

You can read a fuller account of the march and rally with more pictures on My London Diary

Guggenheim Grants

The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has contributed greatly to photography over the years.

Ansel Adams, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Diane Arbus, Lewis Baltz, Harry Callahan, Paul Caponigro, William Christenberry, Imogen Cunningham, Roy De Carava, William Eggleston…

These are just a few of the more famous photographers who have been awarded fellowships in the past – I soon got tired with reading through the listings.

Great works like Walker Evans’s ‘American Photographs‘, Robert Frank’s ‘The Americans‘ and Edward Weston’s pictures for ‘California and the West‘ would not have been possible without them. Of course as well as names familiar to everyone, there are also those in the Guggenheim lists who are less well known – and even some of those with photography prizes who I’ve never heard of.

Photographers only form a small proportion of the over 16,000 fellows it has supported in 85 years, and, as it tells you on the State of the Art blog, 7 of the 180 fellowships this year went to photographers. You’ll find all 7 mentioned there with one of their pictures and at least in most cases a link to more work.

Many in the UK will have come across landscape photographer Thomas Joshua Cooper, Professor and Senior Researcher in Fine Art, The Glasgow School of Art. His exhibition True opened at the Haunch of Venison gallery in London last Friday (until 30 May 2009.)

Another photographer among the seven honoured who I’ve written about several times is Brian Ulrich. I’m pleased to see that his work has been recognised in this way.

Visteon Workers Win – But Fight Continues

One of the better pieces of news on May Day was that the occupation and picketing by sacked Visteon workers in Belfast, Enfield and Basildon and the strong support given by their union, Unite, has led to a greatly improved offer on severance pay, which the workers have now voted to accept.

The deal, achieved through the kind of fighting spirit I witnessed on my visits to the plant at Enfield shortly after the factory occupation started and when the workers came out of the works following a court order has been described as “ten times better” than the initial offer, with most workers getting six months or a year’s pay. The campaign also benefited from considerable support by students and trade unionists who brought supplies and joined in the pickets and demonstrations at the plant.

One of the workers from Enfield gave a powerful address at the Trade Union May Day rally in Trafalgar Square, stressing the need to stand up and fight for your rights – as these men and women did.

However, despite this victory there is still a battle to be fought over pensions, which highlights our unsatisfactory laws governing company pension schemes. Legislation is needed to ensure that money paid into these by employees and employer should be entirely separate from company accounts and not something that can be lost.

After the rally in Trafalgar Square, workers and supporters held a picket outside the offices of Visteon administrators KPMG just off Fleet Street (once of course the home of the UK Newspaper industry.) They demanded that their pension funds be restored to them.

There were speeches from several of the workers, including Raymond who had spoken earlier at Trafalgar Square, as well as one of the local Unite officials. The picket was also supported by London anarchists, including members of the London Branch of the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World), and trade unionists.