Archive for April, 2018

More from Hull

Sunday, April 15th, 2018

Another six pictures from 1985 for my Hull web site. They include pictures from Beverley Rd, Selby St and Springbank. ‘Still Occupied – a view of Hull‘ now has over 530 black and white images I made in the city from 1973 to 1985. I am gradually adding the texts I have written about most of the pictures. Please feel free to comment here with any further information or corrections about these images.
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85-10n-44: 46 Beverley Rd, 1985 – Beverley

Back in 1892, 46 Beverley Rd was the home of dentist Zachariah Charles Blyth L.D.S.,R.C.S. Later he had a son, Joseph Charles, killed in 1917 in the Great War, and three daughters, Hilda, Violet, and Dora.

Presumably this house and No 44 were once a part of Kingston College, built 1836-7, , where a pair of similar gate-piers (which have lost the decorative top) still stand on Beverley Rd, flanking a path leading the the Kingston Youth Centre, which is set back a short distance from the road. It was perhaps built at the same time as the former College lodge at No 44 next door had its upper storey added.


85-10n-46: Bridge across site of Cottingham Drain, Bridlington Ave area, 1985 – Beverley

Much of Hull is below the level of the highest tides, and fairly large areas below sea level. The whole of the Hull basin had been subject to extensive drainage schemes since the early middle ages, with drainage ditches (known as drains or dykes) discharging water from low-lying areas into the River Hull at low tides. One of the older which came through to the Hull at High Flags was Setting Dyke, and after the Cottingham Drain was dug following an Act of Parliament around 1770 it joined to Setting Dyke between Ella Street and Victoria Avenue near the southern end of Newland Avenue. The combined drain, now known as the Cottingham Drain then continued east past Beverley Road before turneing south parallet with Beverley Rd to go under Norfolk St and then turn east again to meet the River Hull at High Flags.

There was still water in the Cottingham Drain when I first came to Hull in the 1960s, but shortly after these drains were filled in, the water going into the sewage system, Setting Dyke flowing into the sewer on National Avenue and
Cottingham Drain into the sewer on Cottingham Road. The filled in drains were grassed over, with much of their length becoming foot and cycle paths, and you can still follow most of their course on satellite imagery.

This bridge was left in place, in parkland somewhere near Bridlington Avenue. I looked for it briefly last year but couldn’t find it, but it may well still be there.


85-10n-52: St George’s Hotel, Selby St, 1985 – Hessle Rd

In the background of this image, on the side of one of the more recent houses you can see the image of a game of rugby league in the brickwork. You see this if you look out to the right as your train nears Hull, in Farnella Close off of Selby St. The picture was taken on Selby St and the pub on the corner of St George’s Rd is the nineteenth century St George’s Hotel.

The nearer house has been demolished and the area became part of the pub garden. The pub became noted for its drag acts when the landlord was female impersonater Bobby Mandrell, “Hull’s Most Glamorous Landlady”. It closed in 2013, but was reopened in 2016 and shortly after changed its name to the Loud Mouth Count Hotel.


85-10n-53: Footbridge across railway line, Selby St, 1985 – Hessle Rd

There is still a footbridge across the railway leading from Selby St to Walliker St, though both houses in the foreground and those on the far side corner of Arthur St have been demolished. That on the near side corner is still standing as are the lower houses further down Walliker St. THe large roofs in the distance were those of the now closed Charleston Club (a redevelopment opportunity) close to Anlaby Rd and other buildings on Anlaby Rd.

Samuel Walliker (1821–92), born in Bury St Edmunds, was postmaster in Hull from 1863 until 1881 and lived at Ashburnham House on Anlaby Rd not far away. Walliker Street was laid out in 1881.

Walliker, who had begun his career in London under Sir Rowland Hill, was also noted as a philanthropist. He moved to become Postmaster of Birmingham in 1881 (until he retired in 1891) and the following year set up The Society for Promoting Country Trips and Garden Parties for Poor Old People in around 1882, and was President of the Kyrle Society (Window Gardening Section), an organisation founded in 1878 to provide window boxes for slum dwellers.

He had a song composed about him around 1871, ‘The Hull Postmaster’ published as sheet music celebrating the opening of a money order office and savings bank in Wellington St, to the tune ‘The Arethusa’, also known as ‘The Saucy Arethusa’, a well known folk tune dating from around 1700. Unfortunately I’ve been unable to find the words of ‘The Hull Postmaster’.


85-10n-54: Walliker Street from the footbridge, 1985 – Hessle Rd

The house at left of the picture has been demolished and this is now an area of green space with a footpath. The nearer houses on Arther St are still standing, but those beyond have been demolished and recently replace by a new block of what looks like sheltered housing.


85-10n-56; Shakespeare TV Sales and Service, Springbank, 1985 – Springbank

Shakespeare TV was at 177 Spring Bank, now the Adonai Food Store, next door to the Swedenborgian Church, built in 1875 as the New Jerusalem Church or Swedenborgian (New Jerusalem) Chapel, which was for some years after its closure as a church 9in 1948 a second-hand furniture showroom, Bargain Centre & Removals but is now the ICF Church, and the red brick visible at the right of the picture has been painted cream.
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Clicking on any of the above images should take you to a slightly larger image on ‘Still Occupied – a view of Hull’.
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There are no adverts on this site and it receives no sponsorship, and I like to keep it that way. But it does take a considerable amount of my time and thought, and if you enjoy reading it, a small donation – perhaps the cost of a beer – would be appreciated.

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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Quaker St 1978

Saturday, April 14th, 2018

Two more of my pictures from London in 1978.


17h25 Quaker St, Shoreditch, London 1978

I took this picture on Quaker St, with the woman about to step onto Sheba St, beyond which you can see the openings of Wilkes St and Grey Eagle St. Beyond that is a long building with 7 bays, which, unlike the rest of this is still standing.

The bakers on the corner with its HOVIS sign was clearly closed and derelict and this whole area due for demolition.

Quaker St (originally called Westbury St) is crossed by Wheeler Street, and one of the earliest Quaker Meeting Houses was here in the 17th century. The building which replaced it, Bedford House, is now Grade II listed.

The only building in the picture still partly standing is that distant long building, Silwex House at 1-9 Quaker Street. It was built in 1888 as stables for the Great Eastern Railway and has a similar long brick appearance with 7 gables at the rear facing the railway line out of Liverpool St, where the Braithwaite viaduct, build 1839-42 is a listed building. Silwex house later became a part of the nearby Truman Brewery. Planning permission was granted to convert it into a 250 room hotel, which included a 3 storey roof extension, with the original front and back walls being retained.


17h32: Grey Eagle St, Shoreditch, London 1978

Taken somewhere near Brick Lane, this is a short stretch of road ending at the railway line into Liverpool St. It no longer exists but I am fairly sure that this was the section of Grey Eagle St to the north of Quaker St, where there is now a gate leading to Eagle Works. The buildings on both sides of the street have now gone.

It was a pity that my black and white pictures did not include the two buildings on the corners of Quaker St and Grey Eagle St, the Grey Eagle Pub and Leons, though I think I photographed one or both in colour. But in 1978 I was still working on colour transparency and never managed to develop a reliable filing system.

As well as Grey Eagle St there is also a Black Eagle St (now Dray Walk) not far away. At the end of the 16th century the area belonged to a goldsmith, Richard Hanbury, who leased part to brickmaker Edward Hemmynge, perhaps the source of Brick Lane, though there were other later brickworks in the area. Quaker St was laid out around 1656 by William Browne who had leased three acres of pasture. Hanbury’s daughter married Sir Richard Wheler (hence Wheler St) whose family retained much of the area, leasing parts out. Both Grey Eagle St and Black Eagle St were developed by one of the lessees, John Stott, a mariner from Stepney around 1661-70, and in 1666 the Black Eagle Brewery was built, possibly by London entrepreneur William Bucknall on land leased from Stott. Some sources say the Brewery name came from the strret name, but its origin is unclear.

Around 1679 the brewery with its eagle trademark was acquired by Joseph Truman who had learnt the trade there (though the family records say a family member, William Truman, a brewer, attacked the Lord Mayor of London during Wat Tylers 1381 revolt) and slowly began to grow into a huge concern. Under one of his younger sons, Benjamin Truman, it became the third biggest brewery in London. In 1789 the young Quaker businessman Sampson Hanbury purchased a share in the brewery and gradually bought more, taking over the running of what with the company becoming Truman and Hanbury. Some years after Hanbury’s nephew Thomas Fowell Buxton became a partner the company became Truman, Hanbury, Buxton and Company. Buxton was a partner with William Wilberforce in the Anti-Slavery Society founded in 1823.

Another brewer, Thomas Pryor joined the company in 1816, and the business was run by the three brewing families, Hanbury, Buxton and Pryor until the 1950s, becoming the largest brewery in London, outproducing Barclay Perkins, around 1850. The company was the subject of a bitter takeover battle between Watney’s and Grand Met in 1971. Grand Met won and the following year rubbed salt into the wound by taking over Watney’s. In 1989 Grand Met, who had failed to keep up with the changes in beer consumption towards real ales, realised that the London property boom made the site more valuable than a not too profitable brewery and closed it. But the property bubble burst, and in 1995 the 10 acre site was sold to the Zeloof partnership, who reopened Black Eagle St as Dray Walk and The Old Truman Brewery as a venue for events of various kinds.

[Thanks To Martyn Cornell’s Zythophile beer blog for much of the brewery information in a highly detailed article about the Truman Black Eagle Brewery. He gives a great deal more information, particularly about the beers and changes in types of beer over the ages. Trumans grew on porter, then switched to pale ales as tastes changed.]

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These pictures are on my London Photographs site, and the post is based on one made on Facebook when I posted links to these two pictures. You can view the 1978 index page for almost a hundred selected pictures of London taken that year and click on any of the thumbnails to get a larger image.

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There are no adverts on this site and it receives no sponsorship, and I like to keep it that way. But it does take a considerable amount of my time and thought, and if you enjoy reading it, a small donation – perhaps the cost of a beer – would be appreciated.

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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Class War Return to the Ripper

Friday, April 13th, 2018

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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There are no adverts on this site and it receives no sponsorship, and I like to keep it that way. But it does take a considerable amount of my time and thought, and if you enjoy reading it, a small donation – perhaps the cost of a beer – would be appreciated.

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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Budgies Revolt!

Thursday, April 12th, 2018


17h42Sclater St, Spitalfields, London 1978

Although the Singing Canaries and Pet Budgies didn’t revolt, others did on their behalf, and the open air market in this area, known collectively as Club Row disappeared a few years after I took this picture in 1978. Within a few seconds I took another picture which makes the location clear.


17h36: Sclater St, Spitalfields, London 1978

As well as the modern street name, The plaque on the wall above and to the left of it states “This is Sclater St 1798”. To the right are the shops of Brick Lane.

Sclater Street had long been famous for having a bird market every Sunday, but during the rest of the week there were just a few shops, such as this, still operating. Trowers with its ‘Singing Canaries & Pet Budgies’ had a different name on the shop front here, part obscured by a basket. It is now a shop selling women’s fashion.

It wasn’t just birds that were sold here, at least in earlier days, but a wide range of wild animals. The whole area – which crossed over the Bethnal Green Road into a street called Club Row – was known as Club Row Market and back in the 1950s you could buy puppies, cats, snakes, gerbils, monkeys and more – even the occasional lion cub. Pressure by animals rights groups and bodies such as the RSPCA eventually led to the end of live animal sales, finally banned on the streets by Tower Hamlets Council in 1983.

The house has been done up a bit since, the signage removed and a new door added with the window shuttered, while the first floor now has windows and curtains and appears occupied, and, like most surfaces around Brick Lane is now covered with graffiti. Back then there was relatively little graffiti, and the word ‘REVOLT’ really stood out, though the second word, which appears to be AGAIL4 is incomprehensible to me. Further to the right is a reminder that this area was close to Bethnal Green Road where the National Front used to come to sell their racist news sheets – and were sometimes involved in scuffles with anti-racists.

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These pictures are on my London Photographs site, and the post is based on one made on Facebook when I posted links to these two pictures. You can view the 1978 index page for almost a hundred selected pictures of London taken that year and click on any of the thumbnails to get a larger image.

______________________________________________________

There are no adverts on this site and it receives no sponsorship, and I like to keep it that way. But it does take a considerable amount of my time and thought, and if you enjoy reading it, a small donation – perhaps the cost of a beer – would be appreciated.

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

________________________________________________________

Justice for Palestine

Wednesday, April 11th, 2018

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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There are no adverts on this site and it receives no sponsorship, and I like to keep it that way. But it does take a considerable amount of my time and thought, and if you enjoy reading it, a small donation – perhaps the cost of a beer – would be appreciated.

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

________________________________________________________

DOCK

Tuesday, April 10th, 2018

Currently showing at the HIP Gallery in Hull until May 18th is DOCK‘, showing St. Andrew’s Dock in Hull from its heyday as the heart of Hull’s thriving fishing industry through its decline into dereliction to how it stands now, as a sad wasteland.

The show was curated by Hull photographer Will Slater, who asked me to send a dozen of my pictures he had seen on my Hull web site, Still Occupied: A View of Hull, for it.

St Andrew’s Dock was built in the 1880s, opening in 1883. Though it had been designed for coal and general trade, from its opening it became the dock for what was then a fast growing fishing industry. It needed to be extended in 1895. There were plans for further expansion and modernisation in the 1930s, but these came to nothing.

In 1972, the neighbouring Albert and William Wright docks closed to commercial traffic and three years later in 1975 the fishing fleet moved to these, leaving behind St Andrew’s Dock, where the fish quay was in poor condition and the dock not suited to the modern large trawlers. But the Cod Wars soon put an end to Hull’s fishing industry, and later still what little fish there was being landed (mainly from Icelandic boats) in Hull moved to Grimsby.

My pictures in the show all come from 1981-1985, when most of the dock and its buildings were still there, some still in use as offices and workshops. It was only a short walk from them to the new home for the trawlers. Now relatively little remains, the main Lord Line building is there, but has been left open to vandalism, almost certainly deliberately, along with a couple of listed buildings and I two others when I photographed there last year.

There has been considerable controversy about the future of the site, with several proposals coming to nothing. The west of the site was years ago turned into the St Andrews Quay Retail Park, but the older part remains, the dock entrance closed and the dock silted up. It has become a popular subject for many taking pictures in Hull, and some of these by others including the curator form the third part of the show.

I was a little embarrassed by the state of some of the pictures I was asked to provide as the years haven’t dealt kindly with the negatives. Back in the 1980s too, technical standards perhaps weren’t so high as we seldom saw most pictures larger than 8×10 inches, while now they appear (in small sections) on my screen at perhaps 60 inches across from a full size scan – though prints at 300dpi will be a more sensible size. Fortunately it is now also possible to correct some – but not all – of the defects digitally.

I’ve yet to see the actual show, but hope to go before it closes. The pictures on this post are some of those that I sent and may not all be on display. For most of them it will be the first time they are seen in Hull, though I think a couple were in the 148 of my images shown at the Ferens Art Gallery in 1983.

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There are no adverts on this site and it receives no sponsorship, and I like to keep it that way. But it does take a considerable amount of my time and thought, and if you enjoy reading it, a small donation – perhaps the cost of a beer – would be appreciated.

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

________________________________________________________

Halloween in South Ken

Friday, April 6th, 2018

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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There are no adverts on this site and it receives no sponsorship, and I like to keep it that way. But it does take a considerable amount of my time and thought, and if you enjoy reading it, a small donation – perhaps the cost of a beer – would be appreciated.

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

________________________________________________________

Pregnant Then Screwed

Thursday, April 5th, 2018

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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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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United Families and Friends march

Wednesday, April 4th, 2018

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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There are no adverts on this site and it receives no sponsorship, and I like to keep it that way. But it does take a considerable amount of my time and thought, and if you enjoy reading it, a small donation – perhaps the cost of a beer – would be appreciated.

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

________________________________________________________

March 2018

Tuesday, April 3rd, 2018

Thanks to a wet Bank Holiday Monday, My London Diary is now complete for March.

Comments on any of these posts are welcome here or on Facebook, where my site has albums for most of these events, usually with fewer pictures than on My London Diary.

Mar 2018

Against Israeli Land Day massacre


Defend Afrin – Bring Anna Home
BMXLife Charity Bunny Hop


Land Day protest against Israeli state
Staines Good Friday Procession


Shut Down Yarl’s Wood
Cleaners protest at Royal Opera House
Support for Yarls Wood strikers
Alfie’s Army at Downing St
British Museum Carillion staff
Staines & Shortwood Common


March Against Racism
University teachers march for pensions
Kurds protest Turkish Invasion of Afrin
Chiswick House Gardens
Don’t Bomb Syria
Remember Fukushima, 7th Anniversary
London March for Freedom for Tibet
Against attacks on Afrin
Sri Lankans protest Buddhist violence
Protest forcible religious conversions
Million Women Rise
Unilever & Myanmar’s Rohingya genocide


Reinstate the Royal Opera House 6
Solidarity with Yarl’s Wood
London Women’s Strike
Family Courts put on Trial
Shut Guantanamo at new US Embassy
Embassy Quarter


IWGB protest at Graduation Dinner
More Staines
No More Deaths On Our Streets

London Images

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There are no adverts on this site and it receives no sponsorship, and I like to keep it that way. But it does take a considerable amount of my time and thought, and if you enjoy reading it, a small donation – perhaps the cost of a beer – would be appreciated.

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

________________________________________________________