No Third Runway – 31 May 2008 – several thousand campaigners against the expansion of London’s Heathrow Airport marched from Hatton Cross through part of the airport to the village of Sipson which will be obliterated if the third runway is built.
I’m not sure whether it was on this occasion or another similar event where I was approached and asked if I would like to be the official photographer at height on a cherry-picker taking the photograph of thousands below me on the ground in a giant ‘NO’ each holding up the message ‘NO’ but having no head at all for heights I was very pleased to be taking part in the event with both feet firmly on the ground. I was holding up my poster with its ‘NO’ in one hand and my camera in the other when I made this picture.
I don’t think I’ve ever had much of a head for heights. Perhaps it was my early experiences when my father was sometimes left with the baby and had to take to to work with him – even when he was up fixing roofs. I have some vague but vivid memories of being up on the roof of a house, perhaps our own, under the Heathrow flightpath with aircraft – propellor rather than jet in those days – passing low overhead. But things have worsened in more recent years as my balance has worsened, and now even low walls are a step too high.
The account on My London Diary – Heathrow – Make a Noise – No Third Runway – makes my views on Heathrow clear, beginning with the paragraph “It is now obvious to everyone with their head out of the sand is that London Heathrow is in the wrong place. It always was, since its creation by subterfuge and lies during the last years of the war, but no government since has had the nerve to challenge the powerful aviation lobby.“
It was a view backed by the politicians of all parties who came to speak at the rally, though Labour – then in government – were only (if ably) represented by local MP for Hayes and Harlington, John McDonnell. And although the Deputy Mayor of London was there, Mayor Boris Johnson who had promised to come had decided instead to fly off for a holiday in Turkey – just as he has done on various occasions as Prime Minister. The Archbishop of Canterbury had also been expected, but was at the last minute unable to make it and sent an envoy with his message.
Most of those marching were local residents, particularly from Sipson and Harmondsworth which would be destroyed by the development, but also from the other areas under the flightpath, which includes a great swathe of West London. Given the nature of the protest and those taking part the level of police interest in it seemed excessive, and it was noticeable that they seemed to be particularly interested in photographing and filming the photographers who were covering the protest – I several times found myself staring into the lens of the police team.
I don’t know why the police do this, nor what happens to the photographs and videos. On the only occasion I’ve bothered to send a Freedom of Information request requesting details of the photographs they have of me from a number of events where they had quite clearly taken them I received a reply stating that there were no images on record… We are not being told the truth.
Notably missing from the event were any representatives of Spelthorne Council, my local council and the only council in the area not to oppose the expansion. The Conservative MP for Spelthorne, David Wilsher also supported airport expansion against the then party line and “also denies that climate change is caused by human activities and some constituents expect him to announce his membership of the flat earth society any day soon. Best known for his introduction of the anti-gay ‘Section 28’ amendment in 1988 he replaced for the 2010 election by Kwasi Kwarteng after being implicated in an expenses scandal involving the payment of £105,00 of parliamentary expenses to a company set up with his partner to run his office. The inquiry into his expenses was suspended because of his poor health.
You can read a full account of the march and rally with a large number of pictures on My London Diary: Heathrow – No Third Runway
Nurses, Coal, Art, Biafrans & Sunflowers – Saturday May 30th 2015 was another varied day of events and protests across London.
Filipino Nurses tell Daily Mail to apologise – Kensington.
I began the day travelling to High Street Kensington, just a short walk from the offices of the Daily Mail. It has the largest circulation of any UK newspaper but is also the UK’s least reliable source of information. Recently The Factual analysed 1,000 articles from each of 245 major news sources from around the world although mainly from the USA and including international news organisations such as Reuters and AP. The Mail came out with the third lowest score of any with a Factual Grade of 39.7% compared to the average of 61.9%. In a table listing all the results, even The Sun does a little better, as do the Daily Express and RT News, though all of these are way below average while The Guardian was above average along with the BBC, though neither among the top scorers.
We don’t have a free press in this country, we have a press largely controlled by a small number of billionaires who, as these figures show, use it largely as a source of disinformation and the promotion of their prejudices – including homophobia, racism and misogyny. Articles are more generally written as click-bait rather than with any desire to inform or educate, and it was hardly surprising when in 2016 it was sanctioned by the International Press Standards Organisation for violating professional norms for accuracy and in 2017 Wikipedia editors decided it was a “generally unreliable” source.
I was there for the start of a long protest by Filipino health workers outside the Daily Mail over its reporting of the Victoriano Chua case which insulted Filipino NHS workers as a whole despite the vital contribution they make to the NHS. The demanded the Daily Mail apologise for its racist comments and to recognise the contribution that they make, keeping our NHS afloat. As someone who a dozen years earlier had been looked after in intensive care by a Filipino nurse I feel very grateful to them, though angry at the UK government for not training enough nurses and doctors – and in particular for removing the training bursary for nurses which has now made the situation much worse. But I did feel they were asking the leopard to change its spots.
I left the Filipinos as their protest was still building up and journeyed across London to Peckham Rye where we were invited to take a tour of the proposed Peckham Coal Line elevated linear urban park between Peckham Rye and Queens Road Peckham stations as a distant part of the Chelsea Fringe Festival events – something vaguely related to the annual flower show.
The Coal Line was frankly hugely over-hyped, particularly in comparing it to New York’s ‘High Line’, and the walk was largely close to but not on the actual proposed line. The former coal sidings on the viaduct which inspired the project are next to a working rail line and could only be seen looking down from neighbouring buildings.
As I commented: “The walk is essentially an urban linear park that would make a useful short cut for some local walkers and cyclists, and could also be a part of a longer leisure walk from Brixton to the Thames. I hope it comes into existence, as the cost would be relatively low and it would be a useful addition to the area.“
But I still enjoyed an interesting walk, visiting both the Bussey Building in the former industrial estate Copeland Park south of the line and the multi-storey car park to the north which now houses a cafe, a local radio performance space and another rooftop bar next to the Derek Jarman memorial garden and has good views of Peckham and central London. And having followed the official route to Queens Road Peckham I walked back a different way vaguely along the Coal Line at ground level, finally travelling more closely along it in an Overground train that took me to Canada Water and the Jubilee Line to Waterloo.
UK Uncut met outside Waterloo station for their mystery protest taking direct action at an undisclosed location. Police liaison officers tried to find out where they were going and what they intended to do, but nobody was talking to them. Finally they set off and marched the short distance to Westminster Bridge where they spread a large piece of cloth on the roadway and painted a banner telling Parliament that collecting dodged taxes would bring in more than cutting public services.
They lifted up the banner and then ‘dropped’ it over the side of the bridge. It was a long run to take a picture of it hanging from the bridge, and I’m not sure worth the effort. It would have been better to have lowered it on the downstream side so as to get the Houses of Parliament in the background.
Another group of protesters in Parliament Square were protesting against the plans to get rid of the Human Rights Act, and some of the UK Uncut people had joined them before the end of the ‘Art’ protest. In May 2022 the government announced it was getting rid of the act and replacing it with a ‘British Bill of Rights’ which will allow the police to “perform freer functions“, Leading charities concerned with human rights have condemned the changes as affecting “the ability of individuals to hold the government and public bodies to account by bringing cases when their human rights have been breached.” They state “The Human Rights Act has greatly benefited a vast number of people from across society, improving their health and wellbeing; ensuring their dignity, autonomy, privacy, and family life; and overall improving their quality of life.” Many see the changes as yet another move towards fascism and a police state.
Biafra came from the Kingdom of Nri of the Igbo people, which lasted from the 10th century to 1911 and was one of Africa’s great civilisations before the European colonisation.
Biafra was incorporated into Southern Nigeria by the colonialists in the 1884 Berlin Conference and then became part of the united Nigeria in 1914. Biafrans declared independence from Nigeria in 1967, but lost the long and bloody civil war that followed, with many Biafran civilians dying of starvation.
Mass rally Supports National Gallery strikers – Trafalgar Square
After a large rally in Trafalgar Square, National Gallery staff striking against privatisation marched towards the Sainsbury Wing, holding a sit down and short rally outside after police blocked the doors to the gallery. The gallery doors were then locked.
Candy Udwin, a PCS rep at the National Gallery had been sacked for her trade union activities in connection with the plans to privatise gallery staff and the opposition to it by staff. Exhibitions in the Sainsbury wing have already been guarded by privatised staff, and the security there is also run by the private company. After 100 days of strike action the dispute was finally resolived in early October 2015 after the appointment of a new gallery director with terms and conditions of service protected and Udwin returning to work.
I stopped putting new photographs on my ‘MY LONDON DIARY’ web site at the start of Covid, because there was little of much interest to add. But also for technical reasons, as I was getting rather close to the limit of number of files for the site of 262, 144 which is a restriction imposed by Linux.
I was ill in March 2020, and although my symptoms didn’t match those then listed on the NHS site they did accord with some accounts by confirmed Covid victims. Fortunately they were not too serious, though I felt pretty poor for a week or so, and months later was still having problems going up hills. As a journalist I could have continued working during the lockdown, but since both my age and diabetes both increased my risks and I decided to keep away from London, crowds of any kind and meeting people indoors.
I didn’t just stay indoors, but took advantage during the lockdown to explore the area around where I live, taking bike rides of around 10 miles most mornings at a moderate speed. It was great for the first few months when there was little traffic, and our area was unusually quiet with few drivers on the three motorways and few jets taking off and landing at Heathrow. I spent a lot of time walking and cycling along the course of one of our smaller local rivers, finding places where I could photograph it. And I wore out the chainwheel of my vintage bicycle – for which I’ve only yesterday found a replacement in rather less used condition. And I’ve also put around 20,000 of my older images, mainly of London, onto Flickr.
Later came vaccinations, and a few weeks after my second jab decided I could stay home no longer, and I resumed work, though at a limited level on May Day 2021. But I still had not solved the problem about the file limit, so while I continued to upload pictures to the agency, I shared them with friends on Facebook rather than My London Diary.
I had another problem too. I had been writing My London Diary on a Windows 7 computer and had now moved to Windows 10. I’d been using the same version of Dreamweaver for around 20 years for writing this and other sites, as it worked for what I needed. But to get a new version for Windows 10 would mean doubling my Adobe subscription – and giving me something far more complex than I need. I hunted for the setup disks thinking I might be able to get the old software working on my new computer, but couldn’t find them – then realised I had installed it from floppy disks which would have been thrown away when I no longer had a drive to read them.
I woke up in the middle of the night a few months ago and realised a part solution to my problems. Which was to make My London Diary a front end for those albums which I had posted on Facebook but which then rapidly disappear into its extensive bowels and are seldom if ever seen again. When I’m writing pieces for >Re:PHOTO I make many searches on Google, and pictures I’ve put on Flickr (with captions and keywords) often turn up, but I don’t recall ever having seen one from FB. But I can find them by scrolling down my many albums and they do have a URL. One advantage is that the images are much larger before, though you will only see this if you right-click on them and open them in a separate tab or downlad them.
So far I’ve only put a few month’s work on line, and it still isn’t fully integrated with the rest of My London Diary. Here’s the page for June 2020, and then for when I restarted in May 2021. The free (and open source) web editor BlueGriffon is a little clunky compared to my ancient Dreamweaver and lacks its library elements so I can no longer automatically update elements in a large number of files. I’m also having problems finding the images for some events – and had to make new albums for a few events for a year ago.
The last image in my previous post was a general view of the north side of Deptford Broadway from close to the corner with Brookmill Road, and I commented on the ‘Antique Warehouse’ built for ‘Montague Burton, The Tailor of Taste’. I walked west along Deptfprd Broadway to take this picture from a closer viewpoint. As well as the antiques, this building was also in use as a Snooker Club, boast 16 full size tables and open 22 hours daily. Over the central door are the names Southampton and Bournemouth.
The name ‘Montague Burton the Tailor of Taste Ltd’ dates from the registration of the limited company in 1917 and was almost certainly originally visible in the large panel on the frontage although I can see no trace of it in my photograph. Burton’s architect Harry Wilson designed a whole range of similar variants of these Art Deco stores for towns and cities across the country in the 1930s, and there is a splendid ‘Spotters Guide‘ online – although it doesn’t mention Deptford. Over the central door are the names Southampton and Bournemouth, and stores often carried a list of a few of the leading branches across the frontage at the top of the ground floor windows. Burtons and Woolworths both built many branches in a Deco style and appear to have copied ideas from each other.
A slightly wonky view of No8 Deptford Broadway taken from the other side of the road. Almost all of these images were made with a 35mm Zuiko shift lens where the optical elements could be pushed both horizontally or vertically to enable me to produce images without converging or diverging verticals and play other small tricks with perspective. I still occasionally find myself trying to push other lenses in the same way and they don’t!
The Zuiko lens was a good example of this type of lens, but not entirely simple to use; it was a “manual lens” and you viewed the subject and made any necessary lens shift with the lens at its widest F2.8 aperture, then pressed a small lever to stop down the lens iris to the smaller aperture needed for the exposure. At full aperture the corners of the image were not sharp, and sometimes I failed to stop down sufficiently (or at all) to bring them into proper focus.
For this image I didn’t quite get the camera back vertical and the verticals in the building diverge, something rather less common in photographs than converging vertical. The shopfront here clearly goes across one building and a part of its neighbour (the rest of which housed the Dover Castle pub) and its missing panel allows us to view the lower part of the first floor window. Both these buildings have now been replace by a rather mediocre modern development
Continuing west, Deptford Broadway turns into New Cross Road where this charming building was built as a private house, but around 1900 the New Cross Equitable Building Society – which was founded elsewhere in New Cross in 1866 – moved in. It remained here until the Registrar of Friendly Societies closed it down in 1984, for unsafe financial practices involving large borrowings which later became rather normal.
The building then became the Deptford Seventh Day Adventist Church as my photograph shows; in 1991 they bought and moved to rather large premises on the corner of Devonshire Drive and Egerton Drive, the former St Paul’s, built as an Anglican Church in 1865-6 by the prolific church architect S S Teulon which closed in 1978, and was then used by other church groups and scouts until becoming Greenwich Seventh Day Adventist Church. Since 1994 470 New Cross Road has been the Iyengar Yoga Institute
More or less next door at 466 is this short passageway leading to Zion Chapel. Its Grade II listing places it in Brockley (its electoral ward) and dates it 1846. The listing does not mention the gateway and lantern which I think add greatly to its appeal – and which my choice of viewpoint was carefully chosen to include and emphasise.
Another picture shows the Adventist Church, the house flanking the passage to Zion Chapel and its lantern and gateway, with at the left a part of Addey & Stanhope School. Both schools were ancient foundations in Deptford, Stanhope School being founded by the vicar of Deptford, George Stanhope in 1714. Addey School was only founded in 1821, but the money came from the will of John Addey (1550-1606), the Master Shipwright at Deptford Dockyard who left £200 for the poor of Deptford. The two schools were merged in the late 19th century and moved to this location in 1899. It has since expanded considerably.
This house along with the others in the blocks on both sides of Mornington Road now look considerably smarter than in 1988. It appears to have once been some kind of offices of the Fire Brigade Union, FBU, founded in 1918. But it made me feel rather strange…
Two doors down, at 439 was the site of the 1981 New Cross Fire which killed 13 young black people, with one survivor taking his own life 2 years later. The police investigation of the fire which concluded, according to Wikipedia “that there was no evidence of arson and that the fire was believed to be accidental” enraged the black community and lead to a “Black People’s Day of Action” with 20,000 people marching from New Cross to Hyde Park. The Wikipedia article states ‘The New Cross fire, described by Darcus Howe in 2011 as “the blaze we cannot forget”, is significant as a turning point in the relationship between Black Britons, the police and the media, and marks an “intergenerational alliance to expose racism, injustices and the plight of black Britons“.’
New Cross Rd, New Cross,, Lewisham, 1988 88-10g-63
This doorway is still there at 455 New Cross Road, though looking just a little different and now with a metal gate. It seems a particularly elaborate entrance to the flats above the shops, and there was something about the light in the segment window above the door which made me see it as the dome of a head, some great intelligence incorporated into the building. Or perhaps I was hallucinating.
Class War, Edna, Police And Protesters – I had a long and busy day in Westminster on Wednesday 27th May 2015. It was the day of the Queen’s speech to parliament, reading out the intentions of the government’s coming session, and people and groups had come to the area to make their feelings about this clear.
I usually avoid any occasions involving royalty who I think reflect the worst aspects of our class-based society. We got it right in 1649, when Charles I was found guilty of attempting to “uphold in himself an unlimited and tyrannical power to rule according to his will, and to overthrow the rights and liberties of the people” and although the ‘Commonwealth’ wasn’t a great deal of fun the restoration of the monarchy was a a national tragedy even more retrograde than Brexit.
I don’t want to photograph crowds of sycophantic flag wavers – including many tourists, nor the royals themselves, who many feel are an inbred group of parasites who rose to wealth and power through the theiving, skullduggery and aggression of their ancestors, maintaining their position through a biased military, political and legal system. Certainly we would be a better and healthier nation without them and the class system they help perpetuate.
Royal occasions also bring out the very worst in our police, and this was clearly on show in their actions against Class War and some others who had come to protest at the event. Rather than upholding the law they were making it up on the spot to avoid any possible embarrassment to the Queen, forcing people to move and making arrests without any lawful basis.
Class War had come with their controversial banner showing the political leaders and I managed to get a few images of them was they held it up for a few seconds on the Queen’s route well before she was due to arrive. But they were immediately forced to take it down and told they would be arrested if they continued to protest, with the threat that the banner would be taken from them.
It was a copy of the one that police had seized at a ‘Poor Doors’ protest a couple of months earlier and held in Bethnal Green police station (where they lost it rather than hand it back when they had to admit they had no legal basis to have taken it.) Banners aren’t cheap and Class War funds are limited to a few individuals digging in their pockets, so they rolled it up and moved away.
Police then arrested two men, one holding a video camera, and another holding under his arm a small poster with a message about austerity being stupid. As my caption states “They tell the police correctly that they have committed no offence, but the police decide to arrest them anyway. Just in case.” They were released without charge a couple of hours later.
As a large group of police were following and harassing them, Class War and friends decided to leave for a nearby pub. I followed them, along with a large squad of police, and talked with them as they stood outside quietly having a drink. On the other side of the road were around 50 police standing around watching them, including a squad of TSG, looking menacing for over an hour. I was later told police kept following some of Class War for the next six hours. It all seemed a huge waste of public money.
I’d stayed with Class War so long because it looked likely that the police were going to take action, perhaps make more arrests although no offence was being committed, but also to let the crowds and policing around the Queen’s route disperse, and then made my way up Parliament Street to Whitehall where Compassion in Care were campaigning for ‘Edna’s Law’ which would make it an offence not to act on the genuine concerns of a whistleblower and protect those revealing scandals in social care and other sectors.
This would replace the Public Interest Disclosure Act which has failed to protect the public, the victims or the whistle-blowers. Compassion in Care say that the reccomendations of the then recent Francis review “will do nothing to protect whistle-blowers or encourage anyone else to raise concerns. This is because his recommendations rely on employers and regulators – which include the very same people who have “got away with” cover-ups, ignoring concerns, and victimising whistle-blowers for many years.”
I walked on up Whitehall to Trafalgar Square where people were beginning to gather for a National Campaign against Fees and Cuts rally. A group of police were gathered around a man and arresting him, but refusing to answer any questions from a concerned crowd around them as to what was happening. A small crowd followed the police as they took the man to a nearby police van, where a police officer assaulted a young bystander who was then also arrested. Finally as the van drove away, an officer told us that the man was wanted for an earlier offence and the arrest was in no way related to the protest that was gathering. If the police had made this clear from the start all this could have been avoided.
Back in Trafalgar Square a man appeared with a mobile disco and crew and people began to dance. This turned out to be Lee Marshall (aka Disco Boy) who describes himself as an “entertainer prankster DJ host”, and apparently has gained a huge social media following, with his video stunts watched by hundreds of thousands of people and had come to perform in Trafalgar Square and elsewhere in Westminster. He moved off as the rally began.
There was a short rally for the National Campaign against Fees and Cuts (NCAFC) with various groups including Class War holding banners on the plinth of Nelson’s column before they set of for the march.
Also in Trafalgar Square were Ahwazi protesters from the Hashem Shabani Action Group whose homeland, which includes most of Iran’s oilfields, was occupied by Iran in 1925. Since then Iran has attempted to suppress their heritage and identity, in part by resettling non-Ahwazi Iranians in the area.
The students and some others at the NCAFC protest then set off to march down Whitehall, where police made an unsuccessful attempt to stop them, at Downing St, arresting several forcefully. There seemed to be little point as police numbers were clearly too few and many protesters were simply walking around them and the barriers as I did.
The Ahwazi protesters had marched with the students and they stopped in Parliament Square for a rally while the rest marched on peacefully around the area for some time stopping to protest outside the Dept of Work & Pensions and the Tory Party HQ before returning to protest noisily in front of Downing Street which was protected by mass ranks of police. They then marched on, I think intending to go towards Buckingham Palace, but I’d had enough walking around.
On the pavement opposite Downing St at the same time as the NCAFC march the People’s Assembly were holding a static ‘End Austerity Now’ protest. I listened to a few of the speeches and photographed them. But it had been a long and rather confusing day and it was time for home.
Knives, Afrin and Vedanta: Two of the four events I photographed on 26th May 2018 were connected with knife and gun crime in London, the other two about international events – the invasion of Afrin by Turkey and the fatal shooting by Indian police of protesters against the polluting activites of the Sterlite copper plant owned by Vedenta in Tamil Nadu.
‘Be the Change’ Knife and Gun Crime – Windrush Square, Brixton
London’s murder rate has increased by over a third in the last three years, and last year saw a 22% increase in recorded knife crime and 11% in gun crime. Of the 39 children and teenagers killed in the UK by knives last year over half were in London. The victims of knife crime are disproportionately young black men. Many attribute the rise in these crimes to the cuts in youth clubs, community projects, counselling and other services for young people, cuts in police and PCSO numbers and changes in illegal drug dealing.
Lambeth is an area that has suffered greatly from the cuts, and with a Labour council that often seems particularly insensitive to local needs, particular over housing where it has been colluding with developers over profiting from the destruction of social housing. It has also been subjected to some of the most discriminatory policing which has led to several riots or uprisings in Brixton over the years.
Brixton Seventh Day Adventist Church is in the centre of Brixton, worshipping a short walk from Windrush Square, where they had come on Saturday morning when normally they would be in church to protest and witness their concerns over the deaths. I’d missed photographing their march to the Square as they had taken a different route to that I’d expected but was able to spend some time photographing them speaking and singing the gospel. But it did seem to me that despite being hugely concerned and convinced in their beliefs that they were preaching only to the converted, with few of those walking past stopping to listen.
Youth Peace Walk by Korean-based cult – Langham Place
I left Brixton and was making my way to the BBC when I was surprised by the Korean-based IYPG (International Peace Youth Group) making their way down Langham Place and stopped to photograph them. I knew nothing about them but saw they were marching with a posted about knife crime in London.
Back home later in the day I did my research on the web, finding the IYPG had held annual peace walks in countries around the world on or around May 25th since 2013, commemorating the ‘Declaration of World Peace’. The group was founded in South Korea by Mr Man Hee Lee, a war veteran and peacemaker who claims to have had a personal revelation linked to the biblical Book of Revelations. He is the leader of a strange heretical Christian cult in Korea called ShinChonji and a linked organisation Mannam. Critics say that although the IPYG hosts events such as these peace walks, they do nothing to promote peace but are a part of a recruiting drive for ShinConji whose followers are obliged to give large donations to the cult.
March Against Turkish Occupation of Afrin – BBC to Westminster
Kurds and supporters held a short rally outside the BBC before marching to Downing St and Parliament Square to call for an end to the Turkish occupation of Afrin.
Among those speaking was the aunt of British volunteer Anna Campbell, killed defending Afrin. The invasion of Afrin began in January, and was carried out by Turkish forces together with former ISIS fighters. The Kurdish forces withdrew in March when they were in danger of being encircled and have vowed to continue the fight to regain Afrin through a guerilla war.
Erdogan would like to completely eliminate the Kurds who have been persecuted for many years in Turkey and to end the autonomous Kurdish led areas in both Syria and Iraq. Afrin was a part of Rojava, the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria which has a liberal socialist constitution based on direct democracy which enshrines ethnic and gender equality and other fundamental human rights including freedom of religion – a huge contrast with Turkey’s increasingly Islamic autocracy.
I left the march after a short distance at Oxford Circus to make my way to the Indian High Commission in Aldwych.
India complicit in Thoothukudi killings – India House, Aldwych
Hundreds had come to protest outside the Indian High Commission protest at the Indian government complicity in the brutal repression of protests against pollution from the Sterlite copper plant at Thoothukudi, in the Southern State of Tamil Nadu. The protest was organised by Foil Vedanta, Tamil People in UK and PARAI – Voice of Freedom and supported by South Asia Solidarity Group and others including the Socialist Party.
On May 22nd, four days earlier, Indian police had fired into a crowd of protesters, killing 12 and wounding more than 60. Protests had been continuing for 100 days demanding that the plant, owned by a subsidiary of British company Vedanta Resources be closed down. Vedanta is said to be the largest donor to the Indian BJP party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Vedanta, set up by British Indian billionaire Anil Agarwal with UK government help in 2003 is notorious for its polluting activities in India, Goa, Zambia and elsewhere as well as unsafe working practices and tax evasion. Sterlite, which has a long record of dumping toxic waste and operating without proper licences is expanding and opening a second plant in the town. The London Mining Network say the Vedanta operates “like a house without a toilet” and “consistently dump waste next to their smelters and captive thermal power plants.”
Protesters called for an end to Vedanta’s polluting activities around the world, and an end for support for the company by both UK and Indian governments. They called for the Stock Exchange to delist the company – and the company delisted itself a few months later probably to avoid facing more public interest litigation in the UK.
Pagan Pride – Beltane Bash: From 2004 to 2010 most years I photographed an event in central London where neo-pagans held a procession to celebrate Beltane, though for some reason they did so on the last Sunday in May rather than at the traditional time of Beltane, on or close to May Day. Perhaps the date was chosen so that those taking part in the event had the following day, the late May Bank Holiday, to recover. The event was the public part of a day-long event taking place in the Conway Hall, which backs onto Red Lion Square where the parade assembled.
Wikipedia describes Beltane as the Gaelic May Day festival, and says that historically it “was widely observed throughout Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man” but “had largely died out by the mid-20th century” before being revived by Celtic neopagans and Wiccans in the late 20th century. Here’s some of what I wrote about the 2008 event which took place fourteen years ago today on Sunday 25th March.
Pagans – or rather neo-Pagans – place great importance on nature and the cyclical nature of the seasons. Women play a very important role in most pagan beliefs and Goddesses as well as Gods, all generally linked to nature are often involved in their ceremonies and women play important roles in them.
Nature seemed not to be too kind to them as the rain bucketed down as the participants were supposed to gather, with only a few braver members (and some with umbrellas) coming out of the hall, but fortunately for them and the photographers it soon eased off, finally almost stopping as the parade got under way.
The fountain in Russell Square could have been designed with them in mind, with a strongly phallic character in the water jets, which in normal use rise and fall, but were left to flow at full strength for most of the ceremony. At first the group danced around the fountain in rings with hands joined, but then many of them started to run through the centre, many getting soaked. Even the drummers, who at first stood on the edge providing a rhythm for the dance, eventually ran though the jets, and finally so did the Green Man.
I photographed the event for the final time in 2010, though I’m not quite sure why. Possibly the organisers made changes for the following year, or perhaps I looked through my pictures and found I seemed largely to be repeating myself each year. But my work was becoming increasingly political, thanks at least in part to the changing political situation with Labour losing the 2010 general election, and I was covering fewer cultural events.
It was also becoming more difficult to cover events of all kinds, as there was a huge increase over the years in the number of spectators at events such as this, with both more photographers coming to take pictures and many others with camera phones also getting in the way. Particularly those viewing a screen at arms length seem to be much less aware of others around them and in particular generally have no idea that it might be impolite to walk in front of others who are taking pictures!
My walk continued along Stowage where my previous post ended to St Nicholas, Deptord Green, and then south through Deptford.
Playwright and spy Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593) was apparently killed in a house in Deptford on 30th May 1593 and buried in an unmarked grave in this churchyard at St. Nicholas’s Church. A web page, Death In Deptord gives the known facts and also various conspiracy theories. He had been arrested a week earlier on a charge of atheism, then a serious crime for which those found guilty could be burnt at the stake. Surprisingly he was granted bail.
He came to Deptford to escape the plague which was raging through London and was at a meeting in a private house there which is thought to have been a safe house used by government agents, and was dining there with three other spies, all connected with the secret service set up by Marlowe’s patron, Sir Francis Walsingham, to protect Queen Elizabeth from Catholic assassination plots.,
Surprisingly the lengthy Coroners Report by the Queen’s Coroner kept secret at the time was only rediscovered and published in 1925. It describes the killing as a result of a dispute over the bill and names his murderer – who was given a royal pardon 28 days later. Many have thought the inquest was a cover-up and that either the death was a planned assassination by the security services or that Marlowe was not killed but smuggled out of the country to escape his prosecution and possible burning for heresy.
This shop on the corner of Douglas Way is still a Halal Butcher. There was a barbers until around 2016 in the shop on Douglas Way still with the perhaps unfortunate name of H Nicks, but that and the two further shops have changed hands and are now rather more colourful, with barbers Tuttii Fruitii, Divine Beauty Hair Salon and Good Friends Chinese Restaurant and Takeaway reflecting the vibrant multicultural mix of Deptford.
The shop on the left, closed in 1988 is now Omed Uk Ltd, African Textile & Novelty, and Richard Stone Mans Store is now DAGE, Deptford Action Group For The Elderly but that on the right, though with a new sign is still in much the same business as Deptford Cobbler. The buildings appear to have changed little. Most times when I’ve walked along here since the street has been busy with market stalls, but these pictures were made on a Sunday morning when there was then no market.
There was a pub here in 1788, though the street was then called Butt Lane. It was part rebuilt in the late 19th century with the frontage rebuilt at some time between 1868 and 1894. Originally called the Red Lion and Wheatsheaf it became The Distillery in the 1890s and at other times in the early twentieth century simply as the Red Lion. It reverted to its original name around 1930 and closed as a pub in 1961-2.
The Wenlock Brewery in Wenlock Road Hoxton owned a large number of pubs across London and was bought up by Worthington – part of Bass – in 1953 and closed in 1962.
I walked across Deptford Bridge and a short distance up Greenwich High Road to photograph Mumford’s Mill which is on the east bank of Deptford Creek. The Grade II listed silo with the date 1790 was a later addition to the site, added in 1897 and built in an elaborate Italianate style by one of the leading architects of the day, Sir Aston Webb, along with his partner Edward Ingress Bell who got his unusual second name from being born in Ingress Park a few miles down the river at Greenhithe.
The 1790 mill was possibly a tide-mill – and there is a tidemill site here on the west side of the Creek, for some years a neighbourhood park but now after a fight by local residents failed to save it being redeveloped for housing. The early mill was soon replaced by two early 19th century three storey stone grinding flour mills.
But by 1897 this was a state of the art flour mill, with roller mills powered by steam. In the 1930s it was bought by the Rank Group, founded in Hull by Joseph Rank who had set up the first modern flour milling business in the UK there in 1875 and milling was soon ended. Parts of the premises were used by various companies, but much was apparently empty for several decades until converted to residential use early this century.
I continued up the Greenwich High Road to these two adjacent contrasting doorways just off the road in Burrgos Grove. Wellington House is 2 Burgos Grove while the property at right, in 1988 shared between Joule Electrical Ltd and the Inner London Probation Service is numbered as 34 Greenwich High Rd. Probably both properties date from the mid-19th century. No 34 was extensively rebuilt in 2012 but the doorway and facade were retained.
I walked back to Deptford Bridge and west to Deptford Broadway. Now this would mean going under the Lewisham extension of the Docklands Light Railway, opened in 1999. Should you be here it is worth going up to the platforms of Deptford Bridge Station which gives some of the better views of Mumford’s Mill and other parts of the area, and taking the train north to Greenwich to see more of Deptford Creek.
The north side of the Broadway has a remarkable variety of architectural styles and includes a group of five houses at the right of this picture Grade II listed as a group at 17-21 consecutive, thought to be all of late C17 origin, though all much altered later. Next is Broadway House, dated 1927, followed at 13-14 by what is probably a late-Victorian property and then a fine piece of 1930 Art-Deco – in my picture ‘Antique Warehouse’ but built for ‘Montague Burton, The Tailor of Taste’. Unfortunately I was just a few months too late to photograph the Deptford Odeon, designed by George Coles in 1938, but demolished earlier in the year – and the billboard at extreme right was in front of its empty site.
Gitmo, London Uni, Ethiopia, Israel & Ukraine Miners – Protests in London on Friday 23rd May 2014 included those against the continuing illegal detentions in Guantánamo, redundancies for support workers at London University, killing and human rights abuses in Ethiopia and those supporting hunger strikes in Israeli jails and strikes by miners in Ukraine.
Obama keep your promises – Trafalgar Square
A year after President Obama again pledged to close Guantánamo, activists in black hoods and orange jumpsuits in London and 40 other cities reminded him of yet another broken promise and called for the urgent release of Londoner Shaker Aamer – prisoner 239. The protest in London was part of an international day of action coordinated by the US organisation Witness Against Torture.
In the year since Obama made the promise only 12 prisoners have been released and 154 remain, subjected to appalling conditions, beatings and daily abuse of their human rights. Former London resident Shaker Aamer’s family in Battersea include a son born a few months after his capture by bandits in Afghanistan. He was one of the first transferred to Guantanamo and has been there over 12 years, despite having been cleared more than once for release.
Defend UoL Garden Halls workers – Senate House, University of London
The IWGB trade union protested at Senate House, the headquarters building of the University of London demanding proper consultation and negotiation over the redundancies of 80 workers at the University of London’s Garden Halls in Bloomsbury.
Those under threat of losing their jobs include porters, cleaners and security guards and include many of those who are active in the continuing struggle for proper sick pay, holidays and pensions in the ‘3 Cosas’ campaign at London University.
Although most of the workers are members of the independent union, the Independent Workers of Great Britain, both the University and its contracted employer Cofely refuse to talk with the IWGB and recognise instead more compliant traditional unions with few if any members among the workers. The IWGB states “many of these workers have been at the University of London for decades” and “the University bears responsibility for the treatment of these workers, regardless of the fact that their roles are contracted to private companies.”
The lunchtime protest was a noisy one with with workers using a megaphone, drums, whistles and shouting to make their demands heard. They intend to come back every Friday until the end of term or until management engages in meaningful talks over the issues.
Oromo and Ogaden against Ethiopian killings – Old Palace Yard, Westminster
Oromo and Ogaden National Liberation Front supporters had come to protest opposite Parliament over the Ethiopian government’s killing of Oromo university students peacefully protesting the grabbing of Oromo land and calling for the release of political prisoners.
There are around 30 million Oromo living in Ethopia and adjoining areas of Somalia and they are the Largest ethnic group in the country; their language is Africa’s third most widely spoken. There were a number of democratic kingdoms in the area before they were conquered in the late nineteenth century by Abyssinian emperor Menlik II, aided by the European colonial powers and their modern weapons. Around half the Oromo are said to have been killed in these wars and since then successive regimes have made determined attempts to destroy Oromo identity – its language, culture, customs and traditions.
This oppression continues, now with the help of the US government who since 9/ll have worked with the Ethopian government as part of their worlwide fight against “terrorism”, according tto BBC Newsnight and and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism “using billions of dollars of development aid as a tool for political oppression” with programmes of deliberate starvation of communities, and “of mass detentions, (and) the widespread use of torture and extra-judicial killings.“
Support Hunger Strike in Israeli Jails – G4S HQ, Victoria St
Protesters outside the London HQ of security firm G4S supported the mass hunger strike by Palestinians demanding an end to Israels’s illegal policy of rolling Administrative Detention which can jail them for years without charge or trial in prisons which G4S secures.
The hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners had begun a month earlier with 134 detainees taking part. Israel uses administrative detention to imprison Palestinians indefinitely without charge or trial, using rolling detention orders of 1-6 months which are renewable indefinitely in defiance of international law.
The detention orders are based on “secret evidence” which neither those detained or their lawyers have any right to see, and in the years up to 2014 there had been around 2000 made each year. Those given them include 9 Palestinian MPs. Often when released from one order detainees are immediately re-arrested on another.
Those taking part in hunger strikes included 34 years old Ayman Al-Tabeesh who has spent over 10 years in Israeli prisons. He began his second hunger strike in February 2014 and 70 days later had lost over 25kg; at the time of this protest he had been advised after 85 days that he was at grave risk of a heart attack. His brother had sent a message of support to the protesters for their earlier protest in support of the hunger strikers stating “We need you to tell the international community of Israel’s criminal brutality against our prisoners, the violation of their rights. The occupations illegal never ending administrative detention orders is nothing less than a slow death for Palestinian prisoners.”
A protest outside the registered offices of London mining company Evraz, owned by Russian Oligarchs Roman Abramovich and Alexander Abramov, supported miners in the Independent Union of Miners of Ukraine who had ensured peace and unity at Kryviy Rih and were striking to maintain real wages.
Kryviy Rih is a city in south-east Ukraine, at the centre of the largest steel industry in Eastern Europe with a population of around three-quarters of a million people. Protests there in 2014 demanded “Putin, Get Out!” and supported the Ukrainian government against the Russian separatists in Ukraine, with the Independent Union of Miners of Ukraine organising to defend the protests there.
The miners were striking for a doubling of wages to meet the rapid rise in the cost of living which has meant a 30-505 drop in real wages. They were angered after a 20% increase promised the previous month was not paid. The Miner’s union state “We are deeply convinced that the main cause of the destabilised situation in the country is the greed of Ukrainian and Russian oligarchs, who pay a beggar’s wage to workers, send all their profits off-shore and don’t pay taxes in Ukraine. In fact the oligarchs are almost completely exempt from taxes on their profits.”
On 11th May 2014 the miners had marched through the streets of Kryvyy Rih to protest at the offices of the mining company EVRAZ and had called for support in London where the company, owned by Russian Oligarch Roman Abramovich, along with his business partner Alexander Abramov, is based. The protest in Holborn was one of a number including at the registered office of the company in the City of London, at Chelsea Football Ground and elsewhere. This year, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine the British government accused the company of “providing financial services or making available funds, economic resources, goods or technology that could contribute to destabilising Ukraine” and after sanctions were applied to Abramovich the trading of Evraz shares on the London Stock Exchange was suspended.
In April 2022, Russian forces were around 60km from the city, but the ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih steel plant which had closed down all of its four blast furnaces at the start of the Russian invasion restarted production with one furnace in early April, though hampered by the loss of around 94% of their staff to military duties or by evacuation.
I don’t think the London Criminal Courts Solicitors’ Association organise many protests, but they did a good job on Wednesday 22nd May 2013, with a mock funeral and rally at Parliament against government proposals for justice on the cheap, restricting legal aid and ending the right of clients to chose their solicitor with work going to the cheapest bid.
The introduction of price-competitive tendering (PCT) would have the effect of bankrupting smaller law firms, while opening up provision of legal aid to large non-legal companies, including Eddie Stobart and Tesco. It would also prevent those eligible for legal aid from being able to choose appropriate specialists in the legal area involved in their cases.
It was a protest that brought together a wide range of organisations an interests, with many speakers from the legal professions, from political parties and some who had been involved in cases of injustice including Gerry Conlan from the Guildford 4, a member of the family of Jean Charles De Menzes, Susan Matthews, mother of Alfie Meadows and Breda Power, the daughter of Billy Power, one of the Birmingham 6. Solicitors who spoke included Clive Stafford Smith, the founder of Reprieve, and Blur drummer Dave Rowntree, and notable among the QCs, Helena Kennedy.
Some, including those from Women Against Rape, Winvisble, Women of Colour in The Global Womens Strike and other groups had come because the proposed changes would have drastic effects on women involved in domestic violence and rape cases, and immigrants fighting for asylum.
The event had begun with a funeral procession led by a marching jazz band with robed and wigged figures carrying the coffin of Legal Aid, followed by a woman dressed as the Scales of Justice. After the speeches there was a summary by leading barrister John Cooper QC and then the whole assembly delivered its verdict on the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice Grayling, ‘guilty as charged’.
Not for nothing did Grayling become widely known as ‘Failing Grayling‘ for his was a consistent record of incompetency and blunders in various ministerial roles in both Coalition and Tory governments conveniently summarised in the i‘s article 10 disasters that have happened under his watch.
As well as the cuts to legal aid which led to many victims of domestic violence in the courts and family courts facing their abusers without a lawyer, Grayling’s attempt to end legal aid to those in prison was ruled unlawful in 2017. His introduction of high fees for employment tribunals in discrimination cases was ruled unlawful by the Supreme Court – and the government had to refund £27 million. He made an agreement with Saudi Arabia for training in their jails which had to be dropped when other ministers pointed out their abysmal human rights record. Then there was the prison book ban, again found unlawful. And his 2014 overhauling and privatisation of Probation services was a disaster that forced its later reversal.
Grayling then moved to Transport, worsening the Southern Rail fiasco, costing us £2bn over Virgin East Coast, contributing to chaos over rail timetabling and awwarding a firm with no ferries a no-deal Brexit contract. And although the i article stopped at 10, Grayling didn’t.
Daddy’s Pig heads for the Trough – Downing St to Bank
The legal aid protest at Parliament meant I had missed the start of the three mile marathon by artist taxi-driver Mark McGowan on his knees pushing his Daddy’s Pig, accompanied by another protester pushing a fire engine, from Downing St to the Bank of England.
I met them outside the Royal Courts of Justice, where the two had taken a rest before starting off on the second half of their gruelling journey, accompanied by a group of supporters, some of whom were carrying pigs.
While the country suffers from the effects of the various cuts, bankers, private equity companies, oligarchs and other friends of the Tories were having a feeding frenzy, snouts in the trough as the government privatised much of the NHS and other services and the City of London entrenched its position as the money laundering capital of the world.