June, 2022 | >Re-PHOTO

City Cleaners Strike, Cyclists mourned

City Cleaners Strike, Cyclists mourned – A rally on Wood Street on Friday 10th June 2016 marked the third day of what became the longest strike ever in the City of London, and later at City Hall a vigil remembered 11 road users killed on London streets since the mayoral election last month, including three cyclists.

Day 3 UVW Wood St Cleaners Strike – 100 Wood St, City of London

Cleaners belonging to the United Voices of the World union employed by anti-union cleaning contractor Thames Cleaning to clean the 100 Wood St offices managed by CBRE held a rally at the end of their picket on the third day of their strike.

The offices there are mainly used by Schroders and J P Morgan, both large and highly profitable companies, but the cleaners are on poverty wages and several union members had been sacked and others served with notice by Thames Cleaning for organising the workers to demand a living wage.

Rather than talk with the UVW, Thames’s response to the strike threat had been to spend over £20,000 in the High Court trying to get an injunction to prohibit the strikes and protests. Although the court would not stop them, they issued an injunction which set down strict conditions for the picket and protest and this left the UVW with crippling legal costs.

The UVW is a small grass roots union supported only by dues from its members and unlike the large established trade unions has little or no money to run its activities which include educational workshops as well as supporting its members in the workplace and at employment tribunals. Those who perform duties for it are paid the London Living Wage for the time spent and there are no highly paid union officials. The union had to issue an emergency appeal for cash – and received support from people and union branches across the trade union movement.

*Candy Udwin, PCS Rep at the National Gallery holds a banner*

One aspect of the injunction was that any protest connected with the strike had to keep at least 10 metres from the doorway of the offices. Of course picketing is covered by strict trade union laws and a lengthy code of practice that requires it to be as reasonably close as possible to the entrance and exit, and limits it to six or less clearly identified pickets with a supervisor (and possibly also a union organiser) behaving in a peaceful manner.

The protest took place over a carefully measured 10 metres away on the opposite side of the street after a picket which had begun in the early morning when the cleaners would normally have arrived for work. The strike continued for 58 days before the UVW was able to announce that a satisfactory agreement had been reached with the employer and all further action was ended.

There are four posts about the Wood Street Strike on My London Diary for June (and more in later months) :
UVW Cleaners on Strike in City
Day 3 UVW Wood St Cleaners Strike
UVW Wood St Strike Day 10
UVW Wood St Strike continues

London Traffic Deaths Vigil – City Hall

Although London had an impressive purpose-built County Hall on the south bank just downstream of Westminster Bridge, this was sold off when Margaret Thatcher vindictively disbanded the Greater London Council, leaving London rudderless for 14 critical years. After the Greater London Authority was created in 2000, it was without a proper home for two years before leasing and moving into a purpose-built oddly spherical building by Norman Foster in the misleadingly named ‘More London’ currently owned by the Kuwait sovereign wealth fund who disguise themselves as St Martins Property Investments Limited.

Many saw the move to the new building as a failure of purpose by the Labour government in noy re-acquiring County Hall for the new London-wide authority – but then Labour under Blair continued most of Thatcher’s policies rather than move away from her individualist greed-based approach towards one getting back to the social welfare which had been at the heart of post-war Labour.

London’s City Hall moved in 2022 to Kamal Chunchie Way, Newham, E16 into the former ‘The Crystal’ exhibition centre beside the northern end of London’s ‘Dangleway’ cable car, though this is expected to close fairly soon as no replacement sponsor has come up to keep it running.

Sadiq Khan had retaken London as a Labour Mayor on May 5th 2016, with a decisive win over Conservative Zac Goldsmith and the Green candidate Siân Berry trailing badly in third place. Since then, 11 people had died on the streets of London, roughly around the average for that period in Greater London (in 2019, the total for the year was 125.)

Protests are – at least theoretically – not usually allowed in ‘More London’, but this one was hosted by Green Party London wide Assembly Member Caroline Russell, a member of the GLA Transport Committee and organised by London Women on Bikes (LWOB), #LondonBusWatch, Westminster Living Streets and BMX Life. Of the 11 who died, 3 were cyclists and the others were on foot.

Most road deaths are not ‘accidents’ but “happen because road users make mistakes, often made harder to avoid because of poor vehicle or road design. Many of them result from a lack of proper facilities for pedestrians and cyclists in a road system which prioritises getting motorised vehicles from A to B as fast as possible rather than safety. Some are caused by the failure of police to enforce road traffic law – for example on advanced stop lines at traffic lights.”

One of the cyclists killed was BMX rider Dan ‘Cash’ Stephenson, hit by a bus on the Strand during a BMX Life charity ride and many other BMX riders had come to the vigil, wearing tartan ribbons in his memory as he always rode in tartan. There were a number of speeches and then the names of those killed were read, followed by an eleven minutes of silence when those at the vigil were invited to stand in silence or to lie down, with or without bikes, in a silent ‘die-in’.

As the vigil came to an end and people were beginning to leave we were all called back for a highly emotional moment when Dan ‘Cash’ Stephenson’s daughter spoke through tears about her father.

London Traffic Deaths Vigil

Housing Crisis & the Carpenters Estate

Housing Crisis & the Carpenters Estate: Like many other areas, the 1945 Labour government laid the foundations of a sensible policy on housing which has now been lost. Among other things the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act brought in the need for planning permission and included a charge on developers which was assessed as the difference between the cost of the undeveloped land and its value after it had been developed. It gave local authorities the power to use compulsory purchase and either develop land themselves or lease it for private developers, and provided government grants to authorities for major redevelopment.

Times were hard after the war, and there were shortages of material with so much needing to be done. Even so around 600,000 new council homes were built in the first five years, and built to high standards. One of the election-winning pledges made by the Conservatives for the 1951 election was that they would build 300,000 houses a year – something they managed under Housing Minister Harold Macmillan in 1953, including both private and council houses, but it was achieved in part by reducing the standards of properties.

The Tories made other changes, including removing the development charge and limiting government subsidies, which in 1956 became limited to the building of high rise flats. While Labour had seen council housing as a way to provide good quality housing affordably to all, the Conservatives increasing limited its scope to providing only for the least well off, with private development and private leasing providing good profits for building firms and private landlords at the expense of house buyers and tenants of private rented properties.

Although it was Labour who had first proposed the idea of ‘right to buy’ it was of course Thatcher who made it policy and introduced it in a way which was intended to severely reduce the amount of council housing, in particular forbidding the use of the receipts from sales to
build new council homes. Cash-starved local authorities were often unable to keep up proper maintenance of their housing stock and much was allowed to deteriorate.

Labour under Blair and Brown continued the Tory policies, including the transfer of council run properties to housing associations, and amplified their effects with their programme of ‘regeneration’ which led to the wholesale replacement of large council estates – most still in sound condition which could have cheaply been repaired and brought up to current standards. But developers profited hugely from demolition and redevelopment for private sale and councils hoped also to cash in, though in some cases they made a significant loss, as at the Heygate in Southwark, where around 1200 council homes were demolished, the tenants and leaseholders displaced largely outside the area, and the two and a half thousand new properties built included only around 80 at social rents. Other Labour policies, including the disastrous Private Finance Initiative also worsened the housing crisis.

You can read very much more detail on the history of council housing on the website Municipal Dreams and in the book by the site’s author Municipal Dreams: the Rise and Fall of Council Housing published in 2019 which presents a detailed and balanced view.

The young mothers of Focus E15 came up against the the housing crisis when their Labour Council in Newham decided they should be evicted from their hostel. Most were told they had to move into private rented properties with little or no security of tenure miles away from families, friends and facilities in the Stratford area, some in Wales or the north of England. They got together and decided to fight the council, then run by elected Mayor Robin Wales and its policy of removing the poor from the area – social cleansing.

Newham is a borough with one of the worst housing problems in the country, and although there has been a huge building programme, partly around the 2012 Olympic site, this is largely student housing or private development. But one council estate close to the centre of Stratford had been largely empty for around ten years. Newham had ‘decanted’ the residents beginning in 2004 hoping to cash in on what would be a prime development site. The Carpenters Estate was a very popular estate, with low rise housing and three tower blocks overlooking the Olympic Park, a stone’s throw from the excellent transport links of Stratford Station and the town centre.

For some years Newham had hoped to sell off the area as a new campus for University College London, but local opposition and protests by students and academics at UCL led to the college abandoning the plans. In 2020 the council handed over the regeneration project its Housing Company Populo Living.

Focus E15 came to the Carpenters Estate on Monday 9th June 2014 to highlight the scandal of the empty homes, bringing with them life-size or larger colour portraits of the mothers which they pasted on the shuttered windows of a small block of flats at the centre of the estate, along with posters stating ‘We Could be Here’, ‘This home needs a family’, ‘These homes need people’, ‘You could be here’.

The protest gained some publicity for their campaign, which had moved on from being simply about the mothers to a much more general ‘Housing For All’ campaign, which still continues, with the group holding a weekly Saturday Morning stall on Stratford Broadway, supporting homeless families in getting proper treatment from the council and preventing evictions in the area.

I returned with Focus E15 to the Carpenters Estate a few months later in September when on the first anniversary of the start of their campaign they occupied this low-rise block of flats on ‘Open House Day, gaining national publicity, staying in occupation for around two weeks, and have photographed various other of their events.

Focus E15 Mums Expose Carpenters Estate

Close Slaughterhouses & Naked Bike Ride

Close Slaughterhouses & Naked Bike Ride: I had mixed feelings about both of the protests I photographed on Saturday June 8th 2019. I began with the vegans whose ‘Close all Slaughterhouses’ march was calling for an end to the breeding, fishing and slaughter of animals and then covered the 2019 Naked Bike Ride.

Close all Slaughterhouses – London

It was a slightly uneasy gathering in Leicester Square for me as I felt rather out of place among a crowd of vegans. I’m against cruelty to animals and certainly oppose cruel farming practices, but I still eat some meat and rather more diary products as a part of a varied diet, and I think my shoes may have been leather and my belt certainly was. My lunch in my bag certainly contained both cheese and ham sandwiches and I’d buttered the bread, so I couldn’t eat it while covering the event.

Of course veganism makes a contribution towards reducing our carbon footprint, as vegetable production generally produces much lower amounts of greenhouse gases, although I think there are some exceptions to this. But I think if everyone became a vegan it would have some very undesirable consequences, not least in almost entirely removing currently farmed animals from our landscape. We might be left with just a few cows, pigs and sheep etc in rare-breed petting zoos.

I’d like to see an end to some agricultural practices which have been adopted to produce meat, and I now quite happily pay extra for free-range eggs and grass-fed beef. But some of the slogans on the banners and placards at this protest are I think over-emotional and misleading. Meat is not murder, we don’t steal milk from cows and animals are not “just like us” though they obviously share many characteristics. As I wrote “the human species is very clearly different in some respects.“

Nature may sometimes be fluffy and adorable, but it is also often “red in tooth and claw”, often killing most cruelly. Many animals are carnivorous, others like us omnivores.

I’d had enough of the vegans after listening to some of the speeches at their rally in Soho Square and walked away – I was in any case getting rather hungry and found a corner away from them to eat my non-vegan lunch.

Close all Slaughterhouses

London World Naked Bike Ride – South Bank

I’ve never been quite sure that the World Naked Bike Ride is really a protest. As I wrote in 2019 “It’s more a fun ride for people who want to ride around London with no or very few clothes on”, though clearly some of them do want to protest over various issues, including the safety of cyclists on the road, reducing oil dependence and saving the planet.

Nudity doesn’t worry me, though as a photographer I spend some time trying to take pictures which show the event without producing images which might offend the more prudish of editors and publications, which is not easy. I wouldn’t take part myself in the WNBR, but largely because our climate is seldom really suitable for being without clothes; of course not everyone on the ride was entirely naked, but I do feel the cold. So were I to decide to join the ride it would be ‘as naked as you can stand’ rather than ‘as bare as you dare’.

Like most of those watching from the pavements I find the ride both entertaining and interesting showing the incredible variation of the human form rather more emphatically than any normal street crowd.

But overall the ride is in some ways lacking in diversity, with relatively little representation of London’s ethnic communities and this year their seemed an even greater than previous gender imbalance, with perhaps 10 or 20 men for every woman. This isn’t truly represented in my pictures partly because of my greater interest in them, but also because a greater proportion of them have slogans or body paint.

I’d arrived late and didn’t take many pictures before the ride moved off – there are a few more on My London Diary. I didn’t bother to follow them or try to meet them later on their route but went to a nearby pub for a drink with a friend before making my way home.

London World Naked Bike Ride

The Racist UK Immigration System

The Racist UK Immigration System: The Home Office a couple of years ago commissioned a report following the huge publicity over the Windrush scandal after government ministers had been forced to agree to educate all Home Office employees about our colonial history and the experiences faced by black people coming to the UK.

The report, “The Historical Roots of the Windrush Scandal“, by a well-known historian the Home Office refuses to name, details how the whole history of post-war British immigration legislation since the Second World War was “designed at least in part to reduce the number of people with black or brown skin who were permitted to live and work in the UK“, reflecting the “racist ideology of the British Empire.”

For over a year politicians and others have been calling for the report to be published but the Home Office has refused. Last month it was leaked in full to The Guardian, but is still not available to the public, despite having been paid for by our taxes. Many requests for its publication from MPs including the home affairs select committee and campaigners over the past year had been turned down and a freedom of information request about it was refused.

*The protest began on Bath Road in front of the Immigration Removal Centres*

Some speculate that the true reason for it being kept secret was because it was in direct contradiction to last years report from the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities which had ludicrously concluded there was “no evidence to suggest that Britain was an institutionally racist place.“

Others suggest the refusal to publish was that it would bring new highly discriminatory policies being introduced – such as the attacks on cross-channel migrants and the deportation of asylum seekers to Rwanda – liable to greater opposition as a development of an already clearly racist immigration system.

*Colnbrook on the left, Harmondsworth at right*

Back in June 2014, when the Movement for Freedom organised a protest on June 7th outside the adjoining Harmondsworth and Colnbrook detention centres on the northern boundary of London Heathrow, the thrust of the protest was against the the unjust ‘Fast Track System’ and mistreatment of detainees by private security firms inside these immigration prisons.

*John McDonnell speaks outside the detention centres on Bath Road*

Local MP John McDonnell who came to speak told the protest that when he first became MP for the area in 1997 the immigration detention centre was only a small building housing a dozen or so detainees rather than the two large blocks the protesters were in front of. The protesters argue that immigration detention is almost entirely unnecessary, existing only to deter immigration and harass and punish those who come here to seek asylum.

*Asylum seekers wave from behind the 20ft fence, razor wire and window bars*

The fast track system was set up with the deliberate aim of deporting people before they had time to put together the evidence that would enable them to properly present their case to remain. You don’t get a certificate given to you for being tortured or raped but our system treats all of them as guilty, trying to evade our immigration laws and rather than the Home Office having to prove their stories are fabricated calls on them to provide proof of threats, torture, rape and other events that forced them to flee. Legal challenges including that by Detention Action in 2015 found “rules setting the tight timescales for asylum-seekers to make appeals were unlawful and ‘ultra vires’ and that the strict time limits in and of themselves were ‘structurally unfair’.”

Although the legal judgements led to the suspension of DFT, the deportations of asylum seekers to Rwanda currently about to take place clearly represent a ratcheting up of this punitive approach and seem likely also to be successfully challenged in the courts – thought not before hundreds or thousands have been wrongfully deported.

The detention centres were built on a site which has a private road leading to a BT site at the rear. After the speeches on the public highway in front of the site, the marchers walked down this road, making a lot of noise chanting and shouting as well as with whistles and other noise-makers. Detainees came to the windows and waved thanking the protesters for their support, and some were able to communicate using mobile phones.

*Mobile phone messages from inside were broadcast to protesters using a megaphone*

The two detention prisons are both surrounded by 20 foot high fences, the lower half solid metal sheets and the upper half with a dense solid wire mesh, which makes photographing the windows difficult. But we could clearly see the detainees and they could seem the long banner with the message ‘Stop Racism – End Fast Track – End Detention’ which was held up, and we could make out some of the messages they had written calling for freedom.

We were able to walk completely around the Harmondsworth building (but not the higher security Colnbrook one) and when I left the march organisers were planning to return their route in the opposite direction as they had so many phone calls from those inside, but I had to leave.

Diane Abbott published an opinion piece in The Guardian on the leaked report at the end of May this year, “The truth is out: Britain’s immigration system is racist, and always has been. Now let’s fix it“. Unfortunately I think our current government is unlikely to have any interest at all in doing so. She ends her piece: “The system is calibrated for racism. It always was. We know it, and now we know that, behind closed doors, Priti Patel’s Home Office knows it. The dirty secret is no longer secret.”

Brompton around Swanscombe 2015

Brompton around Swanscombe 2015 – Late in 2002 I bought a Brompton folding bicycle, something I’d been considering for years, but the cost had put me off. I can’t remember exactly what it cost me then, but with a few essential bits and pieces it was around £700 – allowing for inflation now equivalent to around £1200. Bromptons (hereafter just B’s) now start at £850, even better value. In an interview a year or two later with a photographic magazine I was asked “What is your favourite photographic accessory?” and my answer, “My B” wasn’t what was expected.

I wasn’t new to cycling – I’d got my first two-wheeler back in 1951 and had owned and used bikes since then, but this was my first folding bike and was bought as a photographic accessory to enable me to explore areas in outer London and the outskirts where public transport was often in scarce supply.

I’d hoped also it would be a convenient way to get around when photographing various events in the centre of London, but soon gave up on that idea as finding safe places to leave it appeared impossible. Bs are idea for bike thieves. Relatively high value and much in demand, they can be stowed away in a car boot in seconds. And even the sturdiest bike lock can only hold up the well-equipped criminal for less than a minute.

Locking and leaving isn’t really an option unless you can keep it in sight or in a secure place. Office workers can keep them in cloakrooms or under their desks, but when your place of work is the street you have a problem.

For cycling close to home I still had the full-size Cinelli that my eldest brother had given me as a birthday present back in 1958, and despite being dirty, dilapidated and having suffered much downgraded with more robust and heavier wheels and tyres still rolling well. But the huge advantage of the B was that it could be folded and taken on trains, underground and even buses at any time, enabling me to make rides from places which were too far away for me to cycle to.

I made my first such journey back in January 2003, taking the train to Erith, a little over 30 miles away, and then spent a few hours cycling “around the town and along the Thames, Darent and Cray before braving the Dartford bypass and striking off along Joyce Green Lane before returning to catch the train home from Slade Green.” Much of that cycling was along footpaths and other poor surfaces and tiring enough – and at one point I almost collapsed trying to lift the B over a stile. I couldn’t understand why, as even with my photographic gear in the front bag it was probably less than 15kg. A week or two later I found out the reason, having a relatively mild heart attack at home which required some minor surgery to put a stent into a blocked artery.

As soon as I could walk, my doctor told me I had to exercise, and soon I was taking a series of rides from home on the B over much of the nearby country. It was much easier to mount and dismount than a normal men’s bike, having no crossbar. Scattered through My London Diary are pictures from a number of bike rides, mainly made on the B. On a bike you can stop almost anywhere and don’t need a place to park, and the ease of getting on and off makes a B ideal. At times I’ve also used it, parked against a wall to stand on, one foot on the saddle and the other on the handlebars, but it can roll away and leave you unsupported.

My trip around Swanscombe on Saturday 6th June was one such ride, taken while the area was under threat from development as the Paramount London theme park (and it still is though this now seems less likely.) It was an area I’d photographed on a number of occasions since the 1980s and knew reasonably well. In the 1970s, together with neighbouring Stone, Greenhithe, Swanscombe and Northfleet was the largest cement producing area in Europe, mainly run by Blue Circle. But by the time I first visited that production was centred at Northfleet, and the works at the other sites had largely disappeared or were very run down, and the Swanscombe works had ceased production although the site only finally closed in 1990. Northfleet continued for some years into this century, but nothing now remains – except of course the huge quarry areas with their chalk cliffs.

The post Swanscombe on My London Diary gives more of the history of the area, and also includes a fairly complete description of the route I took on Saturday 6th June 2015, so I won’t repeat that information here. The B isn’t a great off-road bike – and impossible in muddy conditions – but is fine on reasonable footpaths but I might had had to get off an push in some places. One of the paths I mention, Lovers Lane, is now a wide road beside a new housing estate but otherwise the area is much the same as it was in 2015 except there are now notices that some of the areas are private property.

The area is also well described in the many pictures, many of which were made with a very wide horizontal and vertical angle of view. Although not panoramic in format they are panoramic in their scope.

Swanscombe

Liquor, Motors, Furniture, Packing & Timber

Liquor, Motors, Furniture, Packing & Timber My previous post on this walk in in Deptford on October 1988, More From Deptford, ended at Tooheys Liquor Barn on Evelyn Road, where this section starts.

*Liquor Barn, Evelyn St, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10h-62*

Toohey’s Brewery was founded by two brothers, John Thomas Toohey,born in COunty Tipperary whose family emigrated to Melbourne in 1841, and his younger Australian-born brother Matthew.
They ran pubs in Melbourne and then moved to Sydney where they set up their brewery in 1869, brewing Tooheys Black Old Ale. The company went public in 1902 and began brewing lager in 1930, though normally it comes in rather smaller bottles than this one. After various mergers and takeovers the company is now owned by Japanese brewer Kirin. Evelyn St. Wines of which this was a part was on this site until around 2015.

City Motor Auctions, Evelyn St, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10h-64-Edit_2400 — *City Motor Auctions, Evelyn St, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10h-64*

City Motor Auctions Ltd was just to the east of the Liquor Barn on Evelyn St and car auctions, latterly under the name Docklands City Car Auctions continued here until around 2014. Like the Liquor Barn it became a part of the large development site

Bucks, Furniture Warehouse, Evelyn St, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10h-52-Edit_2400 — *Bucks, Furniture Warehouse, Evelyn St, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10h-52*

Bucks were still here at Bridge Wharf immediately to the west of the former Surrey Canal until around 2012 and their site was then briefly taken over by the car auctions, with Bucks returning briefly when those moved to Charlton at the start of 2015. The site was derelict by the end of 2015 and demolition was complete by 2017.

I was unsure if the circular bricked area with a post at its centre was a relic of the former wharf or simply a sculpture recalling the past. I couldn’t see any particular purpose in it, so it was probably art!

Evelyn St, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10h-53-Edit_2400 — *Evelyn St, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10h-53*

Ocean wharf was at the south-west corner of the bridge built to take Evelyn Street over the Surrey Canal. Parker Packing Co Ltd were presumably the Parker whose corner was a few yards away on the opposite side of Evelyn St on its corner with Dragoon Road. The sign at an angle points to Neptune Wharf and a sign for a company dealing in polythene sheeting, polythene & paper sacks and other items, while a larger sign behind the branches is completely blank.

*Timber Sheds, former Surrey Canal, Evelyn St, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10h-54*

The view from Blackhorse Bridge looking towards the southwest where once the Surrey Canal ran, with timber sheds along its east bank. Timber would have been a major part of the canal traffic, as the Surrey Docks were largely used for timber imports and had large timber ponds. By 2008 the timber sheds had been replaced but otherwise the view was much the same, but in 2016 the empty space was filled by a large Shurgard self-storage shed.

Timber Sheds, Blackhorse Road, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10h-56 — *Timber Sheds, Blackhorse Road, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 10h-56*

The view of the timber sheds in the previous picture from Blackhorse Road, replaced some years ago by the Blackhorse Business Park.

Grinstead House, Grinstead Rd, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10h-34-Edit_2400 — *Grinstead House, Grinstead Rd, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10h-34*

All the buildings along Grinstead Road have been demolished and replaced by residential properties. This was the only building I found of interest in the long stretch facing Deptford Park. The park was opened to the public in 1897 and probably Grinstead Road dates from then or shortly afterwards. I can find no explanation for the street name.

Grinstead House, Grinstead Rd, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10h-36-Edit_2400 — *Grinstead House, Grinstead Rd, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10h-36*

Another view of its distinctive doorway. I can find nothing out about this property and there are few if any clues although it interested me enough to take nine frames concentrating on the doorway. The logo above the door is I think made of the letters J & J and this house was around halfway down the street, a short distance past the former galvanised iron and zinc Ida works, at the back of Neptune Wharf. It probably dates from the early 20th century.

To be continued in a later post.

HP in Israel, Nurses bursaries, Hungary, Congo & Syria

HP in Israel, Nurses bursaries, Hungary, Congo & Syria – five protests that I photographed on
Saturday 4th June 2016.

Boycott HP against Israeli apartheid – PC World, Tottenham Court Road

A protest outside PC World on Tottenham Court Rd was one of around 20 actions around the UK held to raise awareness of Hewlett Packard’s heavy involvement the Israeli oppression of the Palestinian people and encourage a boycott of HP.

HP provides the biometric system used for ID cards used to control movement of Palestinians inside Israel and in the occupied Palestinian territory, technology for the Israeli military and supporting the illegal settlements.

Boycott HP against Israeli apartheid

March to save NHS student bursaries

NHS students and supporters marched from St Thomas’s Hospital to the Department of Health in Whitehall along a route over Waterloo Bridge where there was a brief sit-down, and along the Strand to Charing Cross, where they were joined by disabled protesters who went with them to a rally in front of the Dept of Health at Richmond House on Whitehall.

Student bursaries are essential for nursing students as they have to spend 50% of their course working in the NHS and unlike other students are unable to work part-time to support themselves. Their work as students is important in keeping the NHS running and the bursaries also allow mature entrants to the profession to train.

Our current nursing shortage is in part due to the ridiculous decision by Jeremy Hunt who ignored the nursing unions and almost everyone else in making the cut. He claimed that removing the bursary would mean that there would be up to 10,000 more training places. In fact the number accepting places on nursing courses in 2018 dropped to its lowest level for five years, 8% less than when bursaries were available. The maintenance grant was reinstated in 2020, leading to an increase in student numbers, particularly in those over 30, where the increase was around 40%.

March to save NHS student bursaries

Rally against axing NHS student bursaries

*Danielle Toplady (right) supports Helen Corry as her mother makes a passionate speech in support of nurses*

Rally against axing NHS student bursaries

Call for a Greater Hungary – Downing St

Hungarian nationalists marched to Downing St calling for the restoration of the pre-1920 borders of Hungary, including the Székely Land in Romania.

The right-wing Jobbik party or Movement for a Better Hungary has grown considerably in support and in 2018 became the second largest party in the National Assembly and is often accused of seeking the restoration of the borders before the 1920 Trianon Treaty. Around a quarter of ethnic Hungarians live outside of Hungary and many suffer discrimination because of their culture and language. But according to Wikipedia, “Jobbik has never suggested changing borders by force, and believes that the ultimate solution is territorial and cultural autonomy within a European Union framework of minority rights.“

Call for a Greater Hungary

Congo Massacre protest – Downing St

The Patrice Lumumba Coalition protested opposite Downing St after the massacre last month of 120 people in Beni, North Kivu, Congo. They say that since 2014, 1000 people have been horrifically murdered in the region, despite the presence of a UN army and the Congolese armed forces.

They blame the massacres in Congo which have resulted in over 10 million being killed on the US-backed overthrow of the Mobutu regime and the support by the US, UK, Belgium and Canada of President Museveni in Uganda and President Kagame in Rwanda, whose proxy armies and militia groups attack the Congolese. This war is driven by multinational corporations to provide the mineral reserves of the Congo, gold, oil, tin and particularly coltan, essential for the production of smart phones, laptops and other electronic gadgets.

The UK backs the genocide with around £500m a year in support of Congo’s President Kabila, and £90m to prop up the Rwandan regime. They want those responsible for backing the genocide – including Tony Blair and the Clintons as well as African leaders to be brought to justice.

Congo Massacre protest

Syrians demand break the siege of Alwaer – Downing St

Syrians at Downing St called on the UK and international community to take urgent action to end the siege of Alwaer and 50 other besieged towns in Syria. People are without electricity, drinking water, food, fuel, and medical care and are at risk of dying from malnutrition

Alwaer, a town of more than 100,000 people, has been under siege by Syrian government forces for over 3 years and many have been killed and others are suffering disease. Assad’s forces are carrying out a systematic and deliberate policy of starvation of civilians, a war crime in grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Syrians demand break the siege of Alwaer

DPAC Trash The Tories – Maidenhead

DPAC Trash The Tories – Maidenhead
Back when the Tories got back into power with the support of the Lib Dems in the UK 2010 General Election they decided to launch a policy of austerity, making deep cuts in the services and benefits that enabled the less wealthy in the country to get by and lead decent lives.

The cuts they proceeded to make had relatively little effect on those in the better-paid jobs many of whom didn’t need or had opted out of public services such as the NHS and state education and didn’t live in public housing or working class areas. But in any case the Tories made sure these people were protected with increasing real salaries as inequality increased. The Office of National Statistics reported in 2020 “The gap between the richest in society and the rest of the population has widened over the 10-year period; the income share of the richest 1% increased from 7% to 8.2% between FYE 2011 and FYE 2020.”

In particular, the government continued to bail out the bankers, despite it being the bankers who had precipitated the 2008 financial crisis – and in the longer term had been responsible for creating instability by creating and exploiting huge loopholes in the world financial system established after the war. It was of course British banks and the City of London which played the leading role in this, making London the money-laundering capital of the world with former colonies at the centre of offshoring and enabling after the break-up of the Soviet Union Russians to legalise their illegal plunder and become oligarchs, with a huge influence in the Conservative Party.

But the Tories came in determined to cut benefits and in particular looked at the amounts going to support disabled people and enable them to live in the community. They thought wrongly that disabled people would be an easy target because of their various disabilities. They were wrong on two counts. Firstly because many disabled people had experience of having to fight for their rights and secondly because they greatly underestimated the wide support for them among the general population. Tories may not have a heart (and certainly many Tories have demonstrated this in recent years) but the general public do.

At the centre of the protests by disabled people is DPAC, Disabled People Against Cuts, formed by disabled people after the mass protests against cuts in Birmingham in October 2010 had been led by disabled people. On its web site it proclaims “DPAC is for everyone who believes that disabled people should have full human rights and equality. It is for everyone that refuses to accept that any country can destroy the lives of people just because they are or become disabled or have chronic health issues. It is for everyone against government austerity measures which target the poor while leaving the wealthy unscathed. It is for everyone who refuses to stay silent about the injustices delivered by wealthy politicians on ordinary people and their lives.”

On Saturday 3rd June 2017, five days before the General Election called by Theresa May, I joined DPAC for a protest in her constituency of Maidenhead. Her government was the first in the world the UN had found guilty of grave and systematic violations of disabled people’s human rights. Tory cuts since 2010 had 9 times the impact on disabled people as on any other group, 19 times more for those with the highest support needs. DPAC call the policies heartless and say they are starving, isolating and ultimately killing the disabled who the Tories regard them as unproductive members of society. Though it was the cuts, particularly the axing of the Independent Living Fund, ILF, which had stopped many making a real contribution.

It was a fairly small group that arrived at Maidenhead station for the protest. Travel by rail is often very difficult for disabled people. Few stations have step-free access and there are often large gaps between train and platform. Rail companies do make an effort to provide support but this needs to be booked in advance and is sometimes unreliable. And rail fares are an expensive luxury for people on benefits – who may also need a taxi to get to the station.

They paraded a straw effigy of ‘Theresa May – Weak and Wobbly‘ and a hatchet with the message ‘Cuts Kill‘ to the High St for a rally, with speeches, loud chanting and handing out fliers calling on Maidenhead voters to vote for anyone but Theresa May before returning to the station.

Most other photographers thought the protest was ended and some had rushed to get the train back to London, and the police had largely gone away, but I knew DPAC from previous events and stayed with them, taking photographs as they moved to block one of the busiest road junctions in the town for around 15 minutes as police tried to persuade them to move.

Eventually they did get off the road, just in time for me to catch a bus to start my journey home. I was sorry to have to rush away, but the next bus wasn’t for a couple of hours. I changed buses in Windsor and got off in Staines, walked along the road and put my hand in my pocket for my phone and it wasn’t there. At home I went to ‘Google Find My Device‘ and saw on the map it was still travelling on the bus all the way to Slough, where fortunately the driver found it and handed it in to the office and I was able to cycle there and collect it the following Monday.

More on the protest at DPAC Trash The Tories in Maidenhead.

Democracy, Black Cabs, Murad & Zionists

Democracy, Black Cabs, Murad & Zionists – My agenda for Wednesday 2nd June 2010 was a busy one, with protests about democracy in Parliament Square, London’s Black Taxis at Aldwych, a picket at BP’s St James’s Square HQ, trade unionists protesting at the Turkish Embassy and Zionists supporting the Israeli attack and killings on the Gaza aid flotilla.

Democracy Village Protest – Parliament Square

People had been camping in the Democracy Village in Parliament Square for just over a month and a few of them had come across the road with banners to protest. They held up banners, including a large one saying ‘We Respect The Soldiers We Do Not Support The War‘ and another ‘We Demand Peace In Afghanistan and No More War‘ and several made speeches with a megaphone. Another very artistically written notice on a large square of cloth on the pavement read ‘With Each Conscious Breath May You Know How Loved You Are in All Ways. You Are Divine. Let Your Light Shine’.

Democracy Village Protest

Brian Haw – Summons Marks 9 Years in Parliament Square

I went back to the other side of the road to talk with Brian Haw and Barbara Tucker who I had come to visit on the 9th anniversary of the start of Brian’s protest vigil opposite the Houses of Parliament in Parliament Square. A week ago they had been arrested and held for 30 hours on the day of the state opening of Parliament before the court released them on bail.

The arrest had come after Brian objected to police searching his tent in the early morning without a warrant – the 13th or 14th illegal search they have made, all part of a continual campaign of harassment. As we were talking we became aware of three police a few yards away standing and watching us. They then came over and served Barbara Ticker with a summons for using a megaphone in Parliament Square.

Brian and Barbara asked why she was being singled out for attention as there were at that time others In the Democracy Village actually using a megaphone and she was not at the time doing so. The officers made no attempt to answer this question.

BrianHaw – Summons Marks 9 Years

Black Cabs Protest – Aldwych

I don’t use taxis in London – or at least very seldom. I can only remember two occasions in the last thirty or so years, both when others insisted I go with them. It’s a wasteful, outdated and overpriced system which is responsible for much of the congestion in London, both by cabs carrying only small numbers of people compared to other public transport and also by ‘cruising for hire’ with no passengers on board.

My account on My London Diary gives some of their grievances, some of which I have some sympathy with, and I agree the police should be enforcing the law (rather than harassing protesters) but the whole system needs to be updated, taking into account the general availability of smart-phones and improvements in satellite navigation systems which increasingly make the ‘knowledge’ redundant and can provide real-time congestion information.

I didn’t find it an easy protest to photograph, which I think shows in the results. Lots of taxis are frankly rather boring, and not that unusual in London, where I commented that “While standing at a bus stop a couple of weeks ago I counted over 30 empty taxis going past before my bus arrived, and I couldn’t help but think we could have a better public transport system without taxis.”

Black Cabs Protest

BP Picket for Colombian Oil Workers – St James’s Square

BP have a long-running dispute with the workers on the Cusiana oilfield in the Casanare department of Colombia, and its one where they are playing dirty, with union members accusing BP of carrying out a campaign of misinformation about what is happening in the plant, and in particular of falsely claiming the support of government officials for their lies about the action.

More or less as this picket was taking place, armed commandos from the Colombian army leapt over a security grid at the plant and attacked the workers who were carrying out a peaceful occupation of the Cusiana CPF (Central Processing Facility) in Tauramena.

Previously BP had come to an out of court settlement on a UK High Court challenge over the pipeline from this oilfield to the coast, when farmers alleged that BP benefited from the actions of Colombian paramilitary forces who harassed and intimidated them in their protection of the pipeline. During the preparation of the case, of the lawyers for the farmers discovered she was on a death list and fled the country; she was granted political asylum in the UK.

The protest was organised by the Colombia Solidarity Campaign and was supported by the ICEM, the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Worker’s Unions, based in Switzerland which represents more than 20 million workers around the world, uniting trade unions in its sector around the world.

BP Picket for Colombian Oil Workers

Protest for Murad Akincilar Turkish Embassy, Belgrave Square

Trade unionist Murad Akincilar was arrested on a spurious charge of belonging to a terrorist organisation while on an extended holiday in Turkey last September and was in prison in Istanbul. His treatment in prison has resulted in serious eye damage and partial blindness. He was known personally to some of the protesters as he studied for a Masters Degree at the LSE, but since 2001 he has lived in Switzerland and worked for Swiss trade union Unia which was leading the campaign for his release.

The protest opposite the Turkish Embassy was organised by Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! and Gik-der, an organisation founded in north London in 1991 by migrants fleeing political and racial persecution in their home countries of Turkey and Kurdistan.

Protest for Murad Akincilar

Zionist Federation Support Israeli Atrocity – Israeli Embassy, Kensington

The Zionist Federation together with members of the English Defence League demonstrated opposite the Israeli embassy in support of the Israeli Defence Force killings in the attack on the Gaza aid flotilla.

A smaller group of pro-Palestinian protesters had come to oppose them, although both the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and the Stop the War Coalition had decided not to support the counter-demonstration to avoid conflict.

Although official Zionist sources had expressed some regret at the violence and loss of life, the mood of the supporters here appeared to be one of a gloating triumphalism that seemed entirely inappropriate to the situation. I was “sickened when at one point a large group of the demonstrators began chanting ‘dead Palestinian scum’ ” and appalled to find this was “a demonstration jointly with the Zionist Federation and the English Defence League, some of whose members many of us have seen and heard chanting racist slogans on our streets. It seems unbelievable that a Jewish organisation should align itself – even if unofficially – with people like this.”

Attempts to justify the summary execution of one of the victims by shots to the head at close range by the existence of so-called weapons on the ships seemed insulting – almost all those shown in the photographs are “exactly the kind of tools that would be expected to be found on any ship in its galley and for general maintenance, as well as items being taken for building work in Gaza. The possible exceptions are a few canisters of pepper spray, some catapults and what looks like some kind of ceremonial knife.”

I’m very much in favour of peace in Palestine and Israel, but like many I feel “the actions of the state of Israel in their attacks on Gaza, their disruption of everyday life for the Palestinians and the blockade is making the possibility of peace much more distant… Like other conflicts, resolution depends on winning hearts and minds and this can’t be done with tanks and bulldozers.”

Police had to step in at the end of the protest when four press photographers were surrounded and chased by a an angry group of threatening Zionist demonstrators but all I suffered were a few threats and hostile gestures.

Zionist Federation Support Israeli Atrocity

More from Deptford 1988

More from Deptford 1988 continues my walk around New Cross and Deptford. The previous post was Deptford Broadway And New Cross Road.

Deptford High St, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10g-51-Edit_2400 — *Deptford High St, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10g-51*

13 Deptford High Street is distinguished by the impressive pillars of its entrance and a fine rounded frontage. Whoever it was built for was obviously wealthy and perhaps a shipowner or merchant for goods landed locally either on Deptford Creek or on the Thames, perhaps tea from China. Tea was taxed heavily – 119% – until 1784 and this led to considerable smuggling but parliament reduced to tax then to 12.5% making tea available to a wider range of the population and ending the illegality. Though the East India Company retained its monopoly until 1834.

The house, built on what was then Butt Lane is locally listed is thought to have been built in the early 18th century but its rounded front was probably added around a hundred or so years later.

Deptford High St, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10g-52-Edit_2400 — *Deptford High St, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10g-52*

The ‘A One CAFE’ at 18 Deptford High St looked as if it was no longer in business, though its door still is decorated with ice-cream cones. The doorway leading to the upper residential floors has the message ‘Gays Rule’ and is I think boarded up. This building is still there, its ground floor now a Vets, its brickwork plastered over and generally looking in rather better repair.

Unfortunately this picture is slightly out of focus (though the grain is sharp) and I cannot make out some of the finer detail of the building.

Deptford High St, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10g-56-Edit_2400 — *Deptford High St, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10g-56*

I took only a couple of pictures as I walked up Deptford High Street to its north end and its junction with Evelyn Road/Creek Road, which still looks much the same as in my picture except that all the shops have changed hands at least once.

No 227 was in very poor condition and there was considerable building work there a few years ago but the general appearance is much the same, though it has long lost the shopfront and signage. This Grade II listed house, shop and bakehouse was built in 1791 for Thomas Palmer and improved in the early 19th century, although the ‘RCHME DEPTFORD HOUSES: 1650 to 1800’ survey in 1997-8 suggested it was “perhaps a single late-17th-century house with the front house added c. 1700, extensively rebuilt 1791-2” and says it “has its origins in the period 1654-1692 during which John Evelyn developed a corner of his Sayes Court estate corresponding to Nos 217-227 with a block of nine buildings set back from the road.” It does go on to say the house “was all but wholly rebuilt for Palmer in 1791-2” and remained a bakers until the 1990s.

The Tideway Clothing Stores is now an off-licence and supermart. The Courage Pub at right was torn down illegally without permission in 2019; it had been there at least since the 1820’s and though it looks as if it was still open, closed as a pub around the time I made this picture. The building became offices for a firm of solicitors, and the ground floor was used for art classes. The Deptford Dame published a report of the proposals for its reconstruction in 2021.

Panda, Car Hire, Watergate St, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10g-41-Edit_2400 — *Panda, Car Hire, Watergate St, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10g-41*

Watergate Street is essentially the continuation of Deptford High Street to the north, leading to the River Thames. At the extreme left of this picture you can see a pillar of another Deptford pub, the Harp of Erin at 2 – 4 New King Street on the corner between this and Watergate Street. The pub which went under a variety of names over the years as Round the Bend, Nobody’s Inn, Looney Tunes, closed as simply The Harp in 2014.

Panda Car Hire and taxi service to Airports, Theatres, Stations was next to the pub on Watergate St and had this rather odd imitation half-timbering which attracted my attention. Panda Cars seemed a strange business name, usually used to refer to small police cars driven by police officers which were often painted black and white. The building is still there, and in the same business as Water Gate Cars but has now a rather plainer frontage.

Parker's Corner, Evelyn St, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10g-46-Edit_2400 — *Parker’s Corner, Evelyn St, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10g-46*

I walked west along Evelyn Street. Parker’s Corner was around half a mile away, just before what is clearly a bridge although the Surrey Canal which used to go under it has long been filled in. I’d photographed this corner three years previously and wrote this about it: “Parkers Corner was next to the former Surrey Canal Blackhorse bridge in Evelyn Street on the corner of Dragoon Road.

Parker’s Timber were based at a wharf on the canal on the northeast of the bridge. The company moved to Belvedere, Kent in the 1960s. Although I was a great fan of Bird, someone else had beaten me to paint Charlie on the wall. ” In this frmae you can still see ‘Charlie’ though a little faded. The sign at top left is for Victoria Wharf, the site behind the wall, and lists some of the businesses there. The modern building behind, Parker House at 144 Evelyn Road, was demolished in 2015

Law Bros, Grove St, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10g-21-Edit_2400 — Law Bros, Grove St, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10g-21

The Victoria Wharf site stretched along Dragoon St from Evelyn Street to Grove Street where Law Bros had this building. Rather oddly a sign at right told me the Bros were Stewart & Alice and their business appear to be in Calor Gas according the the five signs in the picture. At left were signs for two other businesses on the wharf and above the doorway was another for Andrews.

I wondered what this building had been built as; it was marked as ‘Chapel’ on old large-scale OS maps on Grove St beside the wharf entrance. A very bad photograph in the Deptford Archives enabled me to identify it as Victoria Hall Methodist Church, opened in 1857 and demolished in 2015 as a part of the Timberyard development.

Scrap Dealer, Oxestalls Rd, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10g-14-Edit_2400 — *Scrap Dealer, Oxestalls Rd, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10g-1488-10g-14*

Oxestalls Road was created around 1966 when there was considerable redevelopment in the area with the creation of the Pepys estate, and it goes across the former route of the Surrey Canal at an elevated level. This view is looking roughly east and you can see the chimneys and roof of The Victoria pub on Grove Street above the sheds to the left of the picture along with a chimney which I think is at Deptford Power Station.

Holsten Pils, Liquor Barn, Evelyn St, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10g-15-Edit_2400

Tooheys Liquor Barn on Evelyn Street with the trailer of a lorry carrying a Holsten Pils waggon, probably designed to be horse-drawn. It appears to be part of the Evelyn Cash & Carry shed. In the background is Eddystone Tower on Oxestalls Road, 26 floors and 257ft high, part of the GLC Pepys Estate built in 1962.

My walk around Deptford will continue in a later post.