Protest march to US Embassy, Saturday Jan 21st 2006
Vanessa Redgrave
Seventeen years ago now seems like another age. And my post on this protest on My London Diary looks rather different to those on more recent events in various ways. Not least in that you will need to scroll down the page to find the both the story and the pictures.
2006 was perhaps when ‘My London Diary’ began to seriously post about protests in London, though there are some from previous years since 1999 on-line. Although I’d switched to digital at the end of 2002 I was working for a few years with both digital and film, partly because for a while didn’t have good wide-angle lenses for my Nikon digital camera. But although I’d had a D100 and then a D70, neither was really as good a camera to work with as my film cameras, with rather dim, small viewfinder images.
The D200 which I bought as soon as it came out at the end of 2005 improved that significantly, and by the start of 2006 I had lenses that could cover the range in DX format from 12mm to 125mm (equivalent to 18-187mm) as well as a fisheye. Although the D100 had been usable, this was the first digital camera I owned that felt a good camera to use.
So far I’ve only published two books of my protest pictures, one with the title ‘2006: My London Diary‘ which includes single pictures from many of the protests I covered in that year, and the second, a cheaper magazine with my pictures of the Class War ‘Poor Doors’ protests in 2014-5.
Back in 2006 there were still an number of men with British resident status still held in Guantanamo, Omar Deghayes, Binyam Mohammed, Shaker Aamer, Jamal Kiyemba, Bisher Al-Rawi, Jamal El Banna, Ahmed Errachidi, Ahmed Ben Bacha and Abdulnour Sameur, most with British wives and families, men who had worked here and paid their taxes to this country.
Yvonne Ridley, Ashfaq Ahmad and Amani Deghayes
All were being treated inhumanely, with those on hunger strike – including Omar Deghayes – being force fed in a particularly painful manner using nasal tubes. A previous assault by prison guards using pepper spray had resulted in Omar losing the sight of one eye.
Members of the families of these men took part in the march and they were represented by people dressed in some chained together. The march began close to Methodist Central Hall, where the inaugural meeting of the UN had taken place, and there British ex-Guantanamo prisoner Moazzam Begg and others including Bruce Kent and Vanessa Redgrave spoke about the shame the British nation feel at our nation’s collusion in this US war-crime.
The march paused for a protest in front of Downing Street and then moved on down Whitheall, making its way to the USA embassy in Grosvenor Square.
There were more speeches to the large crowd taking part in the protest in front of the US embassy, including by the father of one of the detainees and Labour Pary stalwart Walter Wolfgang.
Walter Wolfgang
More pictures on My London Dairy begin here. You can read my text from 2006 some way down the January 2006 page.
It was March 1989 before I had time for another walk in London after my walk on 12th February. I was still then teaching full-time and and this kept me busy, and the weather wasn’t always good at the weekend. If it was forecast to pour with rain most of the day I stayed home, and there were some weekends too when the trains were not running and getting to London took too long to be worth doing. But I did manage two walks in march, the first a long wander around from Peckham to New Cross and the second in the City and Shoreditch.
From the metal shutters on these shops you can see that this walk was on a Sunday. I preferred working on Sundays, particularly for busy shopping centres such as Rye Lane as the streets would then be empty with few shops opening. This allowed me to concentrate on the buildings without the distraction of people in the picture or walking in front of my camera.
In the morning the sun was shining on the buildings on the west side of the street and you can see long shadows from the lights projecting in front of ‘Lipstick’. Film of course didn’t have EXIF data but I suspect that ardent meteorological detectives could tell be exactly the time and day from the shadows, but I think it was likely to have been around 10 am. Back then I often caught the first train to London on Sundays, which left a little after 8am, so could be in Peckham after catching a bus perhaps by 9.30. And I will have got off the bus quite close to here, before walking east along Peckham High Street and Queens Road.
My next stop to take a picture was in Lugard Road, where just a few yards to the south of Queens Road I found the premises of Evan Cook offering Export Packaging, Removals and Storage with some interesting girders above their wide gates and linking these to the factory building. I was puzzled by these and could not work out what purpose they served.
This works has since been demolished and replaced by flats, and there is now also Evan Cook Close. From my photograph I thought the business was called Evan Cooke with an ‘e’ and I can’t understand what the final character is. The company, first incorporated in 1903 was dissolved in 2015 but the works had gone long before.
I continued down Lugard Road, turning into Hollydale Road and making my way to Dundas Road where I found these pre-fabs, which I think are LCC temporary housing. In 1963-4 the LCC designed temporary housing together with the Timber Development Association as a temporary solution to the then acute housing problem.
Designed to last 15 years these homes came as two boxes which were craned onto piles of paving slabs and did not need dug foundations. The two boxes were than bolted together. The walls were asbestos covered with plastic and both roof and floor were made from plywood sheets sandwiching polystyrene insulation. They had a hall, living room, two bedrooms, kitchen and bathroom.
Some were still being lived in 50 years later, but these in Dundas Road have long been removed and replaced. I walked along Dundas Road to St Mary’s Road, pausing to take a picture of St Mary Magdalene Church which I have not digitised as I think I took a better picture of this now demolished building on another occasion.
R E Sassoon House, St Mary’s Rd, Belfort Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3a-65
This block of workers flats were commissioned in memory of amateur jockey Reginald Sassoon, whose mother was a friend of housing reformer Elizabeth Danby who was working with architect E Maxwell Fry and doctors Innes Hope Pearse and George Scott Williamson on the Peckham Experiment in the neighbouring Pioneer Health Centre. Fry was responsible for the building but collaborated with Denby over the interiors.
R E Sassoon House, St Mary’s Rd, Belfort Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3a-52
The flats, opened in in November 1934, were designed to provide an ultra-modern well equipped living space for families, with 3 three-room flats and one four-roomed flats on each of the five floors. The curtain wall to the plate glass staircase tower was decorated with a glass mural of a horse and rider by Hans Feibusch. The interior was considerably altered in the 1980s when it was taken over by Southwark Borough Council. Surprisingly this block by one of the UK’s most distinguished modernist architects only got its Grade II listing in 1998.
Pioneer Health Centre, St Mary’s Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3a-53
Doctors George Scott Williamson and Innes Hope Pearse ran the Pioneer Health Centre in Queens Rd, Peckham from 1926-9, signing up 950 local families at 1s (5p) a week and offering various exercise activities, games and workshops and regular medical checkups as well as other medical services. The positive results led them to open a larger purpose-built centre a short distance away in St Mary’s Rd, designed by Sir Owen Williams, Grade II* listed as ‘Southwark Adult Education Institute’.
Pioneer Health Centre, St Mary’s Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3a-55
The centre was too comprehensive in its approach to fit in with the National Health Service and too expensive to keep going outside the NHS and it closed in 1950. When I took this picture it was a leisure and adult education centre for Southwark Borough Council, who sold it in the 1990s to be converted into luxury flats. But the Peckham Experiment remains a superb example of what a proper national health service could and should provide, with truly holistic approach to keeping the people fit and healthy.
I continued up St Mary’s Road to Queens Road, where the next post on this walk will begin.
Temple Festival: 400 Years of Middle & Inner Temple – Saturday 19th January, 2008
Temple Church, 2008
A few weeks ago I spent an interesting afternoon with several friends. We met at Temple underground station then walked up Milford Lane and into the Middle Temple, turning right at Fountain Court, passing Middle Temple Hall, turning north into Middle Temple Lane and then right into Pump Court and then paying our entry fee to visit Temple Church, one of London’s more remarkable ancient churches. After a long time there we walked out and up Fetter Lane to Holborn Circus and on to Ely Place and spending some time in St Etheldreda’s RC Church, also worth a visit, before turning back and down Ely Place to the Old Mitre pub.
Middle Temple Hall, 2008
This is only one of many in London worth a visit, and we soon left for another and finally for a meal in one of those Wetherspoons is currently trying to sell. Sitting there I reviewed the numerous pictures I had taken on the walk, and thought a few were not bad. When I got home I took the SD card out of the camera and left it on my desk. The following morning I put it into my USB card reader but the reader didn’t respond and nothing came up on my computer. I put it back into the camera and got an error message and the camera was now also unable to read the card. I tried another camera with the same result.
I carefully cleaned the contacts on the card, but that didn’t help. I googled a bit, but all of the articles I found assumed you could access the card, which I couldn’t. I gave up and binned the card. I’ve never had this problem before using CF and SD cards for 20 years, taking pictures most days. On one or two occasions I’ve had to use rescue software to read files from cards, and back in the early days I did manage to overwrite some files after I had put them on my computer with smaller versions of the same images, but I can’t recall ever having been unable to access the files at all. And I did on one occasion lose one or two full cards after the pocket they were in was ripped when things got rather physical in a protest I was covering.
Middle Temple Lane
Fortunately it didn’t really matter. I’d had an enjoyable afternoon, and the pictures, though interesting weren’t important. I could in theory go back and repeat them, possibly better, though it’s very unlikely I will. And although there were some places on our route I’d not photographed before, others I had, for example on the visit the pictures here come from, when on Saturday 19th January 2008 the Middle & Inner Temple were celebrating 400 years since James I granted the site in perpetuity to the Honourable Societies of the Middle and Inner Temple for training and accommodating barristers, on condition that they also looked after the Temple Church.
Of course the Temple Church was by then almost 450 years old – here’s the first couple of paras of what I wrote back in 2008:
The Knights Templar moved down from the north end of Chancery Lane to Temple around 1160, and of course built a church. Soon after they were suppressed in 1308, the site went to the Order of St John, and not long after they leased the site to some law students.
Henry VIII didn’t just become head of the church in England to make it easier to change wives, but also used it to grab for himself the huge riches of the monasteries – including the Temple site with its two templar halls full of lawyers. (When there was a pilgrimage of several thousand in protest, led by lawyer Robert Aske, Henry promised to look into their complaints and most went home happy. Then he had Aske hung in chains from a church tower until he starved to death and forgot his promises. But Aske came from Grey’s Inn, not the Temple.)
Ashura Day Procession – Marble Arch, Saturday 19 Jan, 2008
The Knights Templar were of course fighting in the crusades against Islam in Palestine and elsewhere, and their church has memorials to many of the nobler knights, including some who bear my family name, though almost certainly I’m not in any way descended from them. Marshalls were stable boys as well as knights. But it did seem appropriate in some way that my day took me from the Temple (though I didn’t on that occasion go in the Temple Church) to one of the major Islamic religious commemorations of Shia Islam.
Ashura Day remembers the martyrdom of Husain and his small group of followers at Kerbala, Iraq in 61AH (680 AD.) Processions in London have taken place for many years now, and I first photographed one of them in 2000, returning in several years including 2008. It takes place annually on the 10th of Muharram, which I think in 2023 will be July 29th.
The event began at Marble Arch and then several thousand people walked along Hyde Park Place and the Bayswater Road, some banging drums and blowing trumpets, while others chant through loudspeakers to lead the mainly black-clad walkers in their mourning, remembering the martyrdom of Husain and his small group of followers.
I left the procession, which was on its way to the Islamic Centre in Penzance Place in Notting Hill, at Lancaster Gate. It was getting rather dark and taking pictures by available light was becoming tricky – and I was getting tired and glad to get on the tube.
Protests had begun against a small EDO-MBM factory at Moulsecoomb on the outskirts of Brighton in 2003 after the press had revealed that it was making parts for a guided bomb that was being used in the invasion of Iraq.
Police push Smash EDO protesters, 2010
In April 2005, EDO attempted to get a wide-ranging injunction to prevent protests at the site, including stepping onto the road outside the factory, playing music and taking photographs. This was the start of a lengthy legal action in which the UK Attorney-General became involved, as the defendants had submitted a detailed dossier on war crimes involving air strikes on civilian areas and infrastructure and were arguing that the invasion was an illegal war of aggression in breach of the UN Charter.
The Wikipedia article states “The court found that if there was an imminent war crime that the protesters believed on reasonable grounds, was about to take place, in which EDO were complicit, then preventative direct action could lawfully be taken against the company without waiting for the authorities of the state to intervene. This ruling effectively allowed proportionate direct action against companies by protesters, if the threat of the crime was imminent and specific.”
Coffins to remember the 1417 Palestinians killed – some by Brighton-made bombs
Some of the defendants signed an out of court settlement with EDO in April 2005 after it was put forward by Keir Starmer and they were then told legal aid would be withdrawn unless they agreed. They then intervened with a suggestion which was them he would withdraw their legal aid and they signed “undertakings not to do certain things that they had never done and had no intention of doing” with EDO agreeing to pay their costs, as well as their own, and the injunction against those not in court was lifted.
The case against three defendants who were conducting their own defence continued as they refused to sign these undertakings. In March 2006 a judge agreed with them that EDO had failed to make the preparations for a speedy trial as ordered by the court, and the company dropped the case rather than face further proceedings for abuse of process, paying the full costs of all those involved. The whole legal business is thought to have cost EDO between £1-1.5m, more than a years annual profit for the Brighton factory.
Police block the road to the factory
In 2009 weapons supplied by EDO were being used in the Israeli attacks on Gaza and a small group of activists decommissioned’ the factory to prevent exports to Israel. Again EDO went to court and they were again unsuccessful with the court finding all of those charged not guilty.
On Monday 18th January 2010, the first anniversary of the end of the Israeli war against Gaza, I went to photography Smash EDO activists in Brighton who were protesting against arms manufacturer EDO MBM/ITT who made some of the weapons that killed 1417 Palestinians, mainly the elderly, women and children, during the three-week assault.
Despite earlier rulings that such protests were legal, the police had come determined to stop this one taking place, responding to the protesters who they probably outnumbered with an impressive display of force and violence as they attempted to make their way to protest at the factory.
I went with the protesters as they tried to go around the police lines through the woods and along a footpath and was able to photograph some of the confrontations. You can see more of what happened on that day in the pictures and the captions in my post on My London Diary.
What I don’t mention there is that like many of the protesters I was also assaulted several times by some of the officers while taking pictures, and at one point only just managed to stop myself going over a roughly 50ft drop when pushed violently by one of them. Other officers helped me up and to move away from the edge, but it was at times a scary event to cover. I was bruised and shaken as well as tired and left Brighton while the police were still harassing the protesters who had marched back towards the centre of the town.
Protests continue at EDO’s factory, now led by Brighton Against the Arms Trade, after the Moulsecoomb factory was found in 2019 to have produced arms used in a Saudi ‘attack that violated international law’ against a civilian target in Yemen and to be involved in helping Turkey to get around US attempts to prevent the proliferation of drone warfare.
I was almost at the end of my walk on 12th February 1989. The previous post on this, Almshouses, Relief Station, Flats and a Viaduct had ended on Copeland Road, and I walked down this turning into Bournemouth Road to take me to Rye Lane.
This brought me out opposite the imposing gateway of the Tower Cinema at 116 Rye Lane, designed by architect H. Courtenay Constantine and opened in 1914. In 1989 this was in a poor condition and had an ugly archway fronting the street at pavement level, which I’m pleased to see has now been removed. This wasn’t a part of the 1914 building and was perhaps from the ‘modernisation’ of its frontage in 1955, the year before the cinema closed in 1956. When built the tower had another tower on top and dominated Rye Lane. Although the frontage was narrow it lead to a large cinema behind. There have been various plans for the redevelopment of the site, but it was sold to the council and the building behind the gateway demolished for a car park, and remains in that use, with the tower empty and used to connect this to Rye Lane.
The window immediately above the archway, obscured in my picture now is a large eye, and the large window in the upper storey is filled by a colourful design with a tree, the sun and birds, while, as the video linked above shows, the car park is a home for a number of wild cats.
This short row of shops is still on the corner of Atwell Road and Rye Lane, though the shops have changed hands and the buildings look more run down and decidedly less attractive with new windows – the ‘Rising Sun’ has gone – and large ‘Chicken Cottage’ signs part cover and replace those of Just 4 U Continental Greengrocers. During the week the pedestrian area of Atwell Road now has various market stalls.
Back in 1989 the area was clearly a cosmopolitan one – as well as the continental (which?) greengrocers the next shop was a Oriental Supermarket (I think the name is Vietnamese) followed by Tuan Ladies Wear. The one business that remains is R Woodfall, Opticians, its sign at extreme right, still at 183, though more recently D Woodfall, proudly “serving Peckham since 1922.”
This was the last picture taken in Peckham on my walk, but I took a few more on the Blackfriars Road on my way home.
Sons of Temperance Friendly Society, Blackfriars Rd, Southwark, 1989 89-2f-11
So much time has passed that I’m not sure whether my visit to this part of Southwark was intentional or if I simply got on the wrong bus and decided after I realised that it would take me close enough to walk to Waterloo and I found a few things to photograph on my way. I think I saw this building from the top of the bus, rang the bell and jumped off to photograph it.
The Sons of Temperance Friendly Society building at 176, Blackfriars Road was to let in 1989 when I made this picture. Designed by A C Russell and built in 1909-10 it was only listed in 2013 after it had been sold. It was built on a grand scale in a deliberately similar style to some public houses and banks of the era and perhaps offered something of a similar experience but without the alcohol. Owned by the Sons of Temperance until 2011 it then became an architects offices.
The Sons of Temperance, according to Wikipedia “was and is a brotherhood of men who promoted the temperance movement and mutual support. The group was founded in 1842 in New York City” and it came to the UK in 1849 gaining a charter from the US parent organisation in 1855. From 1866 women were allowed to join as full members. As well as social activities it provided support for sick members and burial grants at a time when there was no welfare state. Like most similar organisations it had “secret rituals, signs, passwords, hand grips and regalia“, though these were modernised in 2000. “There were 135,742 UK members in 1926” but in 2012 it stopped providing life insurance and saving plans for its members and the UK society was dissolved in 2019.
On the opposite side of the street close to the junction with The Cut is this Grade II listed late 18th century house with a ground floor shop, in 1989 occupied by a builder and contractor, Gordon North. The decoration with herms and urns is probably 19th century, and a board above the doorway read ‘Established 1839‘.
According to British History Online, originally published in the Survey of London in 1950 “No. 74 was occupied by Charles Lines, coachbuilder, from 1814 to 1851 and by the terra cotta works of Mark Henry Blanchard & Co., from 1853–80. The figures on either side of the doorway were probably installed during this period. Since 1881 John Hoare & Son, builders, have been the occupiers.” So perhaps John Hoare had established his business on another site in 1839.
By the time I next photographed it, three years later, the builders name had gone. Later the sign above the entrance went and the site is now a restaurant.
This was the last time in February I was able to go on a walk taking photographs, but in March I returned to Peckham for another walk – which I will post about later.
Saturday 16th January 2016 was a busy day for me, ending rather unusually with taking some photographs at a party which I also put on-line.
St Pancras Die-In for Calais refugees
Saturday 16th January 2016 was an International Day of Action in solidarity with refugees and there were protests in Calais and Dunkirk as well as in many cities. The protests were held at short notice against the clearing the Calais refugee ‘Jungle’ and urged the UK government to give refugees at Calais safe passage into the UK to claim asylum.
Many of those in the camps have family and friends in the UK, which has failed to take a fair share of the migrants. Protesters included people from the London2Calais convoy as well as a Christian contingent with some bible-based placards.
After a brief speech on the wide pavement in front of Kings Cross station the protesters walked to the main entrance of St Pancras International where a large group of police prevented them from entering and they held a short rally.
The protesters then marched off down to Euston Road accompanied by a large group of police. While some continued to march along Euston Road many caught the police unaware by rushing down the steps into the underground entrance and along past the ticket offices before being stopped by more police at the underground entrance to the long shopping mall in St Pancras Station.
They held a protest there with several speakers calling for refugees at Calais and Dunkirk, who include many unaccompanied minors and others with relatives living in the UK, to be allowed to enter the UK and make asylum claims. Actup London then staged a die-in with others sitting down to join them for around ten minutes, ending with a final speech.
Apparently a few protesters had managed to get in and protest with fake body bags at the Eurostar entrance. The protesters had been careful throughout to leave a path for people catching trains to enter the station, but some had been held up by police who mistook them for protesters.
I was late and missed the start of the march against the annual inhumane slaughter of dolphins and small whales at Taiji in Japan. They had met in Cavendish Square but were marching down Regent St when I caught up with them on their way to the Japanese Embassy.
Although there were several hundred taking part, the marchers kept to the pavement rather than take to the road, which seemed rather strange and perhaps reduces their impact, though it did mean that shoppers who often appear to be sleepwalking did have to move out of the way.
Dominic Dyer of the Born Free Foundation, Care for the Wild and CEO of The Badger Trust led the march down the street. As usual many of the marchers had made their own posters and placards and some carried dolphins. This year many of the placards called for a boycott of the Tokyo Olympics for the shame that this inhumane slaughter brings to Japan.
I walked with the marchers taking pictures as far as Oxford Circus, waiting until all of them had passed on their way down Piccadilly to the Japanese Embassy and then left.
Around the statue of Erost were a group of Vegans from ‘Awakening Compassion’, standing and holding posters with large photographs of animals we farm for food – chickens, cows, sheep, goats, pigs- with messages such as ‘I am an animal – Someone not something – I want to stay alive.
Although I’m opposed to the cruel treatment of animals, the animals in these pictures owe their existence to the farmers who over millennia have bred them and now raise them. If we gave up eating meat and dairy products our countryside would be a very different place. We should be eating less meat for various reasons, and I do often have meals without it and pay more for meat and eggs produced with less cruelty, but farm animals form a vital part of the ecosystem and I’d hate to lose them.
The message of the Syrians who had come to protest in Trafalgar Square was clear – Drop Food Not Bombs on Syria. Instead of spending billions on bombs and weapons they want the money to be spent on humanitarian aid for those under siege across Syria, including those in Madaya and the Yarmouk refugee camp.
Many wore or held the Free Syria flag with its green, black and white strips and three red stars, and various posters which made clear they condemnation of ISS, the Russian bombings and the Assad regime.
One poster read ‘Syrians started the Revolution – Assad started the war’ while others made clear what they were calling for; ‘Drop the Food, Not Bombs’ and ‘Medaya is Crying While the World is Denying’
International Times new ‘Issue Zero’ – Mayfair Rooms, Fleet St
Hot from the press – but long sold out
Notorious London underground paper International Times, first published in 1966 and closed down in 1973 (with several re-incarnations and a web site since 2009) started again for its 50th anniversary with a launch party for the 36 page ‘Issue Zero’.
Among those writing for the new issue were stalwarts from its early days, including Heathcote Williams, and the issue was edited by Heathcote Ruthven with subediting by Emily McCarthy, Heather Williams, David Graeber and Heathcote Williams, design by Darren Cullen and art by Nick Victor and Claire Palmer.
Two protests in London on Saturday 15th January 2011.
UK Uncut Protest VAT Rise at Vodaphone – Oxford St, 15 Jan 2011
A couple of days ago in 2023 the Commons Public Accounts Committee reported that £42bn is outstanding in tax debt, with HMRC failing to collect around 5% of tax owing each year. Committee chair Meg Hiller commented “The eye-watering £42bn now owed to HMRC in unpaid taxes would have filled a lot of this year’s infamous public spending black hole.” The report states that for every £1 the HMRC spends on compliance it recovers £18 in unpaid tax, and the MPs say it simply isn’t trying hard enough.
In addition, they point to the pathetic effort our tax authorities are making to recover the £4.5 billion lost by fraud over Covid support schemes, only even “trying to recover less than a quarter of estimated losses in schemes such as furlough.“
Back in 2011, anti-cuts activists UK Uncut were campaigning to force the government to clamp down on tax avoidance rather than cut public services and increase the tax burden on the poor. This protest took place following a rise in VAT from 17.5% to 20% and a couple a weeks before the UK deadline for tax returns by the self-employed of January 31st.
They said then that rich individuals and companies such as Vodafone, Philip Green, HSBC, Grolsch, HMV, Boots, Barclays, KPMG and others employ armies of lawyers and accountants to exploit legal loopholes and dodge around £25 billions in tax while the rest of us on PAYE or ordinary people sending in self-assessment tax forms pay the full amount.
Little has changed since then – except the amounts involved will have increased, but nothing has been done to move to a fairer approach to taxation which would eliminate the legal dodges and loopholes and insist that tax is paid on money earned in the UK rather than being squirrelled away in overseas tax havens. It should be a general principle that any scheme to deliberately avoid tax is illegal.
Many believe the main impetus for the Brexit campaign was the intention announced by Europe to clamp down on tax avoidance, which would have cost the wealthy backers of Vote Leave millions by cutting down their dodgy dealings.
UK Uncut held a rally on the pavement on Oxford Street outside Vodaphone, one of the companies that manage to pay little or no UK tax. Large numbers of shoppers walked by, some stopping briefly to listen and applauding the protest.
Speakers pointed out the regressive nature of VAT, applying to all purchases of goods (except those exempt from VAT) by everyone regardless of their incomes. Income tax should be fairer, as it is related to income and the ability to pay – and it would be fairer if the loopholes allowing tax avoidance were closed.
One speaker made the point that multinational companies not only use tricky accounting to avoid UK tax but also by shifting profits to tax havens they deny desperately needed funds to the poorer countries of the world.
Others spoke about the effects of the government cuts on education, with rising university fees and the removal of the maintenance allowance that had enabled many poorer students to remain in sixth-forms. At one point people held up books as a reminder of the cuts in library services being forced on local authorities by the government.
A member of the PCS spoke of his concern that the government was actually cutting down on the staff who combat tax evasion as well as relaxing the rules on tax avoidance rather than trying to collect more from the rich.
Prime Minister David Cameron had called for a ‘Big Society’ with charities and community organisations playing a larger role – presumably to replace the public services which were disappearing under his austerity programme. But many of these organisations were also under pressure as hard-pressed local authorities were having to slash funding grants.
Pillow Fight Against Solum at Walthamstow, 15 Jan 2011
Ealier I had photographed Walthamstow residents staging a pillow fight in protest against plans for inappropriate high rise development on Walthamstow Central Station car park which were tocome to the council planning committee meeting the following Thursday.
Solum Regeneration had plans to build a 14 storey hotel and 8 storey blocks of flats there, towering over the surrounding area of largely late-Victorian low rise development.
The scheme had been condemned the previous year by CABE, the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment set up in 1999 to provide impartial advice to the government “on architecture, urban design and public space“, and the developers had made minor changes which made it even less acceptable to the local objectors.
Solum Regeneration was set up by Network Rail and Kier Property to redevelop land around railway stations, including Walthamstow Central. One of their other plans was for a huge redevelopment at Twickenham station, now completed after some years of considerable inconvenience to station users. Richmond Council had initially turned down this scheme.
Despite the pillow fight and the other activities of local campaigners, the Walthamstow scheme also got the go-ahead, with building work beginning in 2012. Other high rise schemes have also been approved in the surrounding area, the character of which has changed considerably.
Last Tuesday – 10th January 2023 – I went for a walk with a couple of friends, both photographers. The pictures here were all taken by me on our walk. We met at Tate Britain where the exhibition on Bill Brandt was entering its last few days – it finishes tomorrow, 15th January. We hadn’t bothered to go before as all three of us were very familiar with Brandt’s work – and had seen previous and larger and better exhibitions. I think both the others had heard him talking about his work, we had all watched him on film and all owned several of his books, had in various ways studied his work and taught about it. I’d also published some short pieces about him when I wrote about photography for a living. We didn’t really feel a need to go to another show, but it was free and it fitted in with a couple of other things we wanted to do.
While its good that the Tate was honouring one of Britain’s finest photographers, we all found the show disappointing, both for the rather odd selection of works and prints and for some of the writing on the wall. Much of Brandt’s best work was missing, and it was hard to see why some images were included, and some prints also seemed to be of rather poor quality. Possibly this show reflects the failure of almost all British museums in the past to take collecting photography seriously – or perhaps a lack of real appreciation of photography by the Tate.
Brandt began his work in an era when photographs were seldom put on walls for anything other than illustrative purposes – there was no art market in photography. His work was largely produced for book projects and for magazine commissions, and he made prints largely for the platemakers who would prepare the plates for printing. To see the real object of his work you have to look not at the ‘original prints’ but at their reproduction in books and magazines. The strongest point in this show was the glass cases in which some of these were situated. But while we were there few of the other visitors to the show paid them more than a passing glance, instead filing reverently around the spaced out prints on the wall, pausing to pay homage at each of them before moving to the next.
I found it a disappointing show, and if you missed it you didn’t miss much. Far better to spend your time on his 1977 book, Shadow of Light for an overall view of his work, still available second-hand at reasonable prices. And should you want to know more about the man and his influences (neither of which the Tate show concerned itself with) Paul Delany’s Bill Brandt – A Life provides more information than anyone could ever want.
We left the gallery, crossing Atterbury Road to examine Henry Moore’s Two Piece Reclining Figure No. 1 in a small courtyard of Chelsea College Of Art and Design before proceeding to pay a courtesy visit to the Morpeth Arms which proved more to our taste than the Tate Show.
Refreshed we made our way across the river to Vauxhall to meet the Thames Path, following this upriver to Battersea Power Station. Much building work is still going on, including the construction of the Thames ‘Super Sewer’ and there is a lack of signs to show the way in the area close to the power station, but soon we found a side entrance to the recently opened interior.
I’d visited and photographed the interior years ago when it was derelict and was interested to see what the architects had done with it. Basically it is now an upmarket shopping mall full of shops selling goods and services that might appeal to the idle rich and wealthy tourists. It also has a cinema, an expensive lift up one chimney to a viewing platform from which we have already seen countless similar views, and, perhaps the only useful thing so far as I was concerned, toilets.
The architects have retained the huge scale of the two turbine halls, but the higher areas of them are now cluttered with huge hanging mock strings of giant fairy lamps and baubles, which failed to appeal to me. It was only at one that an uncluttered wall of windows really took me back to the atmosphere of the original.
The earlier of the two turbine halls was remarkable for its art deco decorative details – the later hall plain and utilitarian. Although at least some of the deco detail has been retained (or recreated) it no longer seems to have the impact it had formerly, perhaps because do the much higher lighting levels, perhaps because of the hanging distractors. But it remains an impressive building.
I’d left my two younger but less active companions to rush around and see the whole building, going up as high as I could while they stayed lower down. By the time we found each other again they had seen enough and were fed up with the place, and we left to the riverside terrace, walking along to catch a bus on Queenstown Road. It was dusk on a dull and damp day and we made our way to a cheap meal at a rather cosy pub in Battersea for a glass or two of wine and a remarkably cheap meal before walking to Clapham Junction for our three different trains home.
Almshouses, Relief Station, Flats and a Viaduct is the next section of my walk in Peckham on Sunday 12th February 1989, The previous post on this walk was Consort Road Peckham.
My walk continued down Consort Road to these almshouses on the west side close to the south end of the road. Although the main block of these almhouses was built in 1834, there are four later blocks, probably from around the 1960s of which this is one. In 1961 the ten charities responsible for these almshouses and those nearby on Montpelior Road, also established by a bequest to the Girdlers Company began to amalgamate and rebuild, and by 1980 this had become their only site, where they still provide independent accommodation for 20 residents in 18 units with a Almshouse Manager employed by the company. There is now a single charity, known since 1997 as Beeston’s, Andrewes’ and Palyn’s Charity.
This picture is one of two blocks named Palyn House on the almshouse site, one of the four more or less identical blocks added to the orginal site.
Beeston’s Gift Alms Houses, Consort Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2f-55
These are the Beeston’s Gift Almshouses, built by the Girdlers’ Company in 1834 and Grade II listed. Past Master Cuthbert Beeston died in 1582 leaving seven houses near London Bridge run by charitable trusts, These were sold in 1834 to provide the funds to build these almshouses on Consort Road. They (together with the more recent buildings) still provide housing for around 20 poor persons, chosen by the charity from Freemen of the City of London, workers former workers “in trades akin to that of a Girdler (including workers in metals, leather, cloths and fabrics)” and those resident in the former administrative county of London.
The gates, railings and water pump to the almhouses are also Grade II listed.
The Relief Station was built in 1901 to provide for the poor in the area and later became Consort Road Clinic. Disused for some years it has been converted into eight self-contained dwellings, retaining the facade and complementing it with a new link building.
At the end of Consort Road I turned right into Nunhead Lane and walked down to Peckham Rye. These flats, Creed House and Goodwin House, seen from Peckham Rye are on the north side of Nunhead Crescent and are a part of the Nunhead estate built around 1956. Southwark Council commissioned a structural survey in 2021 on state of these blocks having consulted the previous year on the possibility of building an extra storey on top of these blocks and others in the estate.
I turned into Philip Walk, taking a photograph (not online) of the houses on its north side, solid late Victorian semis, the made my way through a recently built estate back to Consort Road where I made this picture of the splendid viaduct and bridge carrying the line to Nunhead over the street at the junction with Copeland Road. In the arches to the right were a number of businesses, with a part of the arch containing the Westminster Guild in my picture. They seem to have been brass founders and the arches further along are now Bronzewood Metalworks.
Copeland Road is best known for the Bussey building and Copeland Park, a few yards further west from this works, their entrance just out of picture, home to many years of the sporting goods factory owned by George Gibson Bussey. I can’t make out the name that was once above one of the buildings, though it clearly starts with SOUTH and I suspect the next word was LONDON.
These rather more humble premises, possibly from the inter-war period, are still there, now housing a barbers, a car wash and a catering company. The semi-detached pair of houses are also still presnet, but their higher end wall at extreme left is now simply a wall with the chimneys and nothing beyond.
My walk in Peckham was almost complete and I made my way back to Rye Lane, but there are just a few more pictures from the end and after taking a bus on my way home that will feature in a final post – and the following month I returned for another Peckham walk. The first post on this walk was Aged Pilgrims, Sceaux, Houses & Lettsom.
Back in the 1930s there were at least five Albert Roads in London, along with a number of Albert Streets, Albert Mews etc and the authorities embarked on an orgy of renaming to sort out the confusions that could arise. Albert had been particularly popular after Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha had married Queen Victoria in 1840 and at the time of his death in 1861, and some, such as Consort Road, were renamed to reflect their original dedication.
15 Consort Road is Grade II listed and described as “Mid C19, recently restored” and it rather looks as if my picture was taken during that restoration, with the house in excellent condition but the garden rather lacking. Its listing is perhaps more about its part in a group of similar houses rather than its individual merit, and 11,13 and 17 are also listed.
Rather better known now is its new neighbour, 15 and a half Consort Road, an long, low and unobtrusive house now alongside the right hand side of this house with a wood-covered frontage extending a little closer to the road. From the front it rather looks like a garage which someone forget to put in the door, but it was a truly innovative building by Richard Paxton Architects in 2002, shortlisted in the RIBA Awards 2006, and featured on TV’s Grand Designs.
Two railway lines with three bridges cross Consort Road just a few yards from each other, one leading from Peckham Rye to Nunhead and the other from Peckham Rye to Queen’s Road Peckham, along which is now planned to build an urban linear corridor park, the Coal Line, which I visited in 2015.
The bridges and the area around them have changed considerably since 1989. But I think the viaduct is of the line to Nunhead and this house on the edge of the workhouse site has since been demolished.
Limited were in a post-war building on Consort Road just a little south of the railway bridges and I think they made waterproof products using rubber on glass cloth. Their building replaced some older Victorian terrace housing, some of which was still there at the right when I made this picture. I think the company under a slightly different name is still in business elsewhere.
These buildings have all been replaced by modern flats and an industrial unit.
This shop was obviously on a street corner, almost certainly one of the four corners with Consort Road and Brayards Rd. I was interested in the shapes and the tiling as well as the fly posting and crude graffiti – which appears to be two practices at producing the final result at right, perhaps a stylised ’68’. The doorway with a rusticated keystone seemed unusually tall and narrow. It was probably Victorian although the shopfront seemed later.
The Gold Diggers Arms was a sizeable pub on the northeast corner of Brayards Road and Consort Road and was still in business when I made this picture. It had been here since at least 1871, but closed in 2001 and was demolished in 2005. The site is now a modern development, Dayak Court, flats above ground floor commercial premises.
The Hooper Hall, Consort Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2f-53
Hooper Hall at 111 Consort Road opened as a mission of St Mary Magdalene in St Mary’s Rd in 1907, which was destroyed by a land mine in 1940. Worship continued here and in the church hall while money was raised to build a new church, opened in 1962 and itself replaced in 2011. The mission has lasted rather better.
A notice tells us that in 1989 it was used by both St Mary Magdalene and the Peckham Christian Fellowship. Later it became home to the Christ Miracle Gospel Ministries International but was put up for sale in 2012, and I think the church moved to Edmonton. A fence was put up around Hooper Hall around 2015 as if building work was about to begin, but little seems to have happened since. It appears still to be available for sale.
