Bird in Bush Park, Bird in Bush Rd, Naylor Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3b-45
This park was formed by wholesale housing clearances by Southwark Council in the 1970s. The triangular area between Bird in Bush Road, Naylor Road and Commercial Way which had around 35 houses built from around 1870 until the end of the century with back gardens was flattened, leaving only a couple of buildings on the northern corners of the area.
The houses in this picture are on the other side of Commercial Way and I was standing on or close to Naylor Road. I spent quite a long time taking dozen pictures of these semi-embedded tyres which made a BMX track, all fairly similar to this.
Flats, Meeting House Lane, Queen’s Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3b-11
I walked west from the park and down the route of the former Surrey Canal back to Peckham High Street, turning along this to the east to the junction with Meeting House Lane.
Southwark Council decided to demolish Wood Dene (part of the Acorn Estate) in 2000, later selling it off on the cheap for £7million to Notting Hill Housing Trust who redeveloped it as Peckham Place. It was demolished in 2007. When built Wood Dene was home to 323 families as council tenants. The replacement was only completed in 2019, has no real social housing with just 54 homes at so-called ‘affordable’ rent of up to 80% market rent.
As I was preparing to take this picture a woman walked across and I waited until she was in a suitable position to include in the picture. I think her presence emphasises the massive scale of the 1960’s block.
St John Chrysostom, Church, Meeting House Lane, Queen’s Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3b-14
Some way up Meeting House Lane on the corner of Springhall Street was the Anglican Church and Parish Centre of St John, Peckham, built in 1965 to replace the bombed St Jude and St Chrysostom, whose two parishes were amalgamated. The architect David Bush worked on a “truly theological and quite unique brief, following on from a weekend building conference at Sevenoaks” resulting in a building suitable for varied religious and secular use.
The building now lookks a little different, with the large brick side on Springhall Street now entirely covered by a colourful mural painted in 2017.
The Edwardian Baroque building here seems to go under several addresses in Asylum Rd, and although it now clearly calls itself 12b is Grade II listed as 12a Asylum Rd, a former annexe to offices of the almshouses, built 1913-1914, architect F.E Harford. Other sources refer to it as 10 Asylum Rd.
The Licensed Victuallers’ Benevolent Institution Asylum was founded in 1827 on a large site on what became Asylum Road, a short distance from the Old Kent Road (which its Grade II listing gives as its address.)
The asylum was simply housing for retired publicans and was not a ‘lunatic asylum’ though many of its elderly residents might have been a little fuddled from years of alcohol fumes and consumption. The earliest buildings date from 1827 and the architect was Henry Rose, but there were later additions in similar style in the 1840s, 1850s and finally in 1866. It became the largest almshouses in London with over 200 residents in 176 homes.
Most if not all of the buildings are Grade II listed. In 1959 the Licensed Victuallers moved to new almshouses in Denham, Bucks and in 1960 Camberwell Borough Council bought the property for council housing, apparently naming it Caroline Gardens after a former resident.
Leo Street School, Asylum Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3c-63
This 1900 building on Asylum Rd is at the back of the Leo Street School and opened in 1900, a year after the main school, architect T J Bailey. In my picture the board states it is part of ILEA’s Southwark College. It was converted to residential use in the 1990s.
Twelve years ago on 17th February 2011 I attended the opening of the show London Street Photography at the Museum of London, and I wrote about the opening here on >Re:PHOTO. Some of the same pictures there are also on My London Diary. The book of the show is long out of print but can be found cheaply secondhand with a little searching.
I was rather surprised to find this particular picture of mine, taken in Whitechapel in 1991 included in the book and show, and also one of the images used to promote the show. Not that I think it’s a bad picture, but to me it was just one of many that could have been chosen. I’ve never really put together a set of what I think are my best street photographs, but here are a few slightly random ones from about the same year.
I actually made two pictures of the shopkeeper standing outside the shop in Whitechapel, and the woman carrying a child walked across as I was talking to him and preparing to take his picture. I think I was just a little slow to react, and would have liked her to be just a fraction to the left, better outlined against the open doorway and for the child she was carrying to be more visible.
Perhaps important to the show was that most of the others from that era and before were in black and white – as most of photography still was. Only one earlier colour picture was featured, although most more recent work was in colour, including all of those taken in the current century.
Also important was that it reflected the changing population of London with a picture that could almost have been taken on the streets of Bangladesh – but so did some others that I took at the time.
Notting Hill Carnival, Notting Hill, Kensington & Chelsea, 1990, 90c8-03-51
I’ve recently re-digitised this and digitised many other colour and black and white images from my early work and made them available on Flickr, though so far I’ve only worked through all of the colour negatives up to the end of February 1991 and the black and white until the end of the following year.
Street scene, Green St, Upton Park, Newham, 1991, 91-31-31
Although almost all of these pictures were taken on the streets of London I don’t think many are really what I would consider ‘street photography’, though this is a category whose elasticity makes it of little use. But for me ‘street photography’ has to be about capturing fleeting moments, not about pictures that are posed or set up. The second picture without the woman walking by isn’t really street photography.
G Costa & Co, Marlborough Works, Staffordshire St, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3b-54
G Costa, importers and distributors of fine foods was founded in 1879 and incorporated in 1913. The company moved out of Peckham to another of its sites in Aylesford Kent in 1994, and was bought by Associated British Foods in 2003.
Among its products is the Blue Dragon range of sauces and ingredients for Chinese, Japanese and S E Asian meals. The factory site has since been developed as housing.
Although this building has been replaced by a new block, these is still a slight bend here at the south end of Staffordshire Street just before it ends on Peckham High St. There are still some posts along the side of the pavement, but no longer needed to protect pedestrians from lorries from the factory, but three hoops to lock a bike to outside the entrance to Gaumont House.
This block was the site of the first Gaumont Palace Theatre to be built in London in 1932, on the site of the 1898 Peckham Hippodrome Theatre on Peckham High St between Marmont Road and Staffordshire Street. Later it became simply The Gaumont and was damaged by bombing in 1941 and a V1 flying bomb in 1944, managing to re-open after both a few months later. Refurbished in 1948 it closed in 1961 and was converted into a Top Rank Bingo club with boxing matches once a week. It was sadly modernised in the 1970s, closed in 1998 and was demolished in 2002.
I was attracted by the odd pattern of rectangles, including one one the pavement in the foreground and others along the wall, with those each side of the leaning lamp post formed by shadows rather than the actual doorways and subtly subverting the impression of space in the picture.
Marmont Rd, Peckham High St, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3b-56
I took two pictures on this street corner, the first on an impulse when a man walked in front of me as I was getting ready to take a picture, his shadow falling on the tiles of the doorway.
Marmont Rd, Peckham High St, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3b-41
But this is the picture I had stopped to take, and rather more carefully composed. If you look carefully from this corner now you can see that the five windows in my picture have all been bricked up, with just a small window left at the top of the lowest one. The block of flats further down Marmont Road is still there though now rather hidden by trees.
At right the curve with lights is above the tiled entrance to the foyer of the Top Rank Bingo Club, built in1932 as the Gaumont Palace Theatre, though later modernised. The large foyer extended out into the street corner in a single storey curve from the massive brick block of the cinema.
There is still a curved corner at the right, but to a newer and rather anonymous building on the site, Gaumont House.
This terrace of splendid double-fronted Victorian houses, continued at the left by some slightly less grand without a first floor window over the central door is still there on Friary Road.
The road was developed in the 1840s as Lower Park Road, when Peckham Park, also known as Peckham New Town was a very desirable middle class suburb. Like many other London roads it was renamed in the 1930s and became Friary Road, named for the Friary on the corner of this road and Bird in Bush Road.
Our Lady of Sorrows, Catholic, Church, Bird in Bush Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3b-43
For some reason the church here is listed as the Church of Our Lady of Seven Dolours on the Old Kent Road, Southwark, London, SE15, a quarter of a mile away, although the listing does include the correct address of Bird in Bush Road where my picture was taken showing the side of the Grade II listed church.
This very large church was designed by the prominent Victorian church architect E W Pugin and built from 1859 to 1866, delayed by lack of funds, for the Capuchin Friars. They built a Friary next door (designed by James O’Byrne) on what is now Friary Road in the 1884s and served the church there until 2000 when the Friary buildings were handed to the archdiocese and are now home to a Vincentian community.
Hungry for Justice For Fast Food Workers – Oxford St
The Fast Food Rights Campaign to support and unionise workers in fast food outlets was launched by a national day of action, with a ‘Hungry For Justice’ protest on Oxford Street led by John McDonnell MP and Ian Hodson of the Bakers Food Allied Workers Union BFAWU.
The UK campaign followed on from strikes in around a hundred cities across the USA by food workers at the end of 2013, showing that it was possible to organise and unionise workers in an industry where it had been said to be impossible.
The BFAWU in the UK had led the fight against zero hours contracts, wining an important victory against Hovis in Wigan. Companies such as McDonalds are notable for their anti-union policies and generally rates of pay in fast food outlets are abysmal and working conditions often extremely poor.
The fast food chains in this country had sales of £6.9billion in 2012 and were making huge profits at the expense of their employees. In the UK the average wage of food workers in 2014 was only £5 an hour, below the minimum legal wage for adult workers – with many employees being below the age of 21.
In the USA over half the workers in the food industry rely on benefits to top up their incomes, and the situation in the UK is no better. Governments effectively subsidise these low-pay employers.
The campaign and this protest in the UK was supported by the BFAWU, Unite the Resistance, Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC), Youth Fight for Jobs, the National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN) and other campaigning organisations.
I met the protesters outside a Burger King on the Tottenham Court Road where the protest began. As well as protesting outside, people went inside to hand out fliers to the customers and to the staff urging them to join the BWAFU.
The protest then moved on to two branches of McDonald’s on Oxford Street, where security staff prevented the protesters entering, although at the first one man was allowed to go in and give leaflets to the staff. There were were protests and speeches on the pavement outside the shops.
The protesters did walk in to two branches of Costa Coffee, behaving politely and handing out the leaflets, and after a brief discussion leaving quietly when asked to do so.
Anons 6th Anniversary at Scientology – Tottenham Court Road
Few turned up for the 6th anniversary of the Anonymous protest against Scientology against the threat to freedom of speech on the internet from personal and often underhand attacks on critics under Scientology’s so-called ‘fair game’ policy.
That protest in 2008, outside the Church of Scientology’s English HQ in Queen Victoria Street and their recruiting centre on the Tottenham Court Rd had been both the first UK protest to be organised solely over the web and the first time that the now-familiar ‘V for Vendetta’ Guy Fawkes masks, worn to hide identities because of the often savage recriminations against critics of the cult, had been used at a protest in the UK.
Perhaps the real reason for the low turnout was simply that there now appears to be very little interest in the cult which had been so widely exposed both in events such as that 2008 protest and in the media. It was now attracting very few new recruits and perhaps seemed hardly worth protesting about.
This was the 12th Reclaim Love Valentine Party at Piccadilly Circus, an event begun in 2003 by Venus CuMara.
This year it had been others who had attended previous events who decided at the last minute to organise the event as Venus had been away from the country. Rather to our surprise she returned and attended, playing her usual role in organising the circle at the centre of the event.
I’ve written about these events recently so won’t write anything new, but here is part of what I posted in 2014 on My London Diary:
“The idea behind the free party on the street was to celebrate love between people as the most important force in the world, and to do so in a way that counteracted the tremendous commercialisation of love in the annual media shopping promotion frenzy that now surrounds St Valentine’s Day. It was to be a free event, people making and having fun, sharing love, taking place in a public area in the centre of London’s West End shops and under the vast neon advertisements of Picadilly Circus.
“Venus also aimed to send a message of peace and love out across the world – and the London event spawned similar parties at the same time elsewhere across the world – by uniting us all in circles of love at the same time around the world. At 3.30pm everyone here – and at other Reclaim Love parties around the world – joined hands to chant many times ‘May All The Beings In All The Worlds Be Happy & At Peace’.”
I finished my post in 2014 with:
There are really very few such spontaneous events in London like this, and this is unique in central London. I’ve photographed most of these events and I hope that they will continue with others taking over the running in future years.
If you are in London on Saturday afternoon, 18th February 2023, some people plan to be there for a Reclaim Love party. And at 3.33pm to join their hands in a circle to chant.
Three sets of photographs I made in London on a wet day nine years ago, Friday 14th February 2014.
One Billion Rising – End Violence Against Women – Trafalgar Square
This was the second worldwide annual ‘One Billion Rising’ with events taking place in 168 countries and women had come to Trafalgar Square to strike, dance and rise in defiance against the injustices suffered by women around the world.
In England and Wales, the Home Office reports that there are an average of 85,000 women raped each year, and 400,000 women sexually assaulted. They report that 1 in 5 women (aged 16 – 59) has experienced some form of sexual violence since the age of 16.
I arrived in time to photograph the start of the event, and stayed to watch a little dancing on the stage. The dancers there were under a canopy but I and much of the audience got rather wet watching. I wasn’t sorry that I had to leave shortly for an appointment at Downing Street.
My Downing Street appointment was not with the Prime Minister David Cameron, but with a rather better known figure, Charlie Chaplin, or rather his look-alike mime and activist Charlie X.
Given the weather he had abandoned the black trousers for waterproof yellow ones, but otherwise the was dressed as usual with his whited out face, small moustache, bowler hat, black bow tie and jacket. Sensibly as well as his walking stick he had brought an umbrella and had some hazard tape to keep his bowler in place in the high winds.
He was there to make a one-person silent protest over the failure of governments including our own to take real measures to combat carbon dioxide emissions which are causing global warming and climate chaos. At the time many of us across the country were suffering from flooding, with my own home having been under severe threat for almost a week – and left without mains drainage we were having to walk several minutes to a friends to wash and use a toilet that could still be flushed.
Charlie X was also there to draw attention to the dangers of fracking in the UK and show solidarity with communities who are fighting against it in their area. His mimed protest called on Cameron to act green not just talk green and stop listening to the highly funded lobbying by the dirty fuel companies.
I was pleased to be able to dry out slightly and get just a little warmer on the bus to Vauxhall were I joined the Save Shaker Aamer campaign who where protesting opposite the well-known MI6 offices there on the 12th anniversary of the British resident’s illegal rendition to Guantanamo in February 2002.
On My London Diary I give more details of the case of this Muslim charity worker who was kidnapped by bandits and sold to the US army and tortured before being taken for rurther torture at the prison camp.
MI6 officers were present during some of the torture and his return to this country would be embarrassing for them. They were widely thought to have been secretly briefing against his return and telling lies to Jack Straw, Foreign Secretary from 2001-6 and later Secretary of State for Justice which he apparently or perhaps conveniently believed.
Shaker’s release to the UK would also embarrass the US security agencies responsible for his continuing torture at Guantanamo where he stood up for his rights and those of other prisoners. Although the US security agencies including the CIA, State and Defense Departments cleared him to be released six years ago, they wanted to release him to his native Saudi Arabia, knowing that as a former dissident he would quickly disappear there without trace.
Because of the continuing rain, after posing for photographs and a short vigil in front of the MI6 building the protesters moved a little further away for a rally on the pavement under one of the railway arches before going to try and hand in a Valentine card for the head of MI6, Sir John Sawer, which stated:
“MI6, we would love you to … help us bring Shaker Aamer home. Shaker Aamer, unlawfully imprisoned and tortured in Guantanamo for twelve years – he faces no charge or trial- he has been cleared since 2007 to leave Guantanamo. So why is Shaker Aamer still there? Shaker Aamer would love to be at home with his wife and family in the UK. M16, you could help. Tell the truth about torture! MI6 have a heart, don’t block Shaker Aamer’s release to the UK from Guantanamo.”
Security on the gate refused to accept the card, but eventually the protesters simply pushed it through a gap in the gate and left for a final protest opposite the building.
On Wednesday 13th February 2013, ten years ago today, I photographed three protests in Westminster and one on Holloway Road in north London outside London Metropolitan University.
Shaker Aamer – 11 Years in Guantanamo – Parliament Square
Opposite Parliaments people gathered to mark 11 years since London resident Shaker Aamer was flown to Guantánamo from Afghanistan. He was still being held and tortured there daily despite having been cleared for release by the US over 5 years ago.
Shaker arrived at Guantanamo on 14th February 2002, having been captured by bandits and sold to the US military while working for a charity in Afghanistan. He was still held and routinely tortured in Guantanamo despite being cleared for release five years earlier as there was no case against him. His youngest son had been born the same day in London where his wife and four children were living.
A line of protesters held banners across the whole long frontage of Parliament Square facing the Houses of Parliament, with others around the edges of the square handing out fliers. Many people passing were surprised to find that prisoners were still being held there after Obama’s promise to close the camp down, which he appears to have made little effort to keep.
Continued torture in the camp meant that his health was rapidly failing. Among those at the protest organised by the Save Shaker Campaign and the London Guantánamo Campaign as Green MP Caroline Lucas who held a banner before dashing back to the Commons for Prime Minister’s Questions. The protesters s were still standing there in the freezing cold when I left an hour and a half after the protest had started.
Prison Officers Protest Against Cuts – Old Palace Yard
A hundred or so prison officers protested against prison closures, overcrowding and privatisation outside the Houses of Parliament after briefing MPs on the dangers of the prison closure programme.
Prison doesn’t work because our prisons are overcrowded and underfunded. It punishes people but almost entirely fails to reform them, to provide them with skills, support and opportunities for when they leave prison – and too many soon return. Our prisons are a training ground for criminality. Government cuts and handing over prisons to be run for profit simply make things worse.
London Met is a much maligned university largely because it has prided itself on giving chances to many of the more deprived members of the community. It has often ranked high for its teaching quality and giving students greater personal attention than better regarded universities.
The protest outside its Holloway Road buildings in North London was against the suspension of Max Watson, Unison branch chair and Jawad Botmeh, the elected staff governor on false charges. The university had also threatened to de-recognise Unison.
No reasons were given for the suspension which was said to be over a ‘serious matter of concern’ relating to ‘gross misconduct’, but it was thought to relate to the appointment of Botmeh to the staff of the Working Lives Research Institute five years earlier.
Botmeh, a London-based Palestinian science graduate, was arrested in 1995 in connection with a bomb attack on the Israeli embassy the previous year. There was no direct evidence connecting him to the bombing but he was sentenced to 20 years in what was widely seen as a miscarriage of justice. His convictions were declared when he was appointed as a researcher by London Met after his release. The two men, along with another man suspended later were re-instated the following month.
Christian peace activists and friends held their annual Ash Wednesday liturgy at the Ministry of Defence in London, calling for repentance and taking symbolic actions including some who risked arrest by marking the buildings with charcoal.
During the service in front of the Ministry people tied purple ribbons on a cross and prayers were said for the victims of ware and the warmongers called on to repent and change their ways.
There was then a march around the war minstry before the group returned to write the word ‘REPENT’ in water and ashes on the pavement outside and the liturgy continued,
ending with a large circle in the adjoining Embankment gardens.
As the service ended, police briefly held a woman who had jumped over a fence and begun to write a cross and the word Repent on the Defence Ministry wall in charcoal. She was stopped with the word half written, and after a few minutes was released.
On Saturday 1th February 2005 I went to two events in London, a march calling for action on climate change and a street party to reclaim Valentine’s Day from commercial exploitation and to celebrate the power of love.
Campaign against Climate Change Kyoto Climate March
It’s depressing to look back at the pictures of this event and see how many of the placards and posters are still relevant 18 years later. Still leaders around the world are failing to commit to the actions needed to avoid global disaster.
Perhaps we are just a little closer to some real movement, but in the UK things have started to go backwards with a government now in thrall to the fossil fuel companies and promoting new oil exploration in the North Sea, a new coal mine and even going back to fracking.
Sometimes it seems the main changes have been that the Prime Minister is now Sunak rather than Blair and that the US Embassy to which the march was heading is now on the other side of the Thames in Nine Elms rather than in Grosvenor Square.
Back in 2005 it was President Bush in the White House who was the major villain, standing up for US oil interests and their mission to fatally pollute the world. Biden has talked a better talk than Trump, but hasn’t committed to the shift in policies that is essential for the planet to have a future that will support human life.
The march was organised by the Campaign Against Climate Change, back then almost a lone voice in actively raising the issues around global warming, though the Green Party was there too. At least since then many other groups have become involved, notably in recent years Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil, bringing rather different tactics to bear.
It was a longish march, from Lincoln’s Inn Fields to Trafalgar Square and then on to the US Embassy, and I left the marchers as they went past Piccadilly Circus to join another event taking place there.
O-I-L One in Love, Reclaim Love, Eros, Picadilly Circus
I’d missed the first of these Valentine street parties organised by Irish poet Venus CúMara in 2004, as I had only heard of it too late to attend. Appropriately that year I had gone with my wife to Paris for Valentine’s Day and her birthday a few years later.
Since 2005 I’ve been there and taken photographs most years. She believes that “the human race could potentially be a humane race if we were to step away from the value of money to the value of Life” and this event celebrates this.
Venus celebrates as the prayer ends
‘Reclaim Love’ is a global movement Venus began to unite people all over the earth with a common prayer for peace. And during the street party here and at other similar parties in othe places around the world people joined hands at 3.30pm in a “Massive Healing Reclaim Love Meditation Circle beaming Love and Happiness and our Vision for world peace out into the cosmos” to recite that prayer, “MAY ALL THE BEINGS IN ALL THE WORLDS BE HAPPY AND AT PEACE“.
Venus dances
I wrote about the 16th annual party at some length on this site in Valentine for Venus, posted in 2019, so I won’t go into more details again. As well as that post you can also find posts every February on My London Diary from 2005 to 2019 except for 2016, when I was too ill to go, and 2017 when I was in Hull (both celbrating the city of culture and again my wife’s birthday.)
Five years and a few months before the London 2012 Olympic Games took place much of the site was still open although businesses had been moved out and some of the buildings were becoming derelict. I’d had an invitation to a party at a site there the previous evening but hadn’t been able to attend, but on Sunday 11th February 2007 I took my Brompton on the trains to Stratford Station for a tour of the area. It began as a rather gloomy day but the weather at least brightened up later.
Carpenters Rd from Wharton Road
I did return to parts of the area in later months as the close down was taking effect – and even led a two-day workshop at the View Tube in April 2010. And in June I was there to photograph workmen putting up the blue fence to keep us out of the whole Olympic area until well after the games were gone.
Footbridge to railway works over Waterworks River, Stratford Marsh.
Here’s what I wrote on back in 2007 about my ride around the area, much of which I spent pushing and carrying my Brompton bike along footpaths. But it did make it possible for me to cover rather more ground than would have been possible on foot. I’ve corrected the capitalisation etc. There are several pages of pictures with the original on My London Diary, just a few of which are shown here.
Marshgate Lane and Bow Back Rivers
2012 Olympic Site – Stratford, Sunday 11 Feb, 2007
Tate Moss, home to four artists and a venue for gigs of various kinds, now lost for the Olympics
Sunday I went to the Olympic site again, keen to photograph before the area becomes ‘fortress Olympics’ and is destroyed. Many of the businesses have now moved out and some of the small industrial estates are looking pretty empty. Tate Moss, who occupied a site by the City Mill River had staged their final event the night before, but the partying didn’t keep going long enough for me to look in and the place was deserted.
Marshgate Lane under the Northern Outfall Sewer is blocked with old tyres
Some of the riverside paths were open again after the test borings that have been going on, although several were fenced off over a year ago. The gate to the path by the waterworks river from the Greenway wasn’t locked, so I took a walk up this, but I knew that it was no longer possible to get out onto Marshgate Lane so had to retrace my steps.
The Marshgate Centre and Banner Chemicals from the Greenway
The route back up to the Greenway from Marshgate Lane was almost completely obstructed by heaps of old car tires, and I had to carry my Brompton for a few yards and climb up onto a grass bank where the steps were completely blocked. Parts of the road were no longer open to cars too.
City Mill River
From there I moved on to Hackney Wick and Waterden road, and I finished the day as the light was getting low on Hackney Marshes, one of the areas in which locally important sporting facilities will be lost at least for a few years, perhaps for good.
My article back then ended with the paragraph above, but my ride didn’t – I had to get back home. It had previously taken me to a number of places just outside the condemned area, including some that were to be demolished for Crossrail, and it didn’t actually end on the Hackney Marshes, as the pictures on My London Diary demonstrate.
Kings Yard
I decided to ride back to Stratford to get the train home, and that ride took me back past Clays Lane, where the estate was to be demolished for the athletes’ village and I stopped several more times on my way to take more pictures in the gloom. Even when I arrived at Stratford around sunset there was still enough light for a few final images.
Clays Lane
You can see many more pictures from the entire ride on My London Diary
On Sunday 10th of February 2008 I photographed protests against the Church of Scientology before going into Chinatown for the Chinese New Year celebrations.
‘Anonymous’ Protest – Church of Scientology – Blackfriars & Tottenham Court Road
This was the first time I’d come across protesters wearing the ‘Anonymous’ masks that became a common feature at protests in the following years. This grinning Guy Fawkes mask was designed by illustrator David Lloyd for the 1980s graphic novel by Alan Moore and 2005 film ‘V for Vendetta.’
Placards refer to the high costs and unfair attacks on opponents
When hacktivists set up Project Chanology to campaign against Scientology at the start of 2008, they realised that like all other critics of the movement they would face vicious and intensive personal attacks from the group and needed to protect their identities both on-line and in person.
Some wore photocopy masks of Scientology’s founder L Ron Hubbard
So those behind Project Chanology decided to call themselves ‘Anonymous’ and hide themselves behind these masks when protesting. The London protest was one of over 50 protests in cities around the world at this time in which many of those taking part wore them.
As I wrote at the time “I’m just amazed that Scientology is still around, despite having been comprehensively exposed so many times over the years. You can find out more about it on Wikipedia.”
Xenu.net reveals much of the uglier side of the cult
Wikipedia records that “The Church of Scientology has been described by government inquiries, international parliamentary bodies, scholars, law lords, and numerous superior court judgments as both a dangerous cult and a manipulative profit-making business.”
To my surprise round 4-500 had come for a peaceful protest on the walkway facing the Church of Scientology building in Queen Victoria Street at Blackfriars. After the protest there many of them went on to a second demonstration opposite the Dianetics & Scientology Life Improvement Centre in Tottenham Court Road, where those passing by are often lured into the building to take tests and pressured to join the cult, which demands large financial contributions from members.
Things were festive in Chinatown which was packed with visitors celebrating the Chinese New Year.
Though many of those who work in the area it was a very busy day, selling Chinese decorations, toys and food.
Performers were going around the area as Chinese lions, leaping up to grab salad vegetables hung at shop doorways and bringing good luck to the businesses in exchange for cash.
Gerrard Street at the centre of Chinatown was thronging with crowds, though my ultrawide lens meant I could still work even though it was difficult to get a clear view. But soon I just had to leave for some quieter back streets for a while.
There was a money god, but he was only handing out entry forms for a competition to win a return ticket to Hong Kong
martial arts demonstrations…
and a dancing dragon carried by children from Surrey. But I soon tired of the noise and the crowds and as I commented “there are 51 other weekends of the year when its probably more interesting to come and see Chinatown how it really is.” And I went home. I think this was the last year I photographed the festival.
More pictures at Chinese New Year Celebrations, Soho on My London Diary, where you can also find images of the festival from 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007 using the search box at the top of the page.
Kingsland High St, Dalston, London. Sat 9 Feb 2019
Extinction Rebellion, XR, was founded in May 2018 by a small group who met in Stroud, including Gail Bradbook, Simon Bramwell and Roger Hallam along with others from the direct action network Rising Up. I’d photographed some of these people before at protests against Heathrow expansion and over air pollution on the streets of London.
Roger Hallam in particular had played a leading role in the ‘Stop Killing Londoners’ protests which perhaps had some influence on getting Sadiq Khan to take some action on this with the setting up of low emission zones, whose planned extension to the whole of Greater London is now exciting considerable controversy. I’d also photographed him at his campaign to get King’s College to divest from fossil fuel companies and supporting the campaign for better pay and conditions for low paid workers at the LSE
Police arrest Roger Hallam for decorating the LSE, April 2017
Since helping to form XR, Hallam has gone on to take part in other high profile protests and spent time in prison over breaching bail conditions by holding a toy drone without batteries close to the airport. The whole plan to fly drones in the Heathrow exclusion area had been a publicity stunt, never a serious attempt to disrupt or endanger flights, but gained a huge amount of media publicity, which perhaps helped to increase public awareness of the contribution to climate change and pollution of air transport.
XR continues to attract wide support for its non-violent protests highlighting both the devastating effects of global heating and the continuing failure of governments including our own to take action on the scale needed to combat it. It’s large public protests began with a mass reading of its ‘Declaration of Rebellion‘ in Parliament Square in October 2018 with Greta Thunberg as one of the speakers and continued with mass protests in London and elsewhere, becoming a global movement.
Its announcement at the start of 2023 that it was taking a rest caused some consternation among its supporters, but XR soon made clear that this was for a ‘100 days’ campaign to prepare for ‘The Big One’ on 21 April 2023, https://extinctionrebellion.uk/the-big-one/ when they intend that 100,000 people will gather outside the Houses of Parliament “To demand a fair society and a citizen-led end to the fossil fuel era.”
The street party in Hackney on Saturday 9th February 2019 was rather smaller, with perhaps a thousand taking part. Unlike in some later protests the police decided to facilitate the event rather than try to block or disperse it, closing the road and setting up diversions for traffic as people blocked the usually busy A10 for two hours with speeches, music and spoken word performances, t-shirt printing, face painting and free food, with dancing to a samba band.
At the end of the two hour party after a brief march up and down a short section of the road, the protesters moved off the street to continue their protest party in Gillett Square, and shortly after this I went home.
Police after all do facilitate other large events which block our streets, in particular sporting events such as the London Marathon, some cycling events, the Chinese New Year, Notting Hill Carnival and more. But later XR protests have been more widespread and longer lasting and clearly the police’s political masters have put considerable pressure on the police to take a more draconian approach – and at times to go beyond the law to do so.
The response of the government has been to produce new laws. The Public Order Bill currently going through parliament gives much more extreme powers to police and courts, including Serious Disruption Prevention Orders which will restrict the movement of people, who they can meet and even their use of the internet, an expansion of stop and search powers, enabling them to search without any suspicion, various new protest-related offences, some vaguely defined allowing almost anything to be an offence and even police powers to shut down protests before they begin.
Free food at the party
The Public Order Bill re-introduces most of the amendments that were rejected by the House of Lords in January 2022 and so did not form part of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022.
The march ended in Gillett Square, freeing the road for traffic
