Shut Down Yarl’s Wood 14: This protest on Saturday 21st July 2018 was the 14th organised by Movement for Justice outside the immigration prison at Yarl’s Wood and I think their last there. I missed the first so this was my 13th visit to this remote location, cyling uphill the five or six miles north from Bedford station. I had previously photographed a number of protests organised by MfJ outside the two immigration prisons (officially called detention centres to make it sound nicer) on the north of Heathrow airport, Harmondsworth and Colnbrook, a rather easier journey.
Unlike these two prisons which housed men, Yarl’s Wood was mainly used to hold women, though there were also a few families there. The protests there had attracted more campaigners because of this, with women being seen more widely as victims than male asylum seekers. And many of those who were locked up inside were women who had been raped as well as beaten and otherwise subjected to traumatic events before fleeing their countries.
Many of the women – as too the men elsewhere – were kept locked up for many months and some for years in indefinite detention while the Home Office refused to believe their stories or to properly investigate their cases, often demanding paperwork it would be impossible for them to provide. The remoteness of the centre and only limited access to internet and telephones makes it difficult for the women to progress their cases.
Many of these are people with desperate needs for counselling and help, but instead as various investigations, official as well as undercover journalism – had shown are held under appalling conditions in this and other centres run by private companies such as SERCO, with detainees refused their human and civil rights, assaulted, sexually harassed and assaulted, denied proper medical treatment, poorly fed and forced to work for £1 an hour on menial tasks.
The protests here are greeted by the women, giving them the assurance that they have not been forgotten and that there are those outside who support them. Those able to get to the windows facing the hill on which the protesters stood so they could be seen over the tall prison fence – the lower 10ft solid steel and above that another ten foot of dense metal mesh – shouted greetings, waved and held up messages.
A powerful public address system meant those inside could hear the speeches, some by former inmates of Yarl’s Wood and other detention centres, and some by those inside, relayed by mobile phone to the amplifier, as well as by some leading MfJ members.
Most of those inside will eventually be released, the majority getting leave to stay in this country. Some are taken to be deported with the MfJ and other organisations then working desperately and often successfully to stop their deportation flights back to terror and violence in their home countries.
This was by far the smallest of all the protests at Yarl’s Wood organised by the MfJ, following complaints made against the organisation by a former member who appears to have been treated badly by them. But however justified her personal complaint, her comments revealed little or nothing about the nature of the group which was not already on Wikipedia or otherwise common knowledge. But the dispute led to many other groups ending their support for protests organised by the MfJ, some organising their own protests but with very limited success.
Mabel had been held in Yarl’s Wood for a day or two less than 3 years
Other groups were and are working – as MfJ still is – to support detainees. The MfJ has played a major role in protests against our racist immigration detention system and in actions to prevent deportations. It still seems to be supported by many former detainees who have always played a leading role in the protests both at Yarl’s Wood and at Harmondsworth.
The Home Office finally decided it was too easy for protests to be organised outside Yarl’s Wood and moved the women – many of whom were released at the start of the Covid epidemic – up to an even more remote location in the north-east, with Yarl’s Wood being used to house those who had crossed the Channel in small boats.
The Illegal Immigration Act finally passed a few days ago intends to deport almost all migrants and asylum seekers (other than those coming under special schemes for Ukraine, Hong Kong etc) to Rwanda without any consideration of their asylum claims. Efforts to persuade the government to set up safe routes for those claiming asylum were rejected by the government in the latest ratcheting up of its racist policies, justified by them through the doublespeak of “compassion” while showing not the faintest scintilla of any real compassion.
Some of my thoughts about the UK railway system and my experiences of it with pictures from a protest on Thursday 20th July 2017 about the real problems faced by disabled rail users.
I’ve spent quite a lot of my life on trains. Not many very long journeys, though I did once go to Marseilles from Victoria long before the age of Eurostar and TGVs and I’ve always taken the train on my visits to Paris, Brussels and Scotland as well as most trips around England as I don’t drive. But the great bulk of my rail journeys have shorter commutes to photograph in and around London.
It was really the advent of the Travelcard in 1983 and its later extensions that made much of my photography of London practicable. Before that going Waterloo (or Vauxhall) had been easy for me, but getting around in London was a nightmare of buying tickets for individual journeys on trains, underground and buses. Well paid photographers could use taxis, but I was making little for most of the time and used them only rarely – mainly when others were paying or we could share.
The Travelcard also significantly reduced the costs of journeys involving several forms or transport or even several buses, and for those of us coming from outside London gave us freedom to travel within all six zones of Greater London. So news that it is to be ended for those living outside the boundary is not at all welcome.
More recently, engineering works at weekends and rail strikes have also affected my photography. There have been days when I’ve decided not to try to get into London as the though of perhaps an extra couple of hours or even more sitting on trains and buses have just made it not seem worthwhile.
Of course I support the rail workers. The government’s approach to the disputes, forcing the various rail companies into confrontation rather than trying to find solutions is totally ridiculous and unsupportable. At the root of the problem is the fragmentation of privatisation and the opportunities it gave and continues to give the companies – many owned by foreign state railways – opportunities to profit at the expense of the tax payer. Radical reforms are needed, almost certainly involving some bringing back of rail into public ownership and undoing at least some elements of splitting up the essentially indivisible.
And engineering work is essential, though I do wonder why it seems to happen now far more frequently than it used to. It does seem to be handled more efficiently in some continental countries and involve less disruption of weekend services.
The government and rail companies are now proposing to get rid of most of the rail ticket offices. We have a hugely complex ticketing system with many anomalies and which ticket machines and online ticketing are unable to process. Even the workers in ticket offices can’t always get things right. But before cutting back on their services which many – particularly the old, disabled and less frequent travellers – find essential, we need first to unify and simplify rail ticketing.
We have seen some improvements of our rail system since I first began using it back in the 1960s. There have been considerable improvements in rolling stock, begun under British Rail as did our faster services and Inter City lines, some electrified at that from London to Manchester. Design improvements have also changed our commuter trains (though in some areas these are still sadly out of date) making my journeys into London much less noisy and smoother.
I do miss not being able to open windows and doors, but can see the reasons for this. But though we no longer have to wait at stations while the guard or station staff rush along the platform to close doors thoughtlessly left open by exiting passengers making the stops at stations a minute or so shorter, and though the newer trains have better acceleration and faster maximum speeds and are running on smoother rails, travel times have actually increased.
The reason for the slacker timetables is clear. Train companies have to pay for trains that run late. So they add a minute here and a minute there to the schedules. They also close train doors before the time the train is due to leave, sometimes 30s, sometimes a minute. So my 9.59 train is now a 9.58:30 train, often leaving passengers who should have just caught it fuming on the platform. And instead of the journey taking 28 minutes it now takes 34 – or even 38 at weekends.
DPAC/RMT ‘Right to Ride’ protest – Dept of Transport
But my problems and moans about trains are trivial compared to those faced by those in wheelchairs or otherwise requiring support. On Thursday 20th July 2017 I was with DPAC (Disabled People Against Cuts) and RMT members outside the Dept of Transport, calling for disabled people to have the same right to use rail services as others.
DPAC (Disabled People Against Cuts) had called this protest during their week of action while the London World Para Athletics Championships was taking place. DPAC say the government uses this and similar events to try to show it is highly supportive of the disabled while actually they are highly discriminatory against all those who are not high-performing para-athletes.
Many of the changes which the government is trying to impose on our railways, including Driver Only Operated trains, the removal of guards from trains and rail staff from stations all threaten the freedom of disable people to travel. DPAC have joined with RMT staff on picket lines for industrial action against these changes which discriminate against the disabled and threaten rail safety.
Disabled people requiring support to travel – such as a ramp to board a train – have to give a day’s notice, and even then are sometimes stranded when staff fail to turn up – often being left on the platform or taken to the next station. London buses now have driver-operated ramps, but no trains have these fitted.
After speeches and delivering a petition demanding the right to ride on trains without having to give a day’s notice they blocked the road outside the ministry in protest for ten minutes. DPAC are now protesting with rail workers against the proposed ticket office closures.
Ghost Sign, S.Errington, Dulwich Road, Herne Hill, Lambeth, 1989 89-5f-41
I turned into Dulwich Road and walked up it towards Brixton, stopping to make very few pictures, perhaps keen to get to the end of the walk. Just before reaching Water Lane on the side of what was then Ellis Newsagents at 1a Dulwich Road I couldn’t resist the finely painted sign ‘ S Cooltan ERRINGTON DEALER IN ANTIQUE & MODERN
FURNITURE
FURNITURE BOUGHT SOLD OR
in drop capitals, decorated with some fine curly bits. Clearly something at the bottom following the ‘OR’ had been painted over, but I couldn’t decide what it might have been. Perhaps ‘EXCHANGED’ or ‘HIRED’?
The property now looks to be residential, but on Google Maps it still appears as: S Errington Dealer In Antique & Modern Furniture Home Furniture Shop Temporarily closed
and that sign is still there, rather more faded and with the lettering now looking very much plainer. Unfortunately although I will have had a camera body with colour film in my bag I did’t photograph this in colour. Some days I only thought in black and white.
I walked along Brixton Water Lane, taking a couple of pictures (not digitised) on my way to Effra Road. The the names suggest I was following the route of the River Effra, underground since the early nineteenth century, but in fact I had been doing so all the way down from Herne Hill and was now walking away from it. Effra Road got its name from Effra Farm which was on the bank of the river.
The former Suntan lotion factory was squatted and in June 1991 became the CoolTan Arts Centre. They were evicted in February 1992, and the centre moved first to offices above Brixton Cycles before squatting the former Unemployment Benefit Offices in Coldharbour Lane. There it became a thriving art space, with a cafe, live music and offices for various campaign groups including Reclaim the Streets, Earth First! and the Green Party until 1995, when the building was taken over by The Voice newspaper – who boarded it up and left it empty and rotting. The Effra Road factory was demolished shortly after their eviction and remained as empty unused ground for over ten years.
But Cooltan Arts continued. From 1993-2016 Michelle Baharier was, as she writes in her statement on the South London Women Artists site, “Founder, Artistic Director and CEO of CoolTan Arts, London. In twenty-five years, I grew CoolTan Arts from an old suntan lotion factory squatted social centre in Brixton to a user-led disabled people’s arts and mental health charity. CoolTan Arts worked with over three thousand people face-to-face per year with its participatory art programme. The charity improved the lives of individuals with mental distress through creativity, self-advocacy, and volunteer opportunities within the arts. During my tenure at CoolTan I developed psycho-geography walks and other collaborative events with different communities.”
Clearly I was intrigued by this empty 1930s moderne factory and by its gates and their shadows. Unfortunately the gates were locked and although the fence was fairly low the location seemed a little public for me to climb over and explore the site further though it was more decorative than a real barrier. Eventually I managed to tear myself away and continue my walk, taking a few pictures not online as I walked past St Matthews Church and on to Brixton Hill.
Former Cinema, 101-3 Brixton Hill, Brixton, Lambeth, 1989 89-5f-24
The Tarpaulin & Ten Mfg Co, T&T was for many years in the former cinema, which was converted from shops and opened on 10th March 1911 as Brixton Hill Cinematograph Theatre, and was 13th of Montagu A. Pyke’s chain of Cinematograph Theatres. Pyke went out of business when he was jailed after his projectionist in his cinema died in a fire in 1914, and the cinema was taken over by others. It changed its name then and several other times over the years, operating under names including ‘New Royalty’, ‘New Royalty Kinema’ and finally the Clifton.
It showed its last film in 1957 and deteriorated badly before becoming the T&T shop. I think this kept going into this century and the building was up for sale in 2004 and became the Dalxiis Somalian restaurant. By 2008 the auditorium had been demolished and the front of the cinema had become the South Beach Bar, which lost its licence in 2012. In 2015-6 it was ‘Believers Home Chapel’ , in 2018 the S.G.H Events Hall and in 2019 the TAMI Gospel Centre of The Anointed Ministry International, though still with the South Beach Bar sign on that metal structure, empty in my picture at roof level that had once carried the The New Royalty Kinema and Camping Centre signs.
Post Office Building, Blenheim Gardens, Brixton, Lambeth, 1989 89-5f-11
I went down Blenheim Gardens, photographing this building, dating from 1891 and still in use by the Royal Mail as Brixton Delivery Office, and the windmill, before walking through the back streets between Brixton Hill and Tulse Hill on a roundabout way to Brixton Water Lane to catch a bus on my way home at the end of my long walk.
Shops, Railton Rd, Herne Hill, Lambeth, 1989 89-5f-62
I wandered up Railton Road from the junction with Dulwich Road towards Herne Hill station. Herne Hill only appears to have got its name relatively recently, with the Herne Hill Society stating that the first documented reference dates from 1801. Earlier maps show it as King’s Hill or Dulwich Hill.
Neither of the two derivations they give seems particularly likely, with an Old English root hyrne (corner, angle) hyll seeming unlikely from the late appearance of the name and a roost of large numbers of heron on the nearby River Effra seems fanciful. Other possibilities put forward have been that it was named after a family called Herne who apparently lived here in the 17th century.
Perhaps the name really does come from Herne the Hunter, the mythical resident of Herne’s Oak in the Windsor Forest some twenty five miles or more to the west, transferred here by an early developer of the area who perhaps saw oak trees which reminded him of that place, perhaps also hearing the rattling of chains and ghostly moans in this area. Who knows?
Railton Road was apparently one of the roads developed in 1868, a few years after the coming of the railway, the station on this road opening in 1862. Until then the area had been one of large villas with leafy gardens for the wealthy, but soon became full of “smaller houses for clerks, artisans, craftsmen and their families, the workers taking advantage of cheap fares for commuting into London.“
Shops, Railton Rd, Herne Hill, Lambeth, 1989 89-5f-63
The building at 222 Railton Road, here the Herne Hill Bingo and Social Club, was the Herne Hill Cinema, said to have opened in 1914, although there appears according to a postcard on Brixton Buzz to have been a cinema around here earlier than that. It’s narrow facade opened to a much wider auditorium behind which could seat 750.
Brixton Buzz quotes Cinema Treasures giving more information about its 1932 design by George Coles and closure as a cinema in 1959, but says it continued in use as a bingo club until 1986, then becoming shuttered and empty. Clearly it was locked and barred when I photographed it in 1989, and has a notice too small to read on its door, but doesn’t look in too poor condition. It is now a private bar, but apparently the auditorium area behind was demolished and housing built on the site.
Herne Hill Station, Railton Rd, Herne Hill, Lambeth, 1989 89-5f-66
Herne Hill Station was opened at the bottom of Herne Hill on Railton Road by the London, Chatham and Dover Railway in 1862. At first it was a terminus, with services only towards Victoria, but a year later the line was extended to Beckenham and by the end of the decade there were also services to “the City of London, King’s Cross, Kingston via Wimbledon, and Kent, including express trains to Dover Harbour for continental Europe.“
The building with its polychrome brick Gothic tower seems excessive for what was a small suburban station, and was certainly intended to impress. The tower held the water tank needed by steam locomotives. The Wikipedia article quotes The Building News description of the station from 1863 as “spacious and convenient … and of the very best quality” and states “an unusual amount of decorative taste has been displayed“. It became an exempler of Victorian railway architecture.
Shops, Railton Rd, Herne Hill, Lambeth, 1989 89-5f-65
This view looks toward the corner with Rymer St, which now takes traffic from Railton Road to Dulwich Road as Railton Road a little further north is now a no-entry street for motorised traffic other than buses.
At left is 200 Railton Road and at right, next to an alley is an accomodation bureau and letting service at 289, now the home of Herne Hill Books. Apparently this stretch of road was until 1888 known as Lett Street. The alley was once a public footpath, and looks as if it was still in 1989.
This view still looks much the same now, with the two 19-storey blocks of Park View House and Herne Hill House in Hurst Street, each built in 1966 with 72 flats, towering over the neighbourhood. Park View House many be blessed with a view of Brockwell Park, but unfortunately you can see it and its neighbouring tower from the park.
Railton Rd, Rymer St, Herne Hill, Lambeth, 1989 89-5f-51
A closer view of 200 Railton Road. I have been unable to find out more about this building. Two of the three ground-floor shops appear to have been converted to to residential use by the time I made this picture.
Shops, Railton Rd, Herne Hill, Lambeth, 1989 89-5f-55
I walked back down south down Railton Road to the junction with Dulwich Rd, stopping to photograph this terrace of shops at 315-323 Railton Road. This is now a pedestrian area and the shops are rather different in nature.
I liked the sign at left on 315, ‘Only the best is good enough for me‘ though with the metal shutters up on a Sunday I could not be sure what it sold, though I think it was probably a greengrocers.
Herne Hill, Dorchester and Carnegie: Another episode in in the series of posts on my walk in south London on Sunday 7th May 1989 (on earlier posts I put the date wrongly as 6th May). The walk began with Hanover, Belgrave, Chapel, Shops, Taxis. The previous post was Ruskin & Half Moon, Herne Hill.
Houses, Herne Hill, Herne Hill, Lambeth, 1989 89-5e-34
There are some fine late Victorian houses on Herne Hill and most seemed in a good state of repair, though this one was getting some major work done. The chimneys are impressive. If you click on the image you will go to my Flickr album where you will find a couple more pictures of houses on this section of the street – and there are also a few I haven’t put online.
Flats, Dorchester Court, Herne Hill, Herne Hill, Lambeth, 1989 89-5e-23
A little further up I came to this splendid group of 1930’s ‘moderne’ style flats. There are 96 flats in 8 blocks around a courtyard. Built in 1933-4 Dorchester Court is Grade II listed, the architects were Leslie H Kemp and Frederick E Tasker and the estate was developed by a local builder and developer, Mr Morrell. The name probably came from that of the Dorchester Hotel which had been opened in 1931 on Park Lane intended to be the perfect luxury hotel.
According to Historic England “There are structural problems with the balconies and general external deterioration. A Listed Building Consent application for the extension and refurbishment of the blocks is pending determination” and the Evening Standard in 2022 ran an article with the impresively long headline “Inside neglected Art Deco block where residents face carbon monoxide leaks, mice, cockroaches and lead pipes” stating “Residents at the Herne Hill estate are stuck in a nightmare.”
Until recently Dorchester Court was owned and neglected by the property company Manaquel, a family company whose wealth is estimated at £200 million. The Standard says they have appealed against a 2021 improvement notice from Lambeth Council and that their “endgame appears to be a full-scale redevelopment.”
The Dorchester Court Tenants Union sate that “Dorchester Court is operated by Property Partners, who are owned by Beaumaris Ventures Limited (British Virgin Islands), a financial intermediary of the IFM Group Limited (Jersey), who are both listed in the Panama Papers. Dorchester Court generates around £1.5 million in rent per year with additional income from leaseholder service charges.“
House, 10-12 Herne Hill, Herne Hill, Lambeth, 1989 89-5e-24
A grand pair of Italianate mid-19th century semi-detached houses, now flats, with a most unusual design. The house has now lost its white fence and rather hides behind a brick wall and a tall hedge.
Carnegie Library, Haredale Rd, Herne Hill Rd, Herne Hill, Lambeth, 1989 89-5e-11
I turned left into Herne Hill Road from Herne Hill, and walked along it to photograph the Haredale Road frontage of the Carnegie Library before going on to photograph the main entrance on Herne Hill Road. This Grade II listed library is one of those built with a grant from Scottish-American steel baron, Andrew Carnegie, using his vast profits from his ruthless exploitation of workers to establish over 2,800 libraries. He provided a grant of £12,500 to enable the Herne Hill Library, designed by architects Wakeford and Sons, to be built and opened in 1906.
Carnegie Library, Herne Hill Rd, Herne Hill, Lambeth, 1989 89-5e-12
I was back at the library in 2016 at the end of a ten days of occupation by local residents against Lambeth council’s plans to turn it into a fee-charging gym run by Greenwich Leisure Ltd with an just un-staffed lounge with books. Their occupation had hit national headlines with huge support from around the country.
The gym plans went ahead, but with a little more library provision than originally planned and there is also now the Carnegie Library Hub based in the building, “a thriving sustainable centre of local activity attractive to the whole community for developing employment opportunities, learning, fitness and wellbeing, cultural and social activity” which protects and celebrates its history and legacy.
I didn’t take many more pictures as I walked back to Herne Hill and walked back down it. After a short walk along Half Moon Lane I turned around and went towards the station, where the next part of this walk will begin.
If you go to the web site of St. Peter’s Italian Church in Clerkenwell today you will find the programme for this year’s Procession in Honour of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, which has been taking place there since 1883. It will probably be taken down soon after the event, and at some time be replaced by the programme for next years event on Sunday 21st July 2024.
Theis year it takes place this afternoon, 16th July 2023, and the programme has some photographs from previous years, along with a map of the area showing the location of the church on Clerkenwell Road, roughly opposite Hatton Garden, the route of the march, this year going down Leather Lane and across Greville Street to Return up Hatton Garden, and the location of the Sagra in Warner Street. There is also a long list of the 38 groups in the order of the procession, the final one following Our Lady of Mount Carmel being the crowd of Parishioners.
Of course if you go there you will be able to pick up a printed copy. It’s best to arrive in plenty of time to enjoy an ice-cream, snack or plastic cup of wine or two at the Sagra before the procession begins at 3.30pm – and you can go back there again after the procession. It’s an event where everyone is welcome and there are no tickets or booking required.
The pavement on Clerkenwell Road gets very crowded so unless you are tall you will want to get there at least a few minutes before the start to find a good place to stand, though once the end of the procession has gone past you can walk to see it coming back to the church.
Many also go into the church well before the procession and even if you don’t wish to pray it is worth a visit. According to the web site it has been described as “one of the most beautiful churches in London“. When built in 1863 its “Irish architect John Miller Bryson worked from plans drawn by Francesco Gualandi of Bologna, modelled on the Basilica of San Crisogno in Rome.” And while it may not be entirely to my taste it is certainly remarkable.
As too is the procession, with its floats on lorries and walking groups in costumes related to the life of Jesus , the first communicants, and various groups and associations, some carrying the heavy statues from the church decorated for the occasion.
Our Lady of Mount Carmel is one of the titles of the Virgin Mary, who was adopted as the patroness of the Carmelite Order which was begun by hermits on Mt Carmel in Palestine around the end of the 12th century. July 16 became the liturgical feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and the procession takes place on the closest Sunday – and this year, as in 2017, it is on the actual saint’s day.
The pictures here are all from Sunday 16th July 2017 – and there are many more on My London Diary at Processione della Madonna del Carmine as well as more from other years.
You can also see the pictures I made the first year I went to the festival, in 1992, in an album on Flickr with 50 black and white and 19 colour pictures. In some ways I think this remains the best set of images I’ve made of the event over the years.
BEIS Birthday Strike, Ecocide and XR Procession: Monday 15th July 2019
BEIS workers begin indefinite strike, Westminster
Low paid cleaning and catering workers at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) on Victoria Street celebrated the third anniversary of their fight for proper pay and conditions with cakes as they walked out on the first ever indefinite strike at a government ministry.
The workers are demanding the London Living Wage and to be directly employed by the department rather than outsourcing companies ISS and Aramark.
As the workers came out on strike hey got a rousing reception from a crowd of around 100 with speeches from one of the strikers, PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka, RMT General Secretary Mick Cash, newly elected UCU general secretary Jo Grady , Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, Labour MP Mary Glindon, National Vice-President of the PCS Zita Holbourne, Sam Gurney, TUC Regional Secretary, Kiri Tunks, Joint President of the NEU and Sandy Nicoll of SOAS Unison who led the succesful campaign to bring workers there back in-house. and one of the strikers.
I stayed long enough to eat a piece of one of the cakes which had been made for the protest, but then had to leave as the party continuned outside BEIS.
XR call for Ecocide Law – Royal Courts of Justice, Strand
Extinction Rebellion was beginning another series of protests in five major cities against the criminal inaction by the government on climate and ecological collapse.
The main theme of the day’s protest was to call for a law making ecocide a criminal offence.
The protesters brought a yacht named after Polly Higgins who fought for years for an Ecocide Law to the Royal Courts of Justice.
They continued her fight blocking the Strand all day with performances, discussions, speeches, music and ceremonies in front of the yacht.
We need urgent action and our government along with most others has failed, continuing with policies which seem designed to make the situation worse and bring life on earth to an end, and XR is certainly bringing that to people’s attention, even if our media are still largely ignoring it and concentrating on trivia. But although I fully support the aims of XR I do find some of XR’s activities – yachts and new-age mumbo jumbo – off putting. In part I guess it’s a class thing – much of their activity seems insufferably middle class. Its probably an age thing too.
Having occupied the street across the front of the Royal Courts of Justice all day, the protesters and their yacht moved on around afternoon tea time to their home for the next three days, on Waterloo Millennium Green, a park area just south of Waterloo Station.
At the front of the procession were banners and a large crowd of people with XR flags, more banners, posters and placards, as well a large pink dodo. Bringing up the rear was the blue yacht named for the late Ecocide Law protester Polly Higgins, on a boat trailer, escorted by police.
When the procession was all on Westminster Bridge it came to a halt and people sat down blocking the road for a short protest against the police violence towards peaceful protesters when they were arresting people during the ‘Garden Bridge‘ occupation of the bridge in April.
There were a few short speeches there and the procession moved on. It came to a halt a little further on after police tried to block it on from moving onto the Millennium Green.
By this time the back of the procession was on its way around the IMAX Waterloo roundabout, and the rush hour was beginning. I hung around for around half an hour before deciding it was time to get on a train home. But by stopping the protest police had brought a large area of south London quite unnecessarily to a standstill.
My working day began on the pavement outside letting agents Drivers & Norris on Holloway Road, condemning them for having taken over £300 from home seekers and providing nothing return but refusing to return the payment.
Some of the members of the Harringey Private Tenants Action Group taking part in the protest had paid upfront fees of £300 in cash to secure new flats, but the company had failed to provide them with any offers of accommodation but had refused to return the fee.
Drivers & Norris and other companies say that the cost is to cover the reference checks that they have to make, but these cost them around £19. The fees are simply a scam to increase the company profits at the expense of poor and vulnerable people in need of housing.
Police arrived and attempted to get the protesters to stop, suggesting it might distract drivers on the busy main road and cause an accident. It seemed simply another attempt by the police to suppress the right to lawful protest and to take the side of the wealthy against the poor. The protesters of course refused to stop and the officers went in to drink tea with the estate agents leaving the small peaceful protest to continue.
My comment back in 2012 “Agents have profited greatly from the lack of affordable housing in the London area, with property prices well above anything that anyone on an average wage can afford. Coupled with a systematic attack by successive governments on the security of private tenants and on the provision of social housing over more than 30 years this has resulted in a dire shortage of housing for ordinary people in London and the south-east. Even where housing developments are taking place in London, the properties are often many bought by overseas investors interested in high profits in an overheated housing market.” Things since then have got worse.
From Holloway Road I rushed down to Marble Arch on the Underground to meet the PETA march as it arrived there from its start close to Waterloo. I’d gone there before going to Haringey, but hadn’t found anything I thought worth photographing in the steady rain, so had gone away to return to the march later.
PETA was demanding an end to killing of bears for the Queen’s Guards’ ceremonial headwear. It takes the skin of a whole black bear to make a busby, and they are cruelly hunted. They say some bears escape after being shot several times and bleed to death and that in “some Canadian provinces, there are no restrictions on the shooting of mothers who have nursing cubs, leading to the slaughter of entire families during hunts.”
The MoD still takes 100 bear skins a year from Canadian hunters and justifies its refusal to move to using synthetic materials by saying “one has come remotely close to matching the natural properties of bear fur in terms of shape, weight and its ability to repel moisture in wet conditions.” Perhaps we should just stop dressing parts of our army as toy soldiers.
Solidarity with the Bahraini prisoners – Bahraini embassy, Belgrave Square
A short bus ride and walk took me to the Bahraini embassy where protesters were gathering to call for the release of prisoners in Bahrain, to condemn the killing of Mohammad Rahdi Mahfoodh and attacks on his funeral, and for an end to the puppet regime of the Bedouin Al Khalifa tribe.
I arrived as the protest was beginning and some of the protesters and speakers including Jeremy Corbyn had arrived.
But unfortunately I had to leave for the cleaners’ protest in Oxford St before things really got going and before the main speeches from Corbyn and others.
I had been at the flagship John Lewis store on Oxford Street the previous day when their cleaners were taking a day of strike action, with a rally and a brief invasion of the store, the first strike at John Lewis since it became the John Lewis Partnership (JLP) following a strike in 1920.
The cleaners have been in dispute with the JLP for some years, campaigning for their service to the company to be recognised and to be treated like the other workers there who are ‘partners’ and benefit from an annual bonus from the company profits. They also are demanding to be paid the London Living Wage. Rather then directly employ its cleaning staff JLP has outsourced them to Integrated Cleaning Management (ICM).
A woman stops to photograph the protest
The strike was precipitated when ICM announced there would be a 50% cut in jobs and hours to clean the store, and refused to pay the living wage. ICM also refuse to recognise the IWW, officially recognised as a trade union in the UK in 2006, for collective bargaining, although almost all the cleaners are now members.
ICM is part of the Compass Group, and the IWW point out this had pre-tax profits of £581 million in the last year and paid its chairman Sir Roy Gardner £477,000 pa. They also say that Gardner is a major donor to Conservative Party funds, and gave £50,000 to Cameron’s election campaign.
Today police had arrived in advance of the protest and were stationed in small groups at each of the shop entrances. Behind those at the main entrance watching the rally cleaners pointed out to me one of the JLP management who scurried away as soon as he saw my camera pointing in his direction – but not before I had photographed him.
Despite talks that have dragged on for some years, John Lewis still refuses to accept that it should treat its cleaners with the same decency as its other workers, hiding behind the fact that they are not the actual employers although the cleaners work in their store and are essential to its running.
The cleaners were employed by ICM on the legal minimum wage, more than two pounds an hour below the London Living Wage, a figure representing the minimum needed to live in London. This is calculated annually by the Resolution Foundation, overseen by the Living Wage Commission and was in 2012 backed by both London Mayor Boris Johnson and Prime Minister David Cameron.
The rally on the pavement in front of the shop was peaceful but lively and noisy and received a great deal of support from shoppers passing by on the busy street including John Lewis customers. The cleaners were to strike again the following Friday with further protests outside the store then and on every Saturday afternoon.
Housing For Need Not Greed: Mostly my posts here look at old work, either from a few years ago or my work on London back in the 1980s and 90s. But I’m still goining out at taking pctures if not quite as often as I once did. So this post is about one of the two events I photographed last weekend.
Aysen Dennis – Fight4Aylesbury
Last Saturday, 8th July 2023 was National Housing Action Day, and a march from the Elephant to the Aylesbury Estate was one of 16 across the country on National Housing Day. Others were taking place in Lambeth, Islington, Kensington, Cardiff, Glasgow, Abbey Wood, Wandsworth, Harlow, Merton, Ealing, Cornwall, Folkestone, Devon, Birmingham, and Hastings.
Tanya Murat – Southwark Defend Council Housing
The Southwark protest demanded Southwark Council stop demolishing council homes and refurbish and repopulate estates to house people and end the huge carbon footprint of demolish and rebuild. They demanded housing for need not corporate greed, refurbishment not demolition, filling of empty homes and an end to the leasehold system.
Marchers at the Elephant on their way to the Aylesbury Estate
Demolition and rebuilding of housing produces huge amounts of CO2, and whenever possible should be avoided now we are aware of the real dangers of global warming. Instead existing buildings should be insulated, retrofitted and refurbished and properly maintained.
Southwark Council’s estates have for well over 20 years been deliberately run down and demonised with some being demolished and replaced. Around 1000 council homes on the Aylesbury Estate have already been demolished buy around 1,700 are still occupied but currently scheduled for demolition.
Marchers on Walworth Road on their way to the Aylesbury Estate.
These homes were well built for the time to higher standards than their replacement and could easily and relatively cheaply be brought up to modern levels of services and insulation with at least another 50 years of life. The estate was carefully designed with open spaces, natural daylight and a range of properties, many with some private outdoor space. The planned replacements are at higher density, less spacious and unlikely to last as long – and only include a small proportion at social rents. Current tenants are more secure and the properties are far more affordable.
People on the street watch and video the march
Many of those whose homes have already been demolished here and on the neighbouring Heygate estate have been forced to move outside the area, some far from London as they can no longer afford to live here.
Bubbles and Marchers on Walworth Road on their way to the Aylesbury Estate.
Although the developers have profited greatly from their work with Southwark Council here and in other estates, and some officers and councillors involved have personally landed well-paying corporate jobs and enjoyed lavish corporate hospitality, the schemes have largely been financial disasters for the council and council tax payers.
Fight4Aylesbury was formed in 199 as Aylesbury Tenants and Residents First, and has been fighting Southwark Council’s plans to demolish the estate since then. While these schemes – part of New Labour’s regeneration initiative – have always been destructive of local communities and disastrous for many of those whose homes have been demolished, we now see that they are also environmentally unsupportable.
You can watch a video on YouTube of Aysen Dennis, Fight4Aylesbury and Tanya Murat, Southwark Defend Council Housing talking about the protest, and FIght4Aylesbury recently released a newsletter, The Future of the Aylesbury with more details on the estate and their proposals. A few more of my pictures from the event are in the album Housing For Need Not Greed – National Action Day, London, UK and are available for editorial use on Alamy.
Trump Not Welcome in UK: There were huge protests against the July 2018 visit by US Presdent Trump to the UK, said to be a ‘working visit’ and he was kept well away from most of them, but some protesters made their way to still protest outside the official reception at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire and when he took tea with the Queen in Windsor. But apparently he did find the time to tell Prime Minister Theresa May she was making a mess of Brexit.
I photographed the following two protests on Thursday 12th July 2018, the day he arrived in the UK, but there was much more to come the following day.
Climate activists marked Trump’s visit to the UK by dropping a giant banner 100 meters long on the river wall of the Thames opposite the Houses of Parliament. The banner carried the message ‘TRUMP: CLIMATE GENOCIDE’ in fluorescent orange letters around 15ft high.
This wall directly faces the terrace where MPs and their guests could clearly see and read the message across the river a little over 250 yards wide at this point. Having photogrphed them bringing the huge banner to the scene and beginning to hang it over the wall I rushed up onto Westminster Bridge photograph it from there.
Trump derided and ignored the clear science on climate change, supporting his fossil fuel supporters and donors in their bid to destroy human life on earth for the sake of their short-term profits. Every year now the effects of these policies in destabilising global climate become clear. US policies – not just under Trump but certainly since their refusal to get behind the 1997 Kyoto Protocol if not before, have played a major role in our current dire situation. Trump worsened this, and his actions and failures have condemned billions to death and are a major crime against humanity.
Trump’s jet landed at Stanstead Airport and a helicopter was flying from there to the US Ambassador’s residence, Winfield House in a large private estate at the northwest corner of Regent’s Park before taking him on to dinner with Theresa May at Blenheim Palace.
Hundreds of campaigners with drums, whistles, megaphones, pots and pans, recordings of the cries of migrant children and some very loud shouting had come to the nearest public part of Regent’s Park to show their feelings about him and the visit. Among them were a number of Armericans living in Britain as well as various groups on the UK left.
A 10ft wire fence separated the protesters from the large lawn and there was a high police presence at the protest. It was watched from behind the fence by a small group of police some yards away, and doubtless rather more police and others were behind them screened by the bushes and trees closer to the house.
Almost certainly the protest organisers would have wanted to protest closer to the house on the Outer Circle, from where the house is visible, though largely screened by trees. But Regent’s Park is a Royal Park, owned by the Crown Estate and they and the police will have made clear a protest there would not be tolerated. As the Royal Parks state “the location of the demonstration will be agreed through discussion between the Park Manager, the police, the organisers, and other relevant authorities.”
Although the protest was some distance from the lawn where his helicopter was taking off and landing, the noise it was making would have been audible from there and the house. Some of the protesters were intending to remain making a noise all night, but I went home soon after his helicopter landed the first time.
But, as I wrote then, “it seems likely that Trump will have been aware of them as he flew in and out and before reaching the presumably well double or triple-glazed security of Winfield House. Though he will probably have convinced himself they were welcoming him and dismissed the TV and newspaper coverage as ‘Fake News!’“
