July, 2024 | >Re-PHOTO

The Future For Aviation – 2014

The Future For Aviation: The protest at London City Airport on Monday 21st July 2014 by ‘The Future‘, a campaigning group set up to fight climate change and ecological devastation by non-violent protest along with some local residents addressed specific issues related to that airport, but also wider questions about the future of aviation, both still very much with us. A decision is expected shortly by our new Labour government on further expansion plans for the airport following a public inquiry which closed in February.

The group used a painted circle around one eye as a symbol that the people are watching those in power, calling on politicians and others to take action rather than let themselves be bought by corporate interests. And they stated “we will judge them if they choose the toxicity of London City Airport over the health of local people and of London.”

Ten years later, ‘The Future’ are forgotten, and while there has been nothing like enough action the growing signs of the coming catastrophe are just perhaps beginning to get some movement, though still too little and too late.

It should now be clear to every thinking person that we have to find ways to reverse the growth in the aviation industry. To end airport expansion and increasing numbers of flights. Not ideas like changing to bio-fuels or specious calculations over planting trees to compensate for the CO2 generated by flights, nor on the pipe-dream of electric aircraft but quite simply reducing the number of flights.

Quite how this can be done is a matter for discussion, but some measures, such as removing the subsidies for aviation and banning incentive schemes with air miles and discounts could be simply implemented.

Heathrow and London City Airport also pose other problems, generating pollution and noise pollution both from their flight and from the traffic and congestion they generate in urban areas of our heavily polluted city.

The history of London City Airport is a case-study in how the aviation industry has operated by deception. When set up it was to be a low traffic site providing limited services between European capitals for business travellers from the nearby Canary Wharf and the City of London using small, quiet aircraft specially built for short take-off and landing.

Even so the Greater London Council opposed its setting up in the former Royal Docks in Newham, surrounded by densely populated areas but were overruled by central government.

Those initial promises have been long been superseded and by 2014 passenger numbers were 25 times as great with the airport no a a major commercial airport, its runway extended to allow use by larger and far more noisy aircraft, including some scheduled trans-Atlantic flights. From a handful of flights a day there were by then around 15 per hour in its allowed operation times. And more new housing in the surrounding areas had made the airport’s site even less tenable.

The airport was then about to make a planning application for further expansion. Then London Mayor Boris Johnson directed Newham Council to turn this down, but in 2016 transport secretary Chris Grayling and communities secretary Sajid Javid overrode the decision and gave the £344 million scheme the go-ahead.

In 2023, Newham Council again turned down further expansion plans but the airport again appealed. A public inquiry took place in December 2023 to February 2024, and a decision was expected by 23rd July 2024. But the general election means that the decision will now be made by our new Labour government. It will be a key indicator in demonstrating if our new government is really serious in its announced intentions to combat climate change and pollution.

More about the protest at ‘The Future’ at London City Airport.

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Seven Sisters and Walthamstow High St – 1989

Seven Sisters and Walthamstow High St: On Sunday 24th September 1989 I returned to north-east London to continue my walks, this time starting a little to the west on the Middlesex side of the River Lea at Seven Sisters in Haringey. The Lea (or Lee), London’s second largest river, has been a significant boundary at least since the Iron Age when it separated the Catuvellauni from the Trinovantes, later the Middle Saxons from the East Saxons, then England from the Danelaw and until 1965 Middlesex from Essex (though some of Middlesex by then was in the County of London.) It still separates Haringey on the west from Waltham Forest on the east.

House, 176, St Ann's Rd, South Tottenham, Haringey, 1989 89-9c-44 — *House, 176, St Ann’s Rd, South Tottenham, Haringey, 1989 89-9c-44*

I can’t remember now why I got off the Victoria Line at Seven Sisters and took a short walk from there on my way to Walthamstow, but possibly there was a temporary problem on the Victoria Line which terminated My train there. But I found this part-demolished house, once quite grand, at 176 St Ann’s Rd in South Tottenham.

The sign above the door is for N Nicolau who had manufactured dresses, jackets, skirts and slacks here, though I think the advertisement for vacancies for machinists, finishers and pressers was rather out of date. There were still plenty of clothing sweatshops in the area, and many were Greek or Cypriot run companies.

This house has been rebuilt in a rather plainer fashion, but there are still some other houses of a similar age on the street, largely developed in the later Victorian period. This is now in the St Ann’s conservation area around the church which was consecrated in 1861. The new building here is mentioned; “constructed of London stock brick … white rendered square bays and a slate roof and respects the character and appearance of this part of the Conservation Area.“

J Reid, Pianos, St Ann's Rd, South Tottenham, Haringey, 1989 89-9c-45 — *J Reid, Pianos, St Ann’s Rd, South Tottenham, Haringey, 1989 89-9c-45*

I liked the PIANOS sign surrounded by keyboards, though the 13 octaves on both top and bottom seemed excessive – our Broadwood manages with only seven and a few extra keys.

J Reid Pianos was established in 1928 and are still in business at 184 St Ann’s Road. You can buy a Reid Sohn piano from them, though these are now made in Indonesia, and they sell other makers too, with the “largesst selection of quality pianos in London“. They have also restored many pianos from “Barraud, Bechstein, Bell, Bernstein, Bluthner, Bosendorfer, Boston, Brinsmead, Broadwood, Carl Schiller, Challen, Challen, D’Este, Erard, Fazioli, Fenner, Feurich, Gaveau, Gebruder, Grotrian, Hoffman, Ibach, Kawai, Kemble, Knake, Knight, Lipp, Matz, Pleyel, Pleyel, Reid-Sohn, Ronisch (Rönisch), Sames, Samick, Sauter, Schiedmayer, Schimmel, Seiler, Squire, Steck, Steinmayer, Steinway (Steinway & Sons), Steinweg, Thurma, Weber, Welmar, Yamaha.“

*1858 Model Cottages, Avenue Rd, South Tottenham, Haringey, 1989 89-9c-46*

Model cottages were an early form of social housing for the working class and began with the help of Prince Albert who was the President of Society for Improving the Conditions of the Labouring Classes. He was unable to persuade the commissioners of the 1851 Great Exhibition in Hyde Park to include the model cottages designed by the SICLC in the exhibition as they were felt to be too political but he had them built next door at Knightsbridge Barracks – and later they were rebuilt where they still are in Kennington Park.

Following this, many of the housing societies set up in the Victorian era to provide relatively cheap and decent homes for the working class built model cottages at various sites across London. Rents were set at levels those in manual work could afford but still gave a decent return to the company investors.

These Grade II listed Model Cottages are some of the earliest to be built and were perhaps a local initiative linked with the neighbouring St Ann’s School and church. They have been restored since I took this picture, and the doorway at left now has a rather austere woman’s head above it – perhaps a modern version of a Mercer Maiden?

The next picture, Car, House, Leaves, Bedford Rd, 148, West Green Rd, West Green, Haringey, 1989 89-9c-32, was one of those included with text in my book ‘1989‘.

*High St, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9c-33*

Finally I got back onto the Victoria Line to Walthamstow Central and walked to the High St, a very different scene on a Sunday Morning that the crowded market I had photographed recently on a Saturday afternoon.

*Palmerston Rd, High St, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9c-34*

I liked the font used for BEAU.BAGGAGE as well as the STOP PRESS around the window advertising the end of season sale. There was also the three signs at the top right of the shop which somehow seemed joined together. Then there was the street furniture – the waiting man on the traffic lights, the telephone unbox at left and a lamp post with a ‘No Entry’ sign at right.

All very carefully positioned in my frame with probably a little help from the 35mm shift lens which enabled me to choose my position and then slide the lens and view a little to the right or left (and up or down) to position the frame edges where I wanted them. Most of the photographs I took were made with this lens.

*High St, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9c-35*

Another picture of shops on the High Street, showing post-war and probably late Victorian buildings. At left is the Cakemaker’s Centre, with its picture of a balance and I think the name EASY WEIGH and in the centre the entrance to The Walthamstow Working Men’s Club & Institute.

The club celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2012 and claims to be the oldest surviving working men’s club in the country. It was founded in 1862 by Lord Henry Solly (1813-1903), British Unitarian minister, social reformer, and instigator & founder of the Working Men’s Club movement, the Charity Organisation, and the Garden City Movement.

This was a temperance club, with the aim to educate working men and free them from alcoholism. It had a library, a games room and a discussion room. The club is limited to 50 members and in 2012 all were still men. They said nothing prevented women joining but none had applied. It is still a temperance club, though members might sometimes bring a can of beer in, and as it is affiliated to the CIU, members can go to many other clubs across the country (including I think a couple in Walthamstow) and buy a beer.

Unlike most other working mens clubs which rely on bar sales this club gets an income from several of the shops whose premises it owns – I think including some in my picture.

More from Walthamstow on this walk in a later post.

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End Gaza Killing Now – 2014

End Gaza Killing Now: Ten years ago today on Saturday 19th July thousands were marching through London towards the Israeli Embassy demanding an immediate end to the invasion and the crippling siege of Gaza and peace with freedom for Palestine.

Of course the situation is much worse in Gaza now where the whole population is under threat from Israeli bombs and increasingly without access to clean water, food and medical treatment. Every day brings news of a new massacre – last Saturday more than 90 Palestinians were killed and 300 injured in a tent camp at al-Mawasi – an area in Gaza that Israel had designated as safe.

Last week 10 independent UN experts issued a statement accusing Israel of carrying out a “targeted starvation campaign” that has resulted in the deaths of children in Gaza. They said this “is a form of genocidal violence and has resulted in famine across all of Gaza.” And the global monitor Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) recently stated that more than a fifth of the population of Gaza are facing the most severe, or “catastrophic”, level of food insecurity, in danger of starvation despite a small increase in humanitarian aid.

Wikipedia states “As of 12 July 2024, over 39,000 people (38,345 Palestinian and 1,478 Israeli) have been reported as killed in the Israel–Hamas war, including 108 journalists (103 Palestinian, 2 Israeli and 3 Lebanese) and over 224 humanitarian aid workers, including 179 employees of UNRWA.

The vast majority of those deaths have been in Gaza. And these figures do not include “those who have died from ‘preventable disease, malnutrition and other consequences of the war'”. As the Wikipedia article points out, research in 2008 suggested “that that total deaths caused by major conflicts were then a minimum average of five times the count of direct deaths.”

The 2014 Gaza War was one of the more deadly of the many previous conflicts between Israel and Palestinians since the formation of Israel in 1948. Wikipedia reported that “between 2,125 and 2,310 Gazans were killed …and between 10,626 and 10,895 were wounded (including 3,374 children, of whom over 1,000 were left permanently disabled).

What is now taking place is genocide on an industrial scale, and it is being carried out with support and weapons from both the USA and the UK. Although our politicians have called for a ceasefire they have not taken any of the kind of actions that might persuade Israel to stop the killing, and have continued to supply weapons.

There has to be some way to allow peace in the area between Israel and Palestine – and it cannot be through wars. Oslo seemed to show a possible way forward, but Israel decided not to take it, refusing to make concessions that the Palestinians could accept. Recognition around the world of the Palestinian state now by over 75% of UN member states might be a first step on the road to peace, and the UK should do so without delay.

Before the march in 2014 there were speeches in Whitehall. I photographed the marchers as they went up Whitehall, stopping at Trafalgar Square until the end of the march had reached there around 45 minutes after it began. I took the tube to Hyde Park Corner only to find the front of the march had already gone past, so I rushed back down to get the tube to Kensington High Street, close to the final destination a short distance from the Israeli Embassy which is a short distance down a private road.

Several thousand marchers had beaten me there and the street soon became very crowded as more arrived. Eventually it became too crowded to move and take pictures and I retreated into a small area reserved for the press close to the speakers. Among a long list perhaps the most moving was a young Palestinian woman who told us something of what had happened to her own family who were given 90 seconds warning before their home in Gaza was destroyed.

The protest had remained entirely peaceful, but as it ended and we left to go home, there was a minor incident where some police officers appeared to be making trouble, intervening in a heavy-handed fashion in a minor argument between a protester and a shop-worker who had shouted in support of the Israeli attack.

More on My London Diary, including the names and photographs of many of the speakers and rather more of the protesters:
Police & Gaza Protesters
End Gaza Killing Now

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Fire Service Cuts Cost Lives – 2013

Fire Service Cuts Cost Lives: On Thursday 18th July 2013 I photographed a march and rally by the Fire Brigades Union in London against cuts proposed by then London Mayor Boris Johnson. He had in 2010 repeatedly denied that he would make any cuts to London’s fire services, but the cuts which this protest was against led to the closure of ten fire stations in Greater London and the loss of over 550 firefighters in the force.

There was also a loss of the number of fire engines, at first of 14, but followed later by another 13, a cut of around 15%. Unsurprisingly the response times to fires across the capital increased. The first fire engine should arrive within six minutes of a fire being reported, and in late 2014 the figures showed that this was exceeded in around a third of London’s wards. Although the average increase in response times was only 12 seconds, in the worst case it went up by two minutes and 48 seconds.

Fast response to fires is essential in saving lives and cutting damage to properties, and although fortunately few lives are lost to fire in London thanks to our firefighters it seems that there was at least one fatality in the following year which was widely attributed to a slower response time. As I wrote in 2013, “7 out of 10 Londoners think that the Mayor’s proposed cuts will put public safety at risk, and the remaining 3 are just not thinking.”

In our great 2017 tragedy at Grenfell Tower, the fire service responded promptly, but it took over half an hour for a turntable ladder to arrive, and at the time the LFB only had ladders that reached under half way up that building. They called in a taller ladder from Surrey which took several hours to arrive. The LFB finally got its first 64m turntable ladder, the tallest in the UK, in 2021.

Appropriately the march began at The Monument, a 202ft column topped by a bright brass ball of fire erected shortly after the 1666 Great Fire of London as a permanent memorial to the event.

Fire-fighters, many in uniform, and supporters gathered in the area around, along with a fire engine and a small marching band with bagpipes sponsored by an FBU branch. London’s own firefighters were supported by some for other brigades, including at least a couple from the New York Fire Department as well as retired fire-fighters and anti-cuts protesters.

When the march which went across London Bridge to the London Fire Brigade HQ in Southwark for a rally outside where the cuts were being decided at a Fire Authority meeting I had gone up on top of the fire engine.

What I hadn’t realised was that I would be unable to get down until the end of the march, and although it gave me a good viewpoint it was in some ways a limiting one. I always like to take most of my pictures close to people using wide-angle lenses and during the march was unable to do so. And when the marchers sat down briefly to block London Bridge I could only watch from a distance.

I’d also not realised how much vibration there would be on the top of the fire engine, where we were in a fairly small enclosure made with scaffolding tubing on its top. I found myself having to hang on tightly in some of the bumpier parts of the roads, while trying to take pictures largely one-handed.

It was a rather uncomfortable and just a little scary experience, but it did take me close to some of those who had come to first and second floor windows to applaud the protest as it went past. But I was very pleased when we came to a stop at the Fire Brigade HQ and I could get back to ground.

You can read more about the rally at the end of the march and a long list of the speakers on My London Diary and there are photographs of most or all of them as well as many more from the event.

Fire Service March Against Cuts

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Bonuses are Back Pig Party – 2009

Bonuses are Back Pig Party: I’ve never understood why people who are already paid obscenely high salaries get awarded huge bonuses for the work of people lower down in the organisations they lead. Even less that they still get them when these organisations are obviously failing – as with the water companies. So it was a small piece of good news in February 2024 when the then government announced they would block further bonuses to the water company after they had received £26 million since 2019 despite sewage spills.

Of course many of us felt that they should have been made to repay those bonuses and that the companies that have racked up huge debts while paying out billions to shareholders should be taken into administration to be run to serve the public.

Back in 2008 it was the predatory activities of the banks that led to the financial crash, but in 2009, “Despite everything that has happened over the past year, bankers are still getting bonuses, often at quite obscene levels, far in excess of most people’s annual incomes.”

And on Friday 17th July 2009 ‘The Government of the Dead‘ came to the heart of the City of London to ‘celebrate’ that “City pigs are truly back with their snouts in the trough” with “a ‘Bonuses are Back Pig Party’, wearing pig masks and setting up a trough with ‘Pig Pounds’ mixed with pig swill and getting snouts down and bottoms up to wallow in it.“

The ‘Pig Pounds’ – were deliberately low-tech paper copies of fivers with a pig over the bottom half of the Queen and the pig swill was possibly the real thing but looked like some rather unpleasant and lumpy porridge with cornflakes mixed in.

Some of the protesters had come in fancy dress – city suits – with Chris Knight with his usual top hat and Camilla as Miss Piggy. Many put on latex pig masks and got their heads down in the trough in front of the Royal Exchange, scooping up the swill and the fivers.

More or less together they sang a number of cleverly reworded pig songs “including a number of hits by Miss Piggy, Pinky and Perky, The Simpsons and Piggy Pie“, as will as singing, dancing and miming along with some of the originals between sessions at the trough.

‘Lets Twist Again’, once recorded by Pinky and Perky became
“Come on let’s scam again
Like we did last summer
Come on let’s scam again
Like we did last year
Come on let’s scam again
Scamming time is here.“

“Bonuses Are Back” Chris Knight and the others shouted at City workers on their way home, inviting them to “come and swill in the trough, all provided at the taxpayers expense thanks to Gordon Brown.“

Tourists were bemused, but some stopped to enjoy and photograph the scene, with a few putting on the latex pig masks on offer and joining in.

Even the City of London Police seemed amused rather than worried by the protest, standing back and watching – and without their intervention there was no threat to public order.

After around an hour and a half of watching and taking pictures I decided it was time to go home. I’d taken too many pictures and the fun was wearing off.

Of course the bankers – and other bosses – continued to do well, while the rest of us had to suffer fourteen years of Tory austerity with public services being starved of cash and the NHS, prisons and more deteriorating at pace.

The Labour Party deliberately threw away the chance of getting into government in 2017, when the party under Corbyn got many more votes than in 2024. Starmer didn’t win the election, it was lost by the Tories who were poleaxed by Reform and had become clearly unable to run their own party let alone the country. I have no confidence that our new Labour government will be more than a very slight improvement over their predecessors, though it would be good to be proved wrong.

More at Bonuses are Back Pig Party

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Against Austerity, Cleaners Flash Mob, EDL & Falun Dafa – 2016

Against Austerity, Cleaners Flash Mob, EDL & Falun Dafa: The main event on Saturday 16th July 2016 was a well-attended march and rally against austerity and racism following the Brexit referendum, but on the way there I came across a Falun Dafa march, and while people were marching manged to cover a ‘Flash Mob’ by cleaners and a small protest by the far-right EDL.

End Austerity, No to Racism, Tories Out!

The People’s Assembly and Stand Up To Racism had organised an emergency demonstration following the Brexit referendum against austerity and racism and calling for the Tories to be defeated at a General Election.

The protest assembled outside the BBC in the hope that they might for once notice and report on a large protest in London, but as usual they ignored it. It also showed huge popular support for then Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn – who only failed to defeat Theresa May the following year because of sabotage by Labour party officials and the right wing of the party.

Immigration had been a major issue in the Brexit referendum, exploited by the Leave campaign and this had resulted in an upsurge in racism and hate attacks. Brexit did result in lowering migration from the EU and since 2017 the number of those born in the EU living in Britain has slowly but slightly declined. But this has been more than matched by an increase of around a million in those born in non-EU countries.

Of course we need these people who fill many useful jobs here and pay taxes. We also need those who work in the shadow economy, estimated in total to be around 10% of the total economy. Although this is often said to be important in attracting undocumented migrants to the UK, our shadow economy is significantly smaller than the average for developed nations, and at a level around half that of Italy, Greece and Spain and a little below Germany and France according to free-market ‘think tank’ the Institute for Economic Affairs.

The UK had been one of the leaders in the establishment of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted in 1948, and in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) adopted by the Council of Europe, signed in 1950 which came into force in 1953, with a court to enforce it. Many felt that the Tory government’s proposal in 2022 to repeal the Human Rights Act 1998 and replace it by a Bill of Rights was reprehensible. Liz Truss’s one good thing was to stop its progress and in June 2023 Rishi Sunak’s Justice Secretary Alex Chalk confirmed it had been dropped.

As the end of the march left down Regent Street I rushed off to photograph a breakaway group from the march who had left to take part in a flash mob. Following that I trotted along Oxford Street to Park Lane where I photographed a short march by a few EDL supporters before rushing to the tube to make my way to the People’s Assembly and Stand Up To Racist rally in Parliament Square.

The Fire Brigades Union had brought their fire engine to the square to provide a platform for the speakers at the rally chaired by rally chaired by Romayne Phoenix of the People’s Assembly and Sabby Dhalu from Stand Up to Racism.

Islington councillor Michelline Safi Ngongo brought a message of support from Jeremy Corbyn. Other speakers included Green Party London Assembly member Caroline Russell, Weyman Bennett from Stand Up to Racism, Lindsey German of Stop the War, Sam Fairbairn the National Secretary of the People’s Assembly, Zita Holbourne of BARAC and PCS, Rob Williams of the NSSN, NUS Vice President (Further Education) Shakira Martin and Antonia Bright from Movement for Justice who brought an asylum seeker with her to speak.

More on My London Diary:
Peoples Assembly/Stand Up to Racism rally
End Austerity, No to Racism, Tories Out

Falun Dafa march against Chinese repression – Regent St

Practitioners of Falun Dafa (also known as Falun Gong), an advanced Buddhist practice of moral rectitude, meditation and exercise founded by Mr Li Hongzhi in 1992, marched through London to protest the continuing torture and repression they have experience in China since 1999.

More at Falun Dafa march against Chinese repression

Cleaners Flash Mob at CBRE London HQ – Marylebone

When the People’s Assembly / Stand Up To Racism march set off, a small group of striking cleaners from 100 Wood St and supporters left to stage a flash mob protest at the nearby HQ Offices of CBRE in Henrietta Place. The United Voices of the World strike at Wood St for the living wage and reinstatement of sacked workers was then in its 38th day.

More at Cleaners Flash Mob at CBRE London HQ

EDL march and rally – Hyde Park

Less than a hundred EDL supporters had turned up at Marble Arch to march a few yards down Park Lane and then into Hyde Park for a rally. A few anti-fascists who had turned up to oppose them had mainly left to join the People’s Assembly-Stand Up to Racism march by the time I arrived.

More at EDL march and rally

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Streatham, Spain and Guantanamo – 2006

Streatham, Spain and Guantanamo: Three events in London on Saturday 15th July 2006, a festival, a commemoration and a protest.

Streatham Festival Children’s Parade – Streatham

Streatham Festival held it’s first ever Children’s Parade, children working with artists from Arts Community Exchange and Kids’ City to create sculptures, banners and puppets for all to see.

The parade was led by drummers Ancestral Hands and a cycling stilt-walker brought up the rear as it went along Streatham High Road to St Leonard’s Church.

One of my pictures from this parade was used in the remarkable The Streatham Sketchbook by Jiro Osuga and Mireille Galinou with photography by Torla Evans which was published in 2017 by Your London Publishing. Still available, this was described by Graham Gower of The Streatham Society as “superb and one the best books to be published on Streatham as a place – if not the best.”

more pictures

International Brigade Commemoration – Jubilee Gardens, Waterloo

I’ve attended and photographed a number of the annual commemorations of those who went to fight the fascists in Spain in 1936-9, but this 2006 event was the most memorable. Here’s what I wrote about it in 2006.

Several hundred people attended the annual commemoration at the International Brigade Memorial in Jubilee Gardens London Organised by the International Brigade Memorial Trust on Saturday 15 July.

Between 1936 and 1939 over 35,000 men and women, from more than 50 countries, volunteered for the Republican forces. Of the 2,300 who came from Britain, Ireland and the Commonwealth, over 500 were killed.

Volunteers came largely from working class areas across the country. most were members of communist organisations or otherwise active in the trade unions and other socialist bodies, and their average age was 29.

Seventy years later there are relatively few still alive and active enough to attend the commemoration, but it was good to see seven there. They were Jack Jones who chaired the event, Sam Lesser who spoke and read, as well as Bob Doyle, Paddy Cochrane, Lou Kenton, Jack Edwards and a surprisingly spry Penny Feiwel. As usual there was a reading of the names of those known to have died since the previous year’s meeting.

Rodney Bickerstaff’s address raised the problem of keeping alive the memory of those who responded to the call to help the Spanish republic, but attendances at this annual event seem to have increased over recent years.

There was certainly more media interest than on previous occasions, in part because of the attendance of the Spanish Ambassador and his wife, reflecting the increasing interest from Spain; he also gave a brief speech. As was pointed out, it would have been nice to have a representative of the UK government also present.

As usual, the event concluded with the singing of the ‘Internationale’.
More pictures on My London Diary

Shut Guantanamo now!

The National Guantanamo Coalition had called for a national demonstration in London to protest the deaths of three Guantanamo detainees earlier in the month.

A group of protesters, mainly from the ‘Save Omar Deghayes’ campaign, but also representing other organisations, walked across London from Marble Arch to the new Home Office building in Marsham Street to hand in the petition calling for an independent enquiry into the three recent deaths at Guantanamo. The petition also calls for the immediate sending of all detainees to countries where their basic human rights would not be abused, an immediate closure of Guantanamo and other prisons where those held were denied proper legal process and for proper access to detainees by family and medical personnel.

It was a long, hot and dusty trek across London, particularly tricky for those with pushchairs as we navigated the Hyde Park subways, and we were all glad to arrive (thanks to helpful directions from the police) at the Home Office. The front of the building was like an oasis, shade, green grass, water and trees.

The police did make us get off the grass and also made some effort to stop the display of placards and banners, but most of these remained visible. They had also attracted some attention from the crowds around Buckingham Palace as we passed by.
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Swan Upping – 2008

Swan Upping: On Monday 14 July 2008 I caught a train back from Hull so as to be back in Staines in time to meet the Swan Uppers as the last boats in the flotilla were leaving the Swan in Staines (or Egham Hythe) after stopping for lunch.

Every July two groups of Thames Watermen make their way upstream from Sunbury to Abingdon following a tradition established not long after the Norman conquest, though the earliest clear written records only date back to 1186.

Ownership of swans is still controlled by ancient laws, with the Crown claiming ownership of all unmarked swans on open water.

In medieval times, swans, or rather cygnets, were an important source of food and many had the right to own swans. Upping in those times was a way of establishing ownership and taking some cygnets to be fattened for the tables, but leaving enough birds to maintain the swan population at a healthy level. The upping was done in July when the cygnets were still too young to be able to fly away and escape.

Today only three bodies apart from the Crown have maintained the right to own swans, a family with a Swannery on a lake in Abbotsbury and two London Livery companies who exercise their rights on those on the Thames.

The Vintners were officially granted their rights in 1472 and the Dyers at around the same date, though their right was then granted ‘by prescription’, a legal term meaning they had had the right as long as the law could remember – officially since the accession of Richard I in 1189.

Over the years chickens and ducks which could be easily farmed replaced swans as a source of food, and swans are now a protected species and it is illegal to kill them. The Royal Family may still retain the right to eat them, along with the fellows of St John’s College, Cambridge but neither body now does so.

In more recent times, Swan Upping has come to play “an important role in the conservation of the mute swan and involves the King’s Swan Warden collecting data, assessing the health of young cygnets and examining them for any injuries.” The cygnets claimed by the Dyers and the Vintners used to have their beaks nicked with distinctive marks, but now the birds are simply ringed and their weight and length recorded before being returned carefully to the river, where they swim away apparently unaffected by their experience.

Six Thames skiffs rowed by watermen, two boats each for the Royal Swan Uppers, the Dyers and the Vintners make their way upstream, keeping a lookout for swans with cygnets. They wear red shirts for the Royals, blue for the Dyers and white for the Vintners.

Back when I first photographed the Uppers, most of the scouting for cygnets was actually carried out by an elderly man on a bicycle who I got to know slightly, and I rode along behind him. When Eric saw the birds he would try to entice them to a suitable spot on the bank with the help of crushed digestive biscuits.

In more recent years, a small dinghy with an outboard motor carrying the Warden of the Swans, on Oxford professor, has often driven a little ahead of the fleet to locate the swans. The ancient post of Keeper of the Kings Swans had been split into two new posts in 1993, the other part being the Marker of the Swans, who is rowed in one of the Royal skiffs.

Following behind the skiffs is a small flotilla of river cruisers, which includes a launch for the press. I did once book a place on this, but my place was cancelled shortly before the event when the major agencies and newspapers took an unusual interest, I think because the royals were taking an unusual interest.

But for most purposes, cycling along the towpath is the best way to cover the Swan Upping, and I was often there on the bank minutes before those on the press launch were able to land and join me. And the bank was usually the best place to be, closer to the action than the press launch could get.

At the end of the day the skiffs line up together in Romney Lock where the men put on their jackets and stand up in their boats to toast the Sovereign’s health.

From Romney lock I ran around a quarter of a mile along the riverside path where the Dyers and Vintners stand in their boats with oars vertical to salute the Royal uppers who go past between them with their oars raised, before all six boats row off to the boathouse at Eton, with another 4 days of upping ahead of them.

More pictures from the 2008 Swan Upping on My London Dairy where you can also see many more pictures from previous years:

Shepperton-Staines, Jul 2001
Shepperton, Staines, Egham, Old Windsor, Jul 2004
Shepperton, Staines, Egham, Old Windsor, Jul 2005
Chertsey, Staines, Egham, Jul 2006
Laleham to Windsor, Jul 2007

Details of this year’s Swan Upping which begins on Monday 15th July 2024 are on the website of the Swan Marker to His Majesty the King. If the weather is good I might stroll down and take a few pictures.

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PIP, NHS, Trident & Cleaners – 2016

PIP, NHS, Trident & Cleaners: Wednesday 13th July 2016 was a busy day for me, covering two protests in the ‘#PIPFightback’ National Day of Action against the Personal Independence Payments, a rally in favour of a parliamentary bill to stop the ongoing privatisation of the NHS, a party against plans to spend huge amounts on new nuclear weapons and ending with a rally supporting cleaners in the longest running industrial dispute in the history of the City of London.

PIP Fightback – Vauxhall & Westminster

On this day there were around 20 actions by disabled protesters and their supporters as a ‘#PIPFightback’ National Day of Action against PIP, the Personal Independence Payments which have been a totally inadequate replacement for the Disabled Living Allowance which had previously provided support to enable disabled people to work and live on more even terms with the rest of the community.

I began at the Vauxhall PIP Consultation Centre in Vauxhall where ATOS carry out sham Personal Independence Payments ‘assessments’ on behalf of the DWP. These are carried out without without proper consideration of medical evidence and with ATOS haing a financial incentive to fail claimants.

Many genuine claimants have lost essential benefits for months before these are restored by tribunals on appeal. The temporary loss of finance has resulted in some being taken into hospitals and some commiting suicide.

Other claimants lose benefits as job centres ‘sanction’ them, often for trivial or unfair reasons such as arriving late for interviews due to bus or train delays – or because they have not received a letter about the appointment.

Among those taking part in this protest was Gill Thompson, whose brother David Clapson, a diabetic ex-soldier died in July 2013 after his benefits were ‘sanctioned’. He was left starving without money for food or electricity to keep the fridge containing his insulin running. She carried a banner with the names and a few pictures of around 100 claimants known to have died because of sanctions. This appears to be a relatively small fraction of the total which runs into thousands.

Later I joined a larger protest with members of the Mental Health Resistance Network (MHRN), Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) and Winvisible (Women with Invisible and Visible Disabilities) and others in Westminster outside the Victoria Street offices of Capita who also carry out these shoddy assessments.

There were speeches on the pavement there before the protesters moved onto the busy road blocking traffic in both directions, though they quickly moved aside to let a ambulance through.

After a few minutes Paula Peters of DPAC announced it was time to move on and the protesters marched along the road past the Met Police HQ at New Scotland Yard and on the the DWP offices at Caxton House.

Here they blocked the road for some more speeches before moving on to Parliament where there was another short rally on the road before they moved on to the media village on College Green where politicians were being interviewed on TV over the appointment of a new Prime Minister, Theresa May.

Police blocked them from going onto the Green, but soon some went past them and refused police requests to move; eventually they were allowed to stand on a path in the middle of the area. Although all the TV crews present could see and hear the protest, only one or two bothered to come across and find out what was happening – and I think these were from foreign news agencies.

Disabled PIP Fightback blocks Westminster
PIP Fightback at Vauxhall

NHS Bill protest at Parliament

Protesters from various campaigns to save the NHS held a protest in support as Labour MP for Wirral West Margaret Greenwood presented a ‘Ten Minute Rule Bill’ with cross-party support to stop the privatisation of the NHS and return it to its founding principles. Labour Shadow Health Secretary Diane Abbott came out to speak in support at the protest.

More pictures: NHS Bill protest at Parliament

Trident Mad Hatters Tea Party – Parliament Sq

CND members were lobbying MPs at Parliament against plans to replace Trident at a cost of at least £205 billion.

And on the square facing the Houses of Parliament was a ‘Mad Hatters Tea Party’, as well as Christians with placards stating the opposition by churches of the different denominations to the replacement.

Trident Mad Hatters Tea Party

Solidarity for Wood St cleaners – City of London

The strike by cleaners at the 100 Wood St offices managed by CBRE was now the longest running industrial dispute in the history of the City of London.

The cleaners belong to the United Voices of the World union and are employed by anti-union cleaning contractor Thames Cleaning.

Unite the Resistance, the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers, Class War and others had come to support the United Voices of the World. After a rally opposite the Wood Street offices, then marched around the block and then went on hold a rally blocking the street outside the CBRE offices at St Martin’s Court.

Solidarity for Wood St cleaners

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Our Lady of Mount Carmel – 2009

Our Lady of Mount Carmel: I think it was in 1992 that I first photographed the Procession in Honour of Our Lady of Mount Carmel which has taken place at St Peter’s Italian Church in Clerkenwell since 1883. You can find around 50 of my photographs from that year in my Flickr album 1992 London Photos which you can access by clicking on this, the first picture in the set:

Float, Procession, In Honour of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, St Peter's, Italian Church, Clerkenwell Rd, Clerkenwell, Camden, Islington, 1992, 92-6y-62 — *1992*

I went back the following year, and I think the pictures from 1993 are generally better.

First Communicants, Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Italian Festival, St Peters Church, Clerkenwell, Camden, 1993, — *1993*

And I’ve been there most years since when I’ve been in London at the right time in July, though I’m not sure if I will go this year, when The liturgical feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel is celebrated on 16th July and the procession takes place on a Sunday close to that – the 2024 Procession is on the afternoon of Sunday 21st July.

It’s London’s most colourful Christian procession and the celebrations around it have an Italian liveliness – and most years I’ve gone together with a fellow photographer of Italian origin and we have enjoyed a few glasses of cheap Italian wine together. But we are getting older and the wine is getting more expensive…

And while its still a fine event to attend, in recent years it has perhaps lost a little, and like most events become a little more formalised and a little less spontaneous, harder to take the kind of informal images I like and which I hope reflect more the atmosphere of the event.

All of the colour pictures here are from Sunday 12th July 2009 which I think was for me a fairly typical year, with one exception. At the centre of the event for me photographically has been the release of doves, usually by three of the clergy. The doves fly unpredictably and extremely rapidly when released, and capturing them in flight is a challenge. In 2009 I got lucky.

Back in 2009 I was working with a Nikon D700 and made this picture with the focal length set to 24mm. That camera could take pictures at 5 frames per second, though I probably relied on pressing the button at the right time. Fortunately I’d decided to set a small aperture, f16, to try to keep clergy, background and doves in focus, although working at ISO400 this meant a slightly slow shutter speed, 1/250s.

Nikon’s autofocus kept up with the pigeon as it flew directly towards me, and its feathers and claws are the sharpest part of the image, with the background remaining only slightly out of focus thanks to the small aperture. The wingspan of a pigeon is around 30 inches and a little elementary maths tells me the bird must have been just over 2 feet from the camera. I certainly felt the breeze as it passed inches over my hair.

You can read more about the 2009 event, including the lively Italian festival – the Sagra – with various stalls food, drink, dancing and more in a street below the church, as well as the procession itself with its various floats and walking groups including the first communicants and others who carry the statues of saints on My London Diary.

The clergy join the procession in front of the last float, which carries the statue of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, and a large crowd of parishioners follows after it as it goes around the local area before returning to the church.

Also on My London Diary are pictures from the processions in 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, and 2003 as well as some later years. Our Lady of Mount Carmel 2009

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