Ninety from Narbeth:Narberth (Arbeth to Welsh speakers) was until recently a place I had never hear of, a small town in Pembrokeshire with ancient origins. I spent a week staying there with a small group of friends at the start of September 2024, returning last Saturday.
Narbeth apparently grew up around the palace of a Welsh king and in the great collection of ancient Welsh stories preserved by oral tradition until first written down around 1350, the Mabinogion, is the chief palace of Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed. There were ancient camps nearby and the Romans came – and went.
But it was the Normans who, having invaded England in 1066, a few years later turned their attention to Wales and left a great mark on the area, building more than 50 massive castles to invade and occupy the area. Thee wars here were a complex and changing situation and other castles were built by the Welsh to defend their land.
A castle was first built at Narbeth by the Normans around 1116, but rebuilt in stone in the following century. It formed a part of what is now called the Landsker Line, defending the territory they controlled against the Welsh. The castle is now in ruins but open to the public, though the buildings are fenced off for safety reasons.
The Landsker Line divided the largely English-speaking area of south Pembrokeshire, dominated by the Normans from Welsh-speaking Wales, and the area to the south of it was often called ‘Little England’.
Now only around a fifth of the roughly four thousand residents of Narberth are Welsh-speaking. For a town of its size it has a remarkable number of independent shops and particularly at weekends the place is crowded. Ten years ago The Guardian called it “a gastronomic hub for West Wales” and named it as “one of the liveliest, most likeable little towns in the UK.“
I can’t comment on the gastronomy, though I did help to cook some interesting meals for our small group staying there, but it does have a very fine shop making artisanal ice cream with some unusual flavours. And I only visited one of its many pubs, which was a very friendly place, though I just missed the live music there.
As well as more traditional shops, the town also has more than its share of arty shops and some with a hippy or ‘New Age’ vibe. And its certainly a very friendly place compared to suburban London and one of a number of locals we met in a pub shook my hand when I revealed one of my Grandmothers had come from Wales. I’m not surprised that Narberth was “named one of the best places to live in Wales in 2017“
It has an excellent local museum and of course a number of churches and chapels, though some now in other uses. These are among its 70 listed buildings, most of which I think are in the pictures I took, though many of the more interesting are unlisted.
It isn’t far to drive to many other attractions of the area – more castles, mills, the rugged coastal path and more sedate seaside resorts with some fine beaches. Friends took me to some of these but there were many more.
Perhaps the most disappointing thing about Narberth is the railway station, around three-quarters of a mile from the centre of town. On the map the railway seems useful, but in reality there are too few trains to be of much use. The station building is now a joinery though Platform 1 (and only) still stands, with an announcement telling us that this was a request stop, and we should indicate clearly to the driver as the train approached that we wanted to board. Fortunately it did stop when we began our journey home.
All the pictures here are from Narberth town centre, and there are more on Facebook in the album ‘Ninety From Narbeth‘. I’ll make some later posts about some of the places in the area we were able to visit during our holiday.
Netanyahu, Immigration & Shaker: On Wednesday 9th September 2015 groups came to Downing Street both to protest against and to support the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu then making an official visit to David Cameron. And in Parliament Square there were protests supporting the parliamentary report on immigration detention which was being debated, as well as a weekly vigil calling for the release of Londoner Shaker Aamer, still then held in Guantanamo.
Netanyahu visit protests – Downing Street.
Over a thousand people had come to Downing Street to protest the official visit of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who they say should be arrested for war crimes in the attack on Gaza in 2014.
There were too many for the small penned area the police had allocated for the protest and many chose instead to stand in the area between the two carriageways, although police tried to clear the area.
A much smaller group who had come to support Israel were in another pen a short distnace down the road. They included supporters with a Union flag with the message UK CHRISTIANS LOVE ISRAEL.
Some of them had come with posters about other issues, including a woman holding a hand-written sign ‘THEY ARE CRUCIFYING CHRISTAINS IN IRAQ!’ But ISIS which has carried out such atrocities were encouraged by both Israel and the CIA and ISIS relies on Israeli money for the oil they smuggle out to Israel.
The pro-Israel supporters complained to police that they were not controlling the pro-Palestinian protesters, and one attempted to stop me photographing him as he did so. But I continued to photograph him.
By this time many from both sides were protesting on the pavement in front of Downing Street, and police had made a number of arrests, mainly of pro-Palestine activists. But others continued to complain to police.
Police managed to clear an area so that cars could still leave and enter Downing Street when the gates were opened, and people from both groups shouted at each other across the narrow divide. More police arrived and were able to keep this area clear.
Many protesters had remained on the far side of the road, and they were joined by anti-Zionist Neturei Karta orthodox Jews who held posters saying ‘State of “Israel” Do NOT Represent World Jewry’
Yet more police arrived and the protests continued with a great deal of noise from both sides. There were more complaints by the Zionists that a few of those at the protests were waving flags in support of the Lebanese Hezbollah. In 2008 the military wing of Hezbollah was proscribed but the parliamentary group which together with its allies had a majority in the Lebanese parliament was not – and both use the same flag.
So it was still legal to use the Hezbollah flag in 2015. But in 2019 Home Secretary Sajid Javid added Hezbollah’s political wing to the list of proscribed terrorist organisations making the flag now illegal to fly in Britain.
One of the pro-Israel protesters was holding a definitely legal Welsh flag, though I could not understand its relevance at this protest. The protest was still continuing very noisily when I left.
The Report of the Inquiry into the Use of Immigration Detention in the United Kingdom by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Refugees & the All Party Parliamentary Group on Migration was being debated in Parliament and Movement for Justice came to Parliament Square to support some of its conclusions and demand more radical action on immigration.
One of its key conclusions was that there should be a time limit of 28 days on immigration detention which is currently still indefinite. At least one person has been kept in our immigration prisons for three years (less one day) before being released, and none of those held know when or if they may be released or deported. They constantly face the risk of being forcibly deported to a country where their lives are at risk.
Some of those taking part in the protests had previously been held in detention centres for months or more, while MfJ were still calling for an end to the illegal ‘fast track’ system which is clearly designed to remove migrants and asylum seekers before they have a proper chance to prove their right to be here. They also called for a complete end to detention and immigration raids, the opening of the Calais border and an amnesty for migrants.
The report also called for “a whole-sale shift in approach, away from merely focusing on enforcement and towards quality engagement with individuals at all stages of their immigration process” which has been highly successful in other countries.
Needless to say, the Tory government failed to implement any of the changes suggested, and although Angela Rayner, now Deputy Prime Minister, was the only MP to come out and listen to the protest, there seems little chance of our Labour Government moving away from the current racist policies.
This was the first of a new series of weekly vigils opposite the Houses of Parliament calling for the release of Battersea resident Shaker Aamer, still held, abused and tortured in Guantanamo after more than 13 years despite never facing any charges and having been twice cleared for release.
Windrush & Climate – On Saturday 8th September 2018 after photographing a protest against the continuing hounding of Windrush generation migrants to the UK in Brixton I went to a Climate Change protest outside Tate Modern.
Justice for Windrush descendants – Brixton
A rally and march hosted by Movement for Justice called for the Windrush scheme to be widened to include all families and descendants of the Windrush Generation and for an end to the racist hostile environment for all immigrants.
The Windrush scandal first came to public attention in 2017 and 2018 when we heard that hundreds of migrants including those who had been urged to come and help Britain rebuild after the Second World War and who were then given the right to live and work in this country permanently where being hounded by the Home Office and some had already been deported.
Much of the information came from the work of Guardian journalist Amelia Gentleman publishing the experiences of these people. The Home Office in 2012 under Theresa May had introduced a ‘Hostile Environment’ law which required people to produce at least one official document from every year they had lived in the UK to prove they had the right to stay here.
Many were of course unable to do this, and the Home Office itself had destroyed many of the official records which would have proved their case. Many were declared to be ‘undocumented migrants’ (or as the politicians and press racistly and inaccurately labelled them, ‘illegal immigrants’.
They “began to lose their access to housing, healthcare, bank accounts and driving licenses. Many were placed in immigration detention, prevented from travelling abroad and threatened with forcible removal, while others were deported to countries they hadn’t seen since they were children.“
The government promised to correct the matter and in May 2018 the then Home Secretary Saji Javid set up a ‘Windrush Lessons Learned Review’ under Wendy Williams. When published in 2020 it showed that the Windrush scandal was the deliberate and inevitable result of Tory government policies.
Home Secretary Priti Patel then said she accepted the reports recommendations but in 2023 Suella Braverman decided to ditch three of of them. In June 2024 the High Court ruled that her actions in abandoning the promise to establish a migrants’ commssioner and to increase the powers of the independent chief examiner of borders and immigration was unlawful.
The scandal continues, and the replacement by 2025 of physical residence permits by digital e-visas for the roughly half a million non-EU immigrants with leave to remain in the UK seems almost certain to generate a similar scandal.
After a rally in Windrush Square which included Eulalee, a Jamaican grandmother who has been fighting for 17 years to stay in the UK with her Windrush generation husband, daughter and grandchildren as well as others affected by the scandal there was a march around the centre of Brixton, with several stops for short speeches in the more crowded parts.
Eulalee and Michael Groce on the march
Also on the march was Michael Groce, poet, community worker and Green Party candidate as councillor in Brixton, holds a poster ‘Yes, It’s Racist’. The 1985 Brixton riots began after police shot and seriously wounded his mother, putting her in hospital for a year. Later they paid her over £500,000 in damages without admitting any liability.
On the railway bridge across Brixton Road was the graffitied message ‘CLAPHAM THAT WAY YOU 2D FLAT WHITE TEPID COLONIALIST WANKER”, with Brixton gentrification now taking away much of the unique character of the area where many who arrived on the Empire Windrush in 1948 settled after having been initially housed in a giant wartime underground shelter on Clapham Common.
After marching around the centre of Brixton spreading their message with megaphones and posters the campaigners returned for a further rally in Windrush Square.
Climate Reality, a global and diverse group of activists, community leaders, organisers, scientists, storytellers and others united to act over global warming was supported by the UK Campaign Against Climate Change, Fossil Free UK and the Green Party in one of thousands of rallies around the world demanding urgent action by government leaders to leaders commit to a fossil free world that works for all of us.
They called for people to take personal actions to reduce their own contribution to climate change but more importantly to join together to press for action at local, national and international level.
In particular they called for the government to end its support for fracking and for local authorities to divest from fracking and fossil fuels.
No More Benefit Deaths: On Wednesday 7th September 2016, the day of the opening ceremony for the Rio Paralympics, disablement campaigners demanded human rights for all disabled people and an end to the disastrous sanctions regime which has led to many deaths.
They called on Prime Minister Theresa May, newly appointed in July 2016 to make public the findings of the UN investigation into the UK for violations of Deaf and Disabled people’s rights, to scrap the Work Capability Assessment and commit to preventing future benefit-related deaths.
The UN committee on the rights of persons with disabilities published its report in November 2016. It stated that the UK had committed “grave or systematic” violations of UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and in June 2017 the committee clarified the reasons behind their conclusions.
They stated that the breaches of the rights to independent living, work and employment and adequate standard of living under the convention were mainly caused by the policices introduced by Tory ministers at the DWP between 2010 and 2015. Some were grave violations, some systematic and others both grave and systematic.
The UN inquiry had been prompted by the research and lobbying of Disabled People Against Cuts, and the Disability News Service article included this quote from DPAC co-founder Linda Burnip who:
“pointed to actions such as cuts to social care, the impact of the work capability assessment – which has been linked by public health experts from the Universities of Liverpool and Oxford to hundreds of suicides between 2010 and 2013 – the hugely damaging introduction of personal independence payment and consequent cuts to support, the increased use of sanctions and the resulting deaths of benefit claimants, and the introduction of the bedroom tax.”
As Burnip stated, the government’s actions were “based on a deliberate intention to cause harm without any regard to the horrendous consequences for disabled people.”
The day on Wednesday 7th September 2016 began with a huge banner with the message ‘NO MORE BENEFITS DEATHS #DPAC” being displayed on the wall of the River Thames facing the riverside terrace of the Houses of Parliament.
After photographing this I hurried to Downing Street were there was a rally in on the opposite side of the street with speakers from DPAC, Winvisible, the Scottish Black Triangle Campaign and others including John Clark from the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty who shared news of similar problems facing disabled people in Canada.
Gill Thompson spoke about her brother David Clapson, a diabetic ex-soldier died after his benefit was cut as he could not afford food or electricity to keep his insulin cool was there with a banner covered with the names and some photographs of around a hundred of the many who had died because of the DWP’s sanctions, cuts and scapegoating.
The protesters then lifted up the black coffin with white wreaths they had brought and began a march towards the Houses of Parliament.
As they came to Bridge Street the marchers took the police by surprise by turning towards the bridge. The giant banner which had earlier been displayed facing Parliament was now stretched across the road, blocking the bridge in both directions.
After several minutes police began trying to get people to move off the road warning them they are committing an offence and may be arrested. I was also threatened with arrest, despite showing my Press card. One carer who refused to move away from the wheelchair user he was looking after was arrested and taken to a police van.
Most of those in wheelchairs and mobility scooters refused to move or did so only after a long series of threats by police, who eventually managed to clear one carraigeway to allow traffic to move out of Westminster. But a group remained blocking traffic in the other direction until after almost two hours Paula Peters triumphantly announced the protest was ending and everyone left.
Stop The London Arms Fair: On Wednesday 6th September 2017 I was with protesters who were blocking the two roads leading to the Excel Centre on the side of the Royal Victoria Dock in Custom House, Newham.
Every two years the DSEI, the Defence & Security Equipment International exhibition takes place at the Excel Centre. This is the world’s largest arms fair, backed by the UK government , where arms companies and arms dealers sell weapons to countries around the world including many repressive regimes. The previous show in 2015 was found to be featuring numerous weapons prohibited under international laws.
The show has been condemned by the Mayor of London, Newham Council and the people who live in this area of East London, but still goes on. It came to the Excel Centre in 2001 and there have been protests against it since then, organised by Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) and many other groups.
Wikipedia quotes London Mayor Sadiq Khan in 2019: “London is a global city, which is home to individuals who have fled conflict and suffered as a consequence of arms and weapons like those exhibited at DSEI. In order to represent Londoners’ interests, I will take any opportunity available to prevent this event from taking place at the Royal Docks in future years.” Unfortunately he has had no success, and the 2025 show is already being advertised.
CAAT point out that among those official military and security delegations coming to the show are many from human rights abusing regimes including Egypt, the UAE, Democratic Republic of Congo. Arms sales to Saudi Arabia taking a major role in the war in Yemen by UK firms have been £1.9billion since the start of 2021, and overall sales to the coalition since the start of the war in 2015 have been around £18 billion.
Again Wikipeda states that “Amnesty International has criticised the event for selling weapons of torture and for providing weapons that have been traced to attacks on civilians.” You can still see their page on the 2015 arms fair, including a video . And in 2021 they found a company at the fair offering “waist chains and cuffs with leg cuffs“.
Protests at the Excel Centre in 2017 had begun on Monday 4th September when a protest camp was set up close to the Excel Centre. I’d gone there the following day to photograph ‘No Faith In War‘, a series of events organised by various faith groups.
I had returned on Wednesday 6th September when the protest theme was ‘Arms to Renewables – No to Nuclear‘ and there was music, singing, dancing, a free ‘bring and share’ picnic and a short theatrical performance urging that instead of arms industry and huge spending on Trident and on wars we should rather provide jobs in renewable energy technologies and spend the military budget on homes, schools, health and other social benefits.
During the day their were a series of lengthy lock-ons on the roads at both East and West gates blocking access to London’s ExCeL where lorries were arriving to set up the exhibition stands for arms companies. Over the six days of protests there were more than a hundred arrests – and in 2021 the Supreme Court ruled that four of those charged had a “lawful excuse” for their actions which were were “exercising their rights to free speech and assembly (under Article 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights)”.
The Supreme Court ruled that “protestors can still have a defence to a charge of wilful obstruction of the highway, even where there is a deliberate obstruction that has a real impact on other road users.” But each case had to be judged on its merits and on whether the conviction was “a proportionate response to the defendants’ actions” which in this case it was not. It seems clear to me – if not to the judge concerned – that the draconian sentences passed recently on the M25 protesters were not proportionate, and that his refusal to allow them to explain the reasons for their taking action was unlawful.
There are details and photographs of some of the events at the 2017 protests on My London Diary, including those from my later visits on the Thursday and Saturday. All the pictures here are from Wednesday 6th September. The final event on the following Tuesday when the arms show opened was a procession organised by East London Against Arms Fairs (ELAAF) carrying a white wreath with the message ‘Remember Victims of the Arms Trade’ around the Royal Victoria Dock.
Brexit, Inclusion London & Fracking: Protests in Westminster I photographed on Monday 5th September 2016 were for and against Brexit, Disabled People Against Cuts who had been lobbying at Parliament over the Inclusion London report and a vigil by pagans against fracking.
Rival Brexit protests at Parliament
Parliament was debating a petition on the EU referendum signed by over 4 million people calling for a second referendum as there had only been a 52% vote in favour of leaving Europe, with 48% voting against. They argued that this was far too close for such a major constitutional change and at least a 60% vote should have been required for the referedum to be decisive.
Spiked magazine had organsed a protest by pro-Brexit campaigners in Old Palace Yard and they shouted loudly for Theresa May to ‘Invoke Article 50 Now!
A small group who wanted us to stay in Europe had come to Parliament Square where they held flags and banners.
Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) had come to Parliament to lobby MPs and to present the Inclusion London report which had highlighted the disastrous effects of cutting care and support funding for personal assistance by the closure of the Independent Living Fund in 2015.
After the lobby they posed on the pavement outside Parliament for photographs and then on the road opposite.
before marching to Downing St.
In front of Downing Street the march came to a halt on the roadway.
Police directed traffic around them as they held a ‘Pop-Up Street theatre‘ performance there.
There were short speeches, poetry and songs from some of the DPAC members, showcasing the creativity of disabled people and the contribution they can make to society with proper support.
Others talked about their physical and mental health problems and the difficulties that they had suffered because of the closure of the Independent Living Fund.
DPAC were supported by other groups and individuals including Winvisible.
The protest was part of a series of protests at the same time as the Rio Paralympics, and a large banner read ‘Rights Not Games’.
On the other side of Whitehall opposite Downing Street pagans were staging a 24 hour vigil against fracking.
Pagans believe that nature is sacred and find spiritual meanings in natural cycles of birth, growth and death and Druidic and other rituals are linked to the seasons. Humans, animals, trees, plants and all of the earth are part of nature, and fracking disrupts the natural order.
A banner with a tree had the message ‘Druids against Fracking – One (heart) for Mother Earth‘ while another had more esoteric symbols with the message ‘We are Nature protecting ourselves‘. One of the Druids was wearing a t-shirt with the sigil ‘The Warriors Call‘, a magic symbol widely adopted as an anti-fracking device.
Climate Rush Protest Heathrow: On 4th September 2009 I joined Climate Rush at Sipson, one of the villages immediately north of Heathrow under threat from the plans to build a third runway.
Their 3 day stay here was their first stop on a one month tour of South West England and they were staying at the Sipson ‘Airplot’, bought by Greenpeace in what was planned to be the centre of the new runway. The legal owners of the plot were now “Oscar winning actress Emma Thompson, comedian Alistair McGowan and prospective Tory parliamentary candidate Zac Goldsmith and Greenpeace UK.”
Greenpeace had invited others to sign up to become ‘beneficial owners’ of small 1 metre square plots within the site and I was among the many who did so. They had hoped this would make it harder for the developers as they thought we would all need to be served with legal notices for the development to go ahead.
I’d long been opposed to the expansion of Heathrow. It remains clear that this is an airport that was set up in the wrong place, to close to London in a fairly densely populated area and with flight paths over the centre of London. And with the increasing threat of climate change and global extinction one of the last things we should be doing is increasing the carbon emissions and pollution from aviation; instead we should be looking at ways to cut down both the number of flights and the pollution from traffic and congestion in the area surrounding the airport.
I’ve lived most of my life close to Heathrow. As I wrote on My London Diary:
“I grew up under the main flight path in use for landing a couple of miles from touchdown. Although I was a plane spotter at an early age, all of us living there felt the disruption it caused in our lives, even back in the 1950s.
My teachers often had to stop and wait in mid-sentence for a plane to go over. We could often smell the fuel, and see and feel the oily grime although I don’t think the term “pollution” had then really entered normal vocabulary.
At a deeper level, I still sometimes have nightmares about planes going over in flames (as they sometimes did) and crashes, although since Terminal 4 blocked one of the existing runways (Heathrow was built with six though only two are now used) thankfully planes no longer shake my present house as they come in low on landing or take off. “
I wrote more about this back in 2009, as well as the continuing history of lies and deceit by which the airport was established and has since grown and grown. And also about the area as it was before the airport, rich agricultural land with market gardens and orchards. Of course I didn’t know it myself but my father did and cycled through it.
In the 1950s on my own bikes I cycled through the villages which would be destroyed by a third runway, particularly Harmondsworth which has retained much of its original charm, with a village green with a pub and church and, a few yards away, one of the finest medieval tithe barns (2 pictures at bottom of this page.) There is much more to read on My London Diary.
Climate Rush had organised a procession from the Sipson Airplot, led by local residents from NoTRAG, though most were at work today – more were expected later in the day and at the ‘Celebration of Community Resistance’ at Sipson the following day. “Suffragettes (including a ‘token’ male) wearing ‘Deeds Not Words ‘ and ‘Climate Rush’ red sashes carried three banners, Justice, Equity and Truth; Equity traveled on a horse-drawn cart along with a violinist. “
The banners read: JUSTICE: Rich Countries must recognise historic responsibility for climate change. EQUITY: Emission quotas must be per capita; the rich have no more right to pollute than the poor. TRUTH: Emission caps must be set in line with the latest climate science.
The procession went down the Heathrow and along the Northern Perimeter Road beside the perimeter fence, where we were joined by a police car, which stopped traffic for us before retuning to the Airplot.
There it was time to rest, and to eat some of the apples from the side of the plot. “A couple of the suffragettes climbed a tree to pick some more, but they turned out to be cookers. The kettle had been hanging over the embers of a wood fire and a few more sticks soon brought it to the boil for tea.”
I’d come to Sipson on the bike which I had ridden through there fifty years earlier – a present on my thirteenth birthday – and had got a puncture just a few hundred yards short of my destination.
“I sat down to mend my puncture. Unfortunately I its a while since I checked the repair kit in my pannier, and having found two largish holes found I didn’t have a large enough patch to cover the two of them and the rubber solution had dried up. It was time for me to walk the six miles home.”
Brian Haw, Syria And EDL Stopped: My working day on Saturday 3rd September 2011 began in Parliament Square, then an extreme right protest in Westminster, Syrians at Downing Street and finally to Whitechapel where several thousand came to stop the EDL entering Tower Hamlets.
Brian Haw Peace Protest Continues
Three days earlier, police had come to Parliament Square and taken away all of the material in the permanent 24/7 peace protest there begun by Brian Haw in 2001 and now continued after his death in June 2001 by Barbara Tucker and other supporters.
Despite the protestation by those carrying on the protest there, the police claimed the material had been abandoned and removed it. The police have for years been under pressure from politicians to end the protest and took advantage of the fact that Barbara Tucker was then being held in Holloway Prison. But a team of others had kept up the protest while she was away and were there when the police came are were still continuing the protest.
This was not the first time that the display here has been stolen by police, the most famous being in May 2006, after which a reconstruction by an artist was controversially put on display at Tate Britain. Since 2006 there had been restrictions on the size of the display allowed there and continuous harassment and arrests of Brian Haw, Barbara Tucker and others involved.
Parliament Square had then been fenced off to the public for some time, with the public denied access to the statues of Churchill, Lloyd George and others, with protests and public limited to the pavements around two sides of the square. But the fencing was useful to display a number of banners. Police did not touch the other peace protest on the pavement by Peace Strike.
Alternative Action brought together “patriot activist groups” from the far-right who had previously taken part in EDL protests. They said they wanted to dissociate themselves from the loutish behaviour, violence and racism of EDL protests and in particular from the inflammatory incursion into Tower Hamlets the EDL were intending later in the day.
Among the groups involved were the English Nationalist Alliance, the British Patriotic Alliance, the Combined Ex Forces, the Ex EDL Association and the National League of Infidels. ‘Tommy Robinson’ had been reported as saying that the EDL would come to disrupt the peaceful march they had organised but this did not happen.
The setting up of Alternative Action reflects various bitter disputes over the leadership and policies of the EDL, in particular over the lack of accountability in the organisation and the behaviour of some of its self-appointed leaders, including Robinson and the ‘Jewish division’ of the EDL.
They had come to march from the Ministry of Justice to Downing Street to hand in a letter calling for one system of law in the UK and an end to Sharia courts. The march was peaceful although there was one minor incident when English Nationalist Alliance leader Bill Baker shouted at Syrian protesters, mistaking them for Islamic extremists, but others soon persuaded him to stop. Later some of those on the march expressed the view that it was inappropriate to allow protests involving foreign flags so close to the Cenotaph with its flags honouring our military dead.
Although well over a hundred had indicated on Facebook that they would march, only around 20 turned up. The march paused at the Cenotaph to lay a wreath and observe a minute’s silence in memory of the soldiers who have given their life for their country before continuing to the gates of Downing Street.
Although they had earlier made arrangements with the Downing St police liaison officer to deliver their letter, police at the gate refused to let them do so and would not take the letter. Other protests have had the same reception, which seems to me to be against the letter and spirit of democracy. The marchers then stopped on the pavement just past Downing Street for a rally and after a few minutes I left.
Around a hundred members of the Syrian Community in London had marched from the Syrian Embassy to hold a noisy protest at Downing St calling for freedom in Syria and an end to oppression, atrocities and humiliation by the Assad regime.
They called on the UK to support further sanctions and bring diplomatic pressure to support the peaceful protests in Syria against the Assad regime which had begun on 15th March 2011 and had met with brutal repression.
Marches has been met with tanks, cities and villages attacked by helicopter gunships, men, women and children tortured and more than 1800 people killed, including many children. Soldiers who refused to open fire on civilians or take part in torture have been themselves killed.
Many of the women taking part wore Muslim headscarves, but there were others who did not, and although most of the drumming, dancing and flag-waving was by the men, this was not a rigidly segregated event although men and women mainly stood it separate groups. The variety of Syrian flags suggested that those taking part included those from various groups opposing the Assad regime.
The protest in Tower Hamlets by residents and their supporters against the plans by the English Defence League to hold a rally somewhere in their borough had started around 11am, but I only arrived later at the time the EDL rally was scheduled to start close to Aldgate East Station.
The street there was empty but blocked by a row of police who refused to let me through despite showing my press card, and I was prevented from going to where the EDL were holding their rally a short distance to the west, just inside the City of London.
Initially the EDL had planned to march through Whitechapel but home secretary Theresa May had banned marches. The EDL then tried to have a static demonstration on a supermarket car park close to the East London Mosque, but the supermarket and other possible sites in the area refused them. Pubs in the area where they intended to meet up for the protest also said they would deny access, and the RMT announced they would close the Underground stations because of the danger to staff.
Police stopped some EDL supporters and turned them back as they tried to enter London. Others got lost wandering around London trying to find pubs that would serve them, and the numbers at the EDL rally were apparently considerably less than the organisers or police had anticipated.
I gave up trying to get to the EDL rally and went instead to the large crowds who had come to Whitechapel High Street and Brick Lane to stop them, and then on to another large crowd who had come to defend the the East London Mosque. The community had clearly united to stop the EDL and there was a huge cheer when it was announced that EDL leader Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (aka Tommy Robinson) had been arrested after speaking at the EDL rally, where he had apparently boasted of having broken his bail conditions.
There was more jubilation when the crowd heard that police were moving the EDL away from the rally at Aldgate to Liverpool street and their coaches waiting across the river in Tooley Street.
The protesters began a ‘Victory March’ from the bottom of Brick Lane along Whitechapel High St, led by the Mayor, councillors and others who linked arms across the width of the road.
It stopped at the East London Mosque, but some activists decided to continue and were briefly stopped by police who told them their march was illegal because of the ban in place in Tower Hamlets.
They walked around the police who tried to stop them but a few hundred yards on stewards and some of the protest leaders including Mayor Lutfer Rahmen managed to bring the march to a halt, telling them to enjoy their victory and not continue as arrests now would become the story of the day for the press rather than it being one of a community victory over racism. They calmed down, some took up the offer of a cup of tea back in the Muslim Centre, while others, including myself, went home.
Cleator Moor & Loweswater: I do sometimes leave London and at the beginning of September 2018 I was on holiday with a group of friends in Ennerdale at the west of the Lake District.
On Sunday 2nd September some of our party wanted to go to a morning service at the Methodist Church in Cleator Moor. It wasn’t my cup of tea but there was a spare seat in the car and I went along for the ride, and while they worshipped took a walk around the town and made some pictures.
It perhaps wasn’t the kind of weather most people would choose for making photographs, dull and with occasional light rain, but as I wrote, this “seemed to be in keeping with the mood of the place“.
Cleator Moor was once a prosperous mining town, now rather desolate and depressed. It’s a small town, with a population now of around 7,000 but was built on a rather grander scale than that might suggest. In its heyday the population would have been rather higher.
This was an important area in the early days of the industrial revolution as the local mines supplied both coal and the iron ore haematite and there was local limestone – all that was needed to make iron and steel. Cleator Moor had long produced iron but got its first coke-fired blast furnace in 1841 though output again went up considerably with improved furnaces in the 1860s. It was one of many pig iron producers in the area, particularly around Workington which became a major port.
As demand for coal and iron ore increased in the second half of the nineteenth century many migrants came to the town to work in the mines and iron works, with the population increasing in the 30 years between 1841 and 1871 from 763 to 10, 420. Over a third came from Ireland and the town became known as ‘Little Ireland’.
Most of the Irish were Catholic, but there were also Protestants from Ireland and Scotland and Cleator Moor saw a great deal of sectarian violence from the 1860s to the 1890s. Among the town’s 15 Grade II listed buildings is the Roman Catholic St Mary’s Church, designed by noted church architect Edwarde Welby Pugin and consecrated in 1872, replacing a mission church built in 1853.
In it’s heyday the town was served by two railway lines, each with its own station, though both lines were mainly used for mineral traffic. Passenger services ended around1930 though goods services continued for some years. In the early years of the 20th century the local iron ore ran out and the coal became too expensive to mine and the town began to go into decline.
It received a boost in 1938 with the coming of Kangol, founded by Jakob Henryk Spreiregen (1894 – 1982). Born in Warsaw he moved with his family to France in 1910 and coming to the UK in 1915 and serving in the Medical Corps in the war and was naturalised in 1920. The Kangol brand name came in 1930, from Knitting ANGora WooL.
Spreiregen had begun manufacturing hats in London in 1916 as well as importing basque berets from France. In 1938 seeing another war coming he realised there would be a great demand for miltary berets and leased a mill in Cleator, importing machinery from a French beret factory. Kangol opened a new factory in Cleator in 1950, then employing 110 people. Kangol diversified into crash helmets, seat belts and ladies fashion hats and enjoyed great success, but was acquire by a US company in 1972.
Kangol continued to grow but more and more production shifted abroad. They became the largest hat producer in the world and the Cleator site employing 690 people the largest hat factory in Britain. But in 1997 the factory was closed, remaining just a small distribution site until finally closing with the loss of 32 jobs there in 2009. Cleator had lost its second major industry.
As I wrote in 2018, “The town conveys a strong feeling of depression, though lifted somewhat by a number of buildings of some quality, and parts of the main street have a pleasing uniformity, with simple terraced housing, its doors opening directly on the pavement. The central square, with library, municipal offices and a couple of fine parades, as well as some interesting sculptures by Conrad Atkinson who was born in the town. One of L S Lowry’s close friends was a bank manager here, and he often came to stay, making a number of paintings, and I could see why the place interested him.”
It was still raining intermittently after lunch when we drove to Loweswater for a rather wet circular walk from Fangs Brow – rather typical of the Lake District. Though we did have some fine days during our week there.
Stoke Newington Shops: Continuing my walk on Sunday 8th October 1989 which had begun at Seven Sisters Station from where I had walked south down the High Road and the previous post, Church of the Good Shepherd, Synagogue & Stamford Hill had ended on Stamford Hill.
Star Mews, Cafe, Windus Rd, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1989 89-10d-15
I continued walking down Stamford Hill, taking a brief look down each side street, but nothing particularly attracted my attention until I reached Windus Road. Some way down this I came to the entrance to Star Mews.
The archway to Star Mews is still there between 52 and 54 Windus Road but there is no longer a cafe, the property is now residential with a small walled front garden. Star Mews is one of two mews in the street and leads to two single storey (now with roof windows) in the area behind which were presumably once stables.
The houses here are not grand, and I think these were probably built for small businesses who will have had horse-drawn carts for delivery rather than the carriages of mews in grander districts.
I went back to Stamford Hill and at the entrance to Stoke Newington Station turned into a small pedestrian side-street, Willow Cottages with this row of three shops, one of them Marshall’s School of Motoring so had to take this picture. These are still there beside the new station building, and G’s Car Service is now Ron’s Car Service. – the old station was almost invisible at street level – but this small area has altered so much I can’t be sure. The jewellers is now a hair salon and Marshalls have left the building, now occupied by Ria money transfer and a takeaway.
I crossed the busy A10 Stamford Hill and went down Manor Road opposite where there was this row of shops on the north side. These three shops are single storey buildings, at the end of the two storey buildings of Manor Parade, but seem to have been built in the same style, probably like their larger neighbours in 1906, according to an ornamental date on their gable.
The site with two large advertising hoardings at right is on the side of the railway line, here in a cutting, and there is be little level land behind these shops.
This noticeboard without notices on the top of what was until fairly recently a private hire service office, Hill Cars, is another of the pictures which I used in my web site, exhibition and self-published book ‘1989’, ISBN: 978-1-909363-01-4, still available, and this picture is from those. The first paragraph refers to the page before this one in ‘1989’.
The house here is still at 16 Manor Road and is now residential and without the clutter and signage. Andora’s builders yard is now commercial premises on the ground floor with flats above and a vehicle entrance to more in the yard behind.
L T Locking, Estate Agent, 18, Manor Rd, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1989 89-10e-65
This short row of shops was just beyond the builders yard, all at 18 Manor Road, although they seem to have been built at different times. Locking’s estate agency is in a taller and more elegant four storey tower, and the closer building at right was, according to a ghost sign under its first and second floor windows, the DEPOSITORIES of T HARRIS, though his name is not clear. This industrial warehouse is now an events and filming venue and was the birthplace of the original TV “Dragons Den” where the first season was shot in 2005.
Also now I think a filming location as ‘The House Next Door‘ (or possibly a part of The Depository’ and that is the next shop.) Earlier it had been home to the curiously named Balloon Lagon (lagon is French for lagoon), which sold odd balloons and then a property agency.
The post at left looks like a lamp post, perhaps for a gas lamp, but could also have simply held an advertising sign. Srill on the pavement it has now lost its upper half.
Back on the A10, I walked down to the end of Stamford Hill at Cazenove Road, where it becomes Stoke Newington High Street, and went briefly down Cazenove Road and photographed a couple of the shops there. I’d previously photographed Madame Lillie on a walk in July 1989 so haven’t digitised the picture I took this time, but this one of Rabinowitz, Kosher Butcher & Poulter and The Metaqphysical & Inspirational World Universal Book Shop at 2 and 4.
I returned to the main road and crossed it to the gates of Abney Park Cemetery where the next post on this walk will begin.
