September, 2025 | >Re-PHOTO

Climate Rush in Hayes & Sipson – 2009

Climate Rush in Hayes & Sipson: On Saturday 5th September 2009 I went to Hayes to join a small group of Climate Rushers at a service at the start of a walk by the London Churches Environmental Network. We joined the marchers for the first part of their walk to the Sipson Airplot, set up to oppose plans for a third runway at Heathrow, rushing back there to prepare for the Celebration of Community Resistance which took place in the afternoon.

Climate Rush on the Run – Hayes & Sipson

On My London Diary you can read more about the Climate Rush, a group of women who had come together to celebrate the centenary of the 1908 ‘Suffragette Rush‘. In 1908 more than 40 women were arrested in an attempt to rush into the Houses of Parliament, and on 13 Oct, 2008, at the end of a rally in Parliament Square Climate Rush again tried to rush in.

Their protest in 2008 called for “men and women alike” to stand together and support three key demands:

* No airport expansion.
* No new coal-fired power stations.
* The creation of policy in line with the most recent climate science and research.

Since then Climate Rush had organised and taken part in various other climate protests and in September 2009 were taking part in “a rollicking tour of South West England“, staging events, supporting campaigns and “entertaining the towns, villages and hamlets” on their route with “16 Climate Suffragettes, 3 horses and 2 glorious caravans“. The Airplot at Sipson was their starting point and I’d photographed their procession to Heathrow the previous day, and later photographed them at a Green Fayre in Aylesbury.

After a service at St Anselm’s Church, Hayes attended by several Climate Rushers we set off with the the London Churches Environmental Network to walk back to Sipson. We left the marchers at Cranford Park to take a shorter route to get back to the Airplot to prepare for the Celebration of Community Resistance taking place there in the afternoon.

Much more on My London Diary at Climate Rush On the Run!

Climate Rush: Celebration of Community Resistance – Sipson

Greenpeace had the idea of setting up the Airplot, an orchard in the centre of the village of Sipson, one of those under threat from Heathrow’s plans for expansion. They bought the site and created one metre square plots of land there and invited the public to become “beneficial owners“, I think paying one pound for the privilege and receiving a certificate of ownership. Somewhere I may still have mine, but here is one on Wikimedia.

It had seemed a good idea which would make the development more complex, though I suspect would have had little or no effect in practice, but it was never put to the test as plans for the third runway were scrapped by the government in 2010 on environmental grounds – though they have since been revived.

The Airplot was the first stop on the Climate Rush tour and for the Celebration of Community Resistance they had invited activists from around the country to come and give short presentations on their campaigns.

The first example of community resistance we heard about was Radley Lakes at Didcot which npower wanted to fill in with pulverised fuel ash. Although some lakes had been filled, the campaign managed to save three of them. You can see more about them on the Radley Lakes Trust web site.

Next we heard about the scandal of opencast mining at Ffos-y-Fran, common land at Merthyr Tydfil. I photographed a Campaign Against Climate Change demonstration against this mine at the London offices of Argent Group plc in April 2008.

“Argent form half of Miller-Argent who run the UK’s largest opencast coal mine, Ffos-y-Fran in Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales. Just 36 metres from the nearest houses, extraction will continue for more than 15 years (perhaps as along as 40 years), producing coal that will add at least 30 million tons of CO2 to to our atmosphere. Scottish safety standards demand a minimum gap of 500 metres from housing, but the implementation of a 350 metres limit by the Welsh office has been delayed – allegedly to allow the Merthyr working to go ahead.”

Coal mining continued here until November 2023, and local residents say that the plans for the future of the site represent the “ultimate betrayal“.

Protesters had come earlier in the year from County Mayo in Ireland for a St Patrick’s Day protest at the Shell building against the Corrib Gas Project. We heard how the Rossport Solidarity Camp and the Shell to Sea campaign were fighting this against a corrupt government and thugs who protect the oil companies interest by illegal methods. While the protests failed to stop the project, the environmental groups involved continue to highlight related issues.

Cathy McCormack, a community activist in Glasgow Easterhouse was unable to attend but a colleague came to read her views on poverty and the financial crisis, and in particular the part played by the World Bank and the IMF.

Next we heard from two former Vestas workers who sat in their factory in Newport on the Isle of White when the company proposed the closure of what was then the UK’s only major wind turbine production site. Unfortunately they failed to prevent the closure.

The last group to talk were the No Third Runway Action Group (NoTRAG), and Geraldine described how they had opposed the BAA plans for airport expansion.

In the audience watching the presentation were local MP John McDonnell and airport campaigner John Stewart of HACAN. The campaigners won that round against Heathrow’s plans – and we celebrated in 2010, but today there are new plans – and a government which only plays lip-service to the coming environmental diaster seems sure to back either Heathrow’s own proposals or that from the Arora group, and the fight is on again.

Many more pictures on My London Diary at Celebration of Community Resistance.

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The Iraq War Fat Cat Tour – 2004

The Iraq War Fat Cat Tour: On Saturday 4th September 2004 I met campaigners from organisations including Voices in the Wilderness UK, a group opposed to the sanctions on Iraq and the war in Iraq, which between March 1996 and May 2003 had sent over 70 sanction-breaking delegations to Iraq.

I had photographed many of the protests leading up to the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003 – and there are pictures and accounts from some of these on My London Diary, and of the protests after the invasion, particularly when it became clear that Tony Blair had deliberately misled Parliament and the facts about the “dodgy dossier” became clear. Many called for Blair to be indicted as a war criminal.

Despite the huge protests and determined opposition of a huge proportion of the British people to the war, we failed to stop our army supporting the US, and many thought the protest movement had deliberately failed to press home its position – as Tony Benn and others had urged – thanks to the domination of its leadership by members of the SWP. Let’s hope that “Your Party” does not get sunk by the same hands – or by the efforts of those close advisers to Jeremy Corbyn when he was Labour leader.

If anyone needs reminding about what happened in Iraq you can see a brief time-line “What happened when Iraq was invaded 20 years ago?” on Al Jazeera.

I only wrote a short piece about the protest back in 2004, now rather hard to find on that web site, so here it is, with a few of the pictures from it in this post and there are more here on My London Diary.

After the initial military victory in Iraq, the American government were determined that their friends would profit from the situation. Lucrative contracts went largely to US companies that just happened to have friends and beneficiaries in the top level in the USA. Capitalism is always a winner from wars, with arms suppliers laughing all the way to the bank, but this extended the gravy train rather more widely and rather too obviously. Bush’s cronies sell the arms that knock the infrastructure to pieces, then get high margin contracts to rebuild.

The Iraq War Fat Cat Tour of London aimed to visit some key sites to point out the profiteering from the occupation of Iraq. it started at the Shell Centre (Western oil companies look set to make $2.5 trillion from Iraqi oil over the next 50 years), then made its way across the new Hungerford Bridge to the Cavell statue at the north east of Trafalgar Square (where I left it) and continuing to some other key sites.

*More street theatre in front of the Cavell memorial*

There was singing from the Strawberry Theives Socialist Choir (the name a reference to a William Morris wallpaper design), who thoughtfully provided the words for the Internationale in case any of us had momentarily forgotten them, (Arise! ye starvelings from your slumbers, Arise! ye criminals of want… ), samba playing from Rhythms Of Resistance, and a couple of street theatre groups.

A few more pictures

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Isle of Dogs and Poor Doors – 2014

Isle of Dogs and Poor Doors: On Wednesday 3rd September 2014 the weather was fine with blue skies and clouds and I decided to spend the afternoon photographing in the Isle of Dogs before meeting with Class War for one of their ongoing series of protests against separate entrances for the wealthy and social housing residents of a tower block in Aldgate.

Isle of Dogs Panoramas – Island Gardens to South Quay

The main purpose of my visit to the Isle of Dogs was to make panoramas of scenes which I had photographed more conventionally over the years, including the black and white images that I included in my book ‘City to Blackwall‘ and more of them are now in my albums on Flickr.

I had gone back so make some panoramas in the area in the 1990s and early 2000s, using various panoramic film cameras, but the switch to digital had made creating panoramic images much simpler for me.

Perhaps the most important change was in accurate viewfinding – with my first panoramic film camera the most accurate way to see the extent of my pictures was by viewing along two arrows on the top of the body – much more reliable than its viewfinder. But of course digital also gave a wider range of shutter speeds and ISO.

And to do this, the camera needed to be firmly mounted on a tripod – and I carried a rather heavy Manfrotto around with me. This also enabled me – with the aid of a spirit level – to ensure that the camera was level. The Nikon I used for these panoramas had level indicators in the viewfinder and was easy to use handheld.

However to make these on digital I needed to use a fisheye lens – the 16mm Nikon fisheye. Not the kind that gives a circular image, but a full-frame fisheye where the image circle goes through the corners of the frame. This gives a 180 degree image across the frame diagonal, but rather less horizontally and vertical, with considerable curvature of straight lines.

Software – I then used PTGUi for these – than comes to the rescue, converting the spherical perspective into a cylindrical one which rendered verticals upright (there are several ways this can be done with slightly different results.) Later I moved to simpler software.

With the 36Mp Nikon D800E there were far more pixels than necessary even after this stretching and this was no longer a problem. I could work with single exposures rather than stitching together several images as I had done earlier with digital cameras.

Many more pictures at Isle of Dogs Panoramas.

Isle of Dogs – Wideangle Images

Although I had mainly gone to make panoramas I also took a Nikon D700 body and made pictures with a 16-35mm Nikon zoom. Not everything is best suited by the panoramic treatment.

Again there are many more pictures at Isle of Dogs.

Class War ‘Poor Doors’ picket Week 6 – Aldgate

*A police officer watches as people walk down the alley leading to the ‘poor door’ of the luxury development*

Class War and friends held their sixth weekly protest outside 1 Commercial St in Aldgate and it was a relatively uneventful one.

As the protesters arrived, two police officers came out from the building and talked with the protesters making clear that they expected the protesters not to block the doorway for people entering or leaving the building. More officers soon arrived to police the event.

There were a few heated arguments between protesters and police but nothing of any consequence. The protesters held their banner well in front of the door.

They talked and handed out leaflets to people leaving and entering the ‘rich door’ as well as to people walking past – and to at least one cyclist stopped at the traffic lights.

After keeping up the picket for an hour as intended, Class War packed up and left – until the next week.

More pictures – Class War ‘Poor Doors’ picket Week 6.

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Kingston Carnival 2007

Kingston Carnival: On Sunday 2 September 2007 I went to Kingston to photograph the carnival.

Kingston is a town I’ve visited fairly often over the years, though mainly just going through it or changing buses to meet friends or go to meetings elsewhere, but I’ve never really got to know. Its an ancient town, where Saxon Kings were crowned and the street layout in its central pedestrianised areas still follows much of its complex medieval pattern. It includes several pubs worth a visit.

Kingston (officially Kingston-upon-Thames) also has a fine museum where I was pleased to be a part of a show, Another London, in January 2007 along with Mike Seaborne and Paul Baldesare – which you can still see online. Among my 26 pictures which featured in it were three made in Kingston including two from the 2006 Kingston Carnival, as well as two from adjoining Surbiton.

The museum also has a permanent exhibition of Kingston’s most famous son, photographer Eadweard Muybridge, (1830-1904) best known for his pioneering studies of animal movement beginning with pictures of the racehorse Occident owned by the former governor of California, Leland Stanford made in 1878 using a line of 12 cameras triggered by strings the horse ran through.

His work had been interrupted earlier in 1875 when he was on trial for murder after having shot his wife’s lover. His lawyer pleaded insanity presenting evidence that he had bouts of unstable behaviour caused by a severe head injury in a stagecoach accident in 1860 and the jury acquitted him recording a verdict of justifiable homicide.

The centenary of Muybridge’s death in 2004 was celebrated in Kingston including by my late friend photographer Terry King whose re-enactment of Muybridge’s work using twelve 10×8 cameras at Ham Polo Club. Modern ponies apparently refuse to run through strings thinking they are an electric fence and a different method had to be found to trigger the special shutters attached to the cameras.

Kingston’s 25th Carnival takes place on Sunday 7th September 2025, and I might just go along again, though I don’t think I’ve been to it since 2007.

I didn’t write a great deal about it in 2007, but here it is:

“This year’s Kingston Carnival was a much more exciting event than last year’s but there was still a large rent-a-carnival aspect to it. Kingston is an ethnically rich borough, and although there was plenty of home-grown talent on display, particularly in the performances by youth from the borough, the procession was still dominated by out of town talent.

“It’s great to encourage diversity, but I think a borough carnival has a duty to promote its local expression rather more, even if it might mean – at least until it built up more – a rather less flashy display.

“Of course it was good to see a greater diversity among the ‘foreign’ talent that paraded past the rather dazed looking shoppers along Kingston’s pedestrian streets, including even some clog dancers from Croydon, along with Caribbean groups.

“Beeraahaar Sweet Combination, based in Stamford Hill enlivened the main parade, and the elaborate larger costumes from Paddington Arts arrived later to play their part.”

Many more pictures start here on My London Diary.

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The Battle of Walthamstow – 2012

The Battle of Walthamstow: On Saturday 1st of September the extreme right English Defence League attempted to march into Walthamstow and hold a rally outside the Waltham Forest Civic Centre on Forest Road. Several thousand people from all of Walthamstow’s communities came together as ‘We are Waltham Forest’ determined to oppose them.

From a long rally in Walthamstow’s main square with speeches by many community leaders and performances by local drummers and singers, the people of Walthamstow marched to Forest Road, arriving an hour or so before the EDL march was due.

As they made their way along Hoe Street there was no doubt of their wide support from the community, with people coming out from virtually every shop and building, many waving and cheering in support.

When the march reached Forest Road many of the marchers sat down on the road at the key junction on the EDL march route. I left them there and walked back towards where the EDL march was to start.

When I saw the EDL march coming towards me, it looked more like a police march as the EDL were probably surrounded by more officers than there were supporters on the march. None of the main EDL leaders was on the march as they had gone separately to where they intended to hold a rally and were setting up the PA system.

It was hard to get a clear view of the marchers through the lines of police around them, and I only had a short telephoto when a much longer lens would have been useful.

But I managed to take some pictures of the marchers and many of them saw me and shouted abuse or made offensive gestures. Others tried to hold up hands in front of their faces – in one case making a woman look as if she was giving a Nazi salute. One man even rushed through a gap between police officers and put his hand over my lens before police dragged him back into the march. Although they got in my way I was rather glad the police were there.

A few people had come out onto the side of the streets to watch the marchers. Most did so in silence, but some held posters against the marchers or shouted at them. I saw only one supporter, an elderly man who came out of his house to greet them and was greeted with cheers from the marchers. As I commented, “Clearly here the silent majority they claim to represent was overwhelmingly against them.”

As the crucial road junction was blocked, police diverted the march down a side road shortly before it. Some of the EDL were angry at leaving the route and wanted to get at those blocking the road and there were some minor scuffles between the EDL stewards and police.

I went to the junction where the EDL march was led across the Chingford Rd and joined other photographers who were photographing the march and residents who had come to oppose them. Here EDL stewards dragged back marchers who tried to attack us and police and managed to keep their march more or less in order.

Police halted the march in Farnan Avenue at the side of the Civic Centre, but it was now clearly impossible for them to continue to the planned rally location because of the mass of protesters opposed to the EDL who were mainly held by police behind barriers on the opposite side of the road.

I went to where Tommy Robinson and Kevin Carroll had come with a few others to set up for the rally and took a few pictures before I was stopped by an EDL steward who insisted I was a Unite Against Fascism photographer and called over a police officer. I showed the officer my press card, but he still insisted I leave the area. I unhitched a barrier and went across to the other side of the road.

*Facing them were hundreds of people from Waltham Forest with the message ‘EDL not welcome’*

‘We Are Waltham Forest’ organisers had asked that the protest remain a peaceful one, but some had other ideas and a few sticks and other objects were begining to be thrown towards the EDL. A small brick landed a few yards from Robinson, and was picked up by him and handed to a police officer as evidence.

I moved to one side to avoid being hit as more objects began to be thrown – unlike many other photographers I wear no protective headgear. The situation appeared to be a stalemate, and although many of the counter-protesters had left it seemed unlikely that the EDL rally would be possible. When I left the EDL marchers were still surrounded by police in the side road.

Police later told the EDL that the rally could not go ahead, and the EDL leaders left. Police then kept the marchers surrounded for several hours for their own protection and after RMT members told police they would not allow hooligans to endanger the public by boarding trains, police decide to arrest them all and take them in vans to various police stations. They were apparently de-arrested and released in the early hours of Sunday morning.

This defeat was important in the demise of the EDL and you can see many more pictures at Waltham Forest Defeats the EDL.

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