I’m not keen on weddings, and since I didn’t get an invite to the one that filled our newspapers, TV and radio for most of last week I didn’t go. Like more than half of the UK population I didn’t watch it either, but it was something even the most dedicated anti-monarchist couldn’t entirely fail to notice.
I got a phone call a few days before to enquire and discuss what I was going to cover, and I listed a couple of events related to it. What I thought would be the more interesting of these didn’t happen because on the day before, police called at the home of those organising it and arrested them on an obviously fake charge, holding them in custody until the whole thing was safely over.
Although I wasn’t there to photograph the arrests, I was able to watch a video later in the day, and it seemed pretty clear from what little the police said and did that they were under orders to prevent any possible embarrassment to royalty competing with the wedding in the media. Even if doing so meant breaking the law – or rather inventing a new one – and having to pay compensation for wrongful arrest later. We live in a country where there is clearly one law for the monarchy and another for the rest of us.
I’m not a Royal Wedding Mug
Instead I went to photograph the street party organised by the Republic organisation. I’m not really a republican, though I do believe that had this country ever had any half-decent socialist government it would have nationalised the crown and land without compensation, returning the estates they and others over the past ten centuries have stolen from the people, and we would have a royal family who ride bicycles and live modest comfort while drawing an average wage for their not particularly onerous duties. It really was a tragedy in the history of our nation that Cromwell and his supporters were not more reasonable people rather than religious fanatics.
But it turned out to be a rather dull event, in part because the organisers were so keen to keep politics out of what seems essentially a political event. See more at Republic: Not the Royal Wedding Party
I’d actually taken some wedding pictures the day before, on my way to photograph a protest against the government’s intentions to end most workplace health and safety checks. It is just so inconvenient for employers to have to worry about things like workers breathing in asbestos dust or having cranes fall down on top of them.
Employment minister Chris Grayling looks a little harassed
While the Prospect union representative for Londons HSE inspectors, Simon Hester was telling the protest about the dangerous conditions he had found the previous Friday in one of the site inspections that are being abandoned to save money, his boss, employment minister Chris Grayling came out of the office and there was a short argument between them, with Tony O’Brien of the Construction Safety Campaign joining in, which ended with Grayling running off down the road.
More at International Workers Memorial Day.
The offices are just around the corner from Westminster Abbey, so I walked past the people camping out on the street there to catch a glimpse of the royal couple, and I did stop to take a few pictures.
It should have been me!
And I also made a point of going to see the protesters in Trafalgar Square, still there despite the promises of our leading politicians to get rid of them for the wedding. Brian Haw has been in hospital in Germany for some months, but his colleague Barbara Tucker was there and we had a long talk.
Barbara Tucker
A little way along the pavement, Maria Gallastegui was on top of one of her boxes dressed in orange Gitmo jump suit and a black hood; I’d talked to her a few days ago and she told me then that she had agreed to cover up her display for the royal event. More pictures at Parliament Square Protests Continue.
On the day itself there were no buses in the central area of London, and I walked through the streets with another photographer on my way back to the station, looking for signs of celebration. We did find a few people on the streets, but most were still around the actual route back from the Abbey to the Palace or watching the large screens in Trafalgar Square. And after having seen the rather pathetic flypast as I was walking towards Charing Cross, I looked up and saw the royals just leaving the balcony on those screens, as you can see in the final image in Royal Wedding in Soho.
