Four years ago I photographed the Olympic torch relay as it made its way through Brixton.
At the time I described it as a rather sad non-event, which seemed to lack the kind of real community involvement that might have made it worthwhile. Unfortunately the whole Olympic movement has become so tied up with the commercial exploitation of sport that it is now impossible to see much evidence of the original ideals that led to its foundation.
It was an organised but low-key event, with little apparent security and I was able to stand only a couple of feet from Frank Bruno and as Davina McCall as they carried the torch, which had arrived by taxi and was accompanied by dancers as it made its way along the high street.
This is Davina and not Frank
Sunday was in contrast a giant security operation, with crowds of police, and a rather sinister phalanx of Chinese security men. I’d chosen the Bloomsbury leg as the torch was to have been carried there by the Chinese ambassador, but these ‘secret’ plans were altered at the last minute (she carried it instead in Chinatown) apparently as police decided it would be too dangerous. Instead the torch was smuggled through hidden inside a vehicle, with no sign of it visible to the waiting crowds. About all we got to see – apart from a huge security operation were some very silly looking dancing girls.
There were probably around a thousand demonstrators for human rights in Tibet on and around Great Russell Street, mainly penned behind barriers in Bedford Place, roughly ten yards back from the road. Probably about the same number of Chinese with pro-Olympic banners and flags were allowed to remain behind banners along the route. This seemed to me to be a very debatable taking of a particular side by the police.
Police hold Free Tibet protesters outside the British Museum
Similarly when the motorcade had passed, the police attempted to detain the Tibet supporters, while allowing others to disperse freely. The crowd pushed through a double line of police close to the Montague Street junction but were held for some minutes further down the road before eventually being allowed to disperse down Coptic Street. Presumably this was a delaying tactic to stop them catching up with the Chinese ambassador in Chinatown.
By this time I’d decided it was probably too late – given the traffic disruption caused by the event and the likely crowds – to get to a worthwhile position in Whitehall (a BBC reporter who had been in Bloomsbury and hurried there had to rely on a man standing on a wall to tell her what was happening less practical but not entirely unknown for a photographer, and at least one of Henri Cartier-Bressons well-known pictures from India was taken by a man up a pole he handed his Leica. But I did walk down to see the crowds in Trafalgar Square, arriving just minutes after the relay had left. The square was still full of people, with crowds of Chinese arguing heatedly (if seldom very cogently) with mainly British human rights demonstrators, and the police in general seemed to be doing a decent job of preventing actual conflict, warning those who became overheated or abusive.
Police try and cool down the argument
After a short while they decided to clear the square, and I got on a bus to go the Tibetan Freedom Torch Relay in Argyle Square. More pictures from the London Olympic Torch Relay on My London Diary as usual.