>Re:PHOTO Peter Marshall - Thoughts on Photography

DPAC Trash The Tories – Maidenhead

DPAC Trash The Tories – Maidenhead
Back when the Tories got back into power with the support of the Lib Dems in the UK 2010 General Election they decided to launch a policy of austerity, making deep cuts in the services and benefits that enabled the less wealthy in the country to get by and lead decent lives.

The cuts they proceeded to make had relatively little effect on those in the better-paid jobs many of whom didn’t need or had opted out of public services such as the NHS and state education and didn’t live in public housing or working class areas. But in any case the Tories made sure these people were protected with increasing real salaries as inequality increased. The Office of National Statistics reported in 2020 “The gap between the richest in society and the rest of the population has widened over the 10-year period; the income share of the richest 1% increased from 7% to 8.2% between FYE 2011 and FYE 2020.”

In particular, the government continued to bail out the bankers, despite it being the bankers who had precipitated the 2008 financial crisis – and in the longer term had been responsible for creating instability by creating and exploiting huge loopholes in the world financial system established after the war. It was of course British banks and the City of London which played the leading role in this, making London the money-laundering capital of the world with former colonies at the centre of offshoring and enabling after the break-up of the Soviet Union Russians to legalise their illegal plunder and become oligarchs, with a huge influence in the Conservative Party.

But the Tories came in determined to cut benefits and in particular looked at the amounts going to support disabled people and enable them to live in the community. They thought wrongly that disabled people would be an easy target because of their various disabilities. They were wrong on two counts. Firstly because many disabled people had experience of having to fight for their rights and secondly because they greatly underestimated the wide support for them among the general population. Tories may not have a heart (and certainly many Tories have demonstrated this in recent years) but the general public do.

At the centre of the protests by disabled people is DPAC, Disabled People Against Cuts, formed by disabled people after the mass protests against cuts in Birmingham in October 2010 had been led by disabled people. On its web site it proclaims “DPAC is for everyone who believes that disabled people should have full human rights and equality. It is for everyone that refuses to accept that any country can destroy the lives of people just because they are or become disabled or have chronic health issues. It is for everyone against government austerity measures which target the poor while leaving the wealthy unscathed. It is for everyone who refuses to stay silent about the injustices delivered by wealthy politicians on ordinary people and their lives.”

On Saturday 3rd June 2017, five days before the General Election called by Theresa May, I joined DPAC for a protest in her constituency of Maidenhead. Her government was the first in the world the UN had found guilty of grave and systematic violations of disabled people’s human rights. Tory cuts since 2010 had 9 times the impact on disabled people as on any other group, 19 times more for those with the highest support needs. DPAC call the policies heartless and say they are starving, isolating and ultimately killing the disabled who the Tories regard them as unproductive members of society. Though it was the cuts, particularly the axing of the Independent Living Fund, ILF, which had stopped many making a real contribution.

It was a fairly small group that arrived at Maidenhead station for the protest. Travel by rail is often very difficult for disabled people. Few stations have step-free access and there are often large gaps between train and platform. Rail companies do make an effort to provide support but this needs to be booked in advance and is sometimes unreliable. And rail fares are an expensive luxury for people on benefits – who may also need a taxi to get to the station.

They paraded a straw effigy of ‘Theresa May – Weak and Wobbly‘ and a hatchet with the message ‘Cuts Kill‘ to the High St for a rally, with speeches, loud chanting and handing out fliers calling on Maidenhead voters to vote for anyone but Theresa May before returning to the station.

Most other photographers thought the protest was ended and some had rushed to get the train back to London, and the police had largely gone away, but I knew DPAC from previous events and stayed with them, taking photographs as they moved to block one of the busiest road junctions in the town for around 15 minutes as police tried to persuade them to move.

Eventually they did get off the road, just in time for me to catch a bus to start my journey home. I was sorry to have to rush away, but the next bus wasn’t for a couple of hours. I changed buses in Windsor and got off in Staines, walked along the road and put my hand in my pocket for my phone and it wasn’t there. At home I went to ‘Google Find My Device‘ and saw on the map it was still travelling on the bus all the way to Slough, where fortunately the driver found it and handed it in to the office and I was able to cycle there and collect it the following Monday.

More on the protest at DPAC Trash The Tories in Maidenhead.

Democracy, Black Cabs, Murad & Zionists

Democracy, Black Cabs, Murad & Zionists – My agenda for Wednesday 2nd June 2010 was a busy one, with protests about democracy in Parliament Square, London’s Black Taxis at Aldwych, a picket at BP’s St James’s Square HQ, trade unionists protesting at the Turkish Embassy and Zionists supporting the Israeli attack and killings on the Gaza aid flotilla.

Democracy Village Protest – Parliament Square

People had been camping in the Democracy Village in Parliament Square for just over a month and a few of them had come across the road with banners to protest. They held up banners, including a large one saying ‘We Respect The Soldiers We Do Not Support The War‘ and another ‘We Demand Peace In Afghanistan and No More War‘ and several made speeches with a megaphone. Another very artistically written notice on a large square of cloth on the pavement read ‘With Each Conscious Breath May You Know How Loved You Are in All Ways. You Are Divine. Let Your Light Shine’.

Democracy Village Protest

Brian Haw – Summons Marks 9 Years in Parliament Square

I went back to the other side of the road to talk with Brian Haw and Barbara Tucker who I had come to visit on the 9th anniversary of the start of Brian’s protest vigil opposite the Houses of Parliament in Parliament Square. A week ago they had been arrested and held for 30 hours on the day of the state opening of Parliament before the court released them on bail.

The arrest had come after Brian objected to police searching his tent in the early morning without a warrant – the 13th or 14th illegal search they have made, all part of a continual campaign of harassment. As we were talking we became aware of three police a few yards away standing and watching us. They then came over and served Barbara Ticker with a summons for using a megaphone in Parliament Square.

Brian and Barbara asked why she was being singled out for attention as there were at that time others In the Democracy Village actually using a megaphone and she was not at the time doing so. The officers made no attempt to answer this question.

BrianHaw – Summons Marks 9 Years

Black Cabs Protest – Aldwych

I don’t use taxis in London – or at least very seldom. I can only remember two occasions in the last thirty or so years, both when others insisted I go with them. It’s a wasteful, outdated and overpriced system which is responsible for much of the congestion in London, both by cabs carrying only small numbers of people compared to other public transport and also by ‘cruising for hire’ with no passengers on board.

My account on My London Diary gives some of their grievances, some of which I have some sympathy with, and I agree the police should be enforcing the law (rather than harassing protesters) but the whole system needs to be updated, taking into account the general availability of smart-phones and improvements in satellite navigation systems which increasingly make the ‘knowledge’ redundant and can provide real-time congestion information.

I didn’t find it an easy protest to photograph, which I think shows in the results. Lots of taxis are frankly rather boring, and not that unusual in London, where I commented that “While standing at a bus stop a couple of weeks ago I counted over 30 empty taxis going past before my bus arrived, and I couldn’t help but think we could have a better public transport system without taxis.”

Black Cabs Protest

BP Picket for Colombian Oil Workers – St James’s Square

BP have a long-running dispute with the workers on the Cusiana oilfield in the Casanare department of Colombia, and its one where they are playing dirty, with union members accusing BP of carrying out a campaign of misinformation about what is happening in the plant, and in particular of falsely claiming the support of government officials for their lies about the action.

More or less as this picket was taking place, armed commandos from the Colombian army leapt over a security grid at the plant and attacked the workers who were carrying out a peaceful occupation of the Cusiana CPF (Central Processing Facility) in Tauramena.

Previously BP had come to an out of court settlement on a UK High Court challenge over the pipeline from this oilfield to the coast, when farmers alleged that BP benefited from the actions of Colombian paramilitary forces who harassed and intimidated them in their protection of the pipeline. During the preparation of the case, of the lawyers for the farmers discovered she was on a death list and fled the country; she was granted political asylum in the UK.

The protest was organised by the Colombia Solidarity Campaign and was supported by the ICEM, the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Worker’s Unions, based in Switzerland which represents more than 20 million workers around the world, uniting trade unions in its sector around the world.

BP Picket for Colombian Oil Workers

Protest for Murad Akincilar Turkish Embassy, Belgrave Square

Trade unionist Murad Akincilar was arrested on a spurious charge of belonging to a terrorist organisation while on an extended holiday in Turkey last September and was in prison in Istanbul. His treatment in prison has resulted in serious eye damage and partial blindness. He was known personally to some of the protesters as he studied for a Masters Degree at the LSE, but since 2001 he has lived in Switzerland and worked for Swiss trade union Unia which was leading the campaign for his release.

The protest opposite the Turkish Embassy was organised by Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! and Gik-der, an organisation founded in north London in 1991 by migrants fleeing political and racial persecution in their home countries of Turkey and Kurdistan.

Protest for Murad Akincilar

Zionist Federation Support Israeli Atrocity – Israeli Embassy, Kensington

The Zionist Federation together with members of the English Defence League demonstrated opposite the Israeli embassy in support of the Israeli Defence Force killings in the attack on the Gaza aid flotilla.

A smaller group of pro-Palestinian protesters had come to oppose them, although both the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and the Stop the War Coalition had decided not to support the counter-demonstration to avoid conflict.

Although official Zionist sources had expressed some regret at the violence and loss of life, the mood of the supporters here appeared to be one of a gloating triumphalism that seemed entirely inappropriate to the situation. I was “sickened when at one point a large group of the demonstrators began chanting ‘dead Palestinian scum’ ” and appalled to find this was “a demonstration jointly with the Zionist Federation and the English Defence League, some of whose members many of us have seen and heard chanting racist slogans on our streets. It seems unbelievable that a Jewish organisation should align itself – even if unofficially – with people like this.”

Attempts to justify the summary execution of one of the victims by shots to the head at close range by the existence of so-called weapons on the ships seemed insulting – almost all those shown in the photographs are “exactly the kind of tools that would be expected to be found on any ship in its galley and for general maintenance, as well as items being taken for building work in Gaza. The possible exceptions are a few canisters of pepper spray, some catapults and what looks like some kind of ceremonial knife.”

I’m very much in favour of peace in Palestine and Israel, but like many I feel “the actions of the state of Israel in their attacks on Gaza, their disruption of everyday life for the Palestinians and the blockade is making the possibility of peace much more distant… Like other conflicts, resolution depends on winning hearts and minds and this can’t be done with tanks and bulldozers.”

Police had to step in at the end of the protest when four press photographers were surrounded and chased by a an angry group of threatening Zionist demonstrators but all I suffered were a few threats and hostile gestures.

Zionist Federation Support Israeli Atrocity

More from Deptford 1988

More from Deptford 1988 continues my walk around New Cross and Deptford. The previous post was Deptford Broadway And New Cross Road.

Deptford High St, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10g-51-Edit_2400 — *Deptford High St, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10g-51*

13 Deptford High Street is distinguished by the impressive pillars of its entrance and a fine rounded frontage. Whoever it was built for was obviously wealthy and perhaps a shipowner or merchant for goods landed locally either on Deptford Creek or on the Thames, perhaps tea from China. Tea was taxed heavily – 119% – until 1784 and this led to considerable smuggling but parliament reduced to tax then to 12.5% making tea available to a wider range of the population and ending the illegality. Though the East India Company retained its monopoly until 1834.

The house, built on what was then Butt Lane is locally listed is thought to have been built in the early 18th century but its rounded front was probably added around a hundred or so years later.

Deptford High St, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10g-52-Edit_2400 — *Deptford High St, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10g-52*

The ‘A One CAFE’ at 18 Deptford High St looked as if it was no longer in business, though its door still is decorated with ice-cream cones. The doorway leading to the upper residential floors has the message ‘Gays Rule’ and is I think boarded up. This building is still there, its ground floor now a Vets, its brickwork plastered over and generally looking in rather better repair.

Unfortunately this picture is slightly out of focus (though the grain is sharp) and I cannot make out some of the finer detail of the building.

Deptford High St, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10g-56-Edit_2400 — *Deptford High St, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10g-56*

I took only a couple of pictures as I walked up Deptford High Street to its north end and its junction with Evelyn Road/Creek Road, which still looks much the same as in my picture except that all the shops have changed hands at least once.

No 227 was in very poor condition and there was considerable building work there a few years ago but the general appearance is much the same, though it has long lost the shopfront and signage. This Grade II listed house, shop and bakehouse was built in 1791 for Thomas Palmer and improved in the early 19th century, although the ‘RCHME DEPTFORD HOUSES: 1650 to 1800’ survey in 1997-8 suggested it was “perhaps a single late-17th-century house with the front house added c. 1700, extensively rebuilt 1791-2” and says it “has its origins in the period 1654-1692 during which John Evelyn developed a corner of his Sayes Court estate corresponding to Nos 217-227 with a block of nine buildings set back from the road.” It does go on to say the house “was all but wholly rebuilt for Palmer in 1791-2” and remained a bakers until the 1990s.

The Tideway Clothing Stores is now an off-licence and supermart. The Courage Pub at right was torn down illegally without permission in 2019; it had been there at least since the 1820’s and though it looks as if it was still open, closed as a pub around the time I made this picture. The building became offices for a firm of solicitors, and the ground floor was used for art classes. The Deptford Dame published a report of the proposals for its reconstruction in 2021.

Panda, Car Hire, Watergate St, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10g-41-Edit_2400 — *Panda, Car Hire, Watergate St, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10g-41*

Watergate Street is essentially the continuation of Deptford High Street to the north, leading to the River Thames. At the extreme left of this picture you can see a pillar of another Deptford pub, the Harp of Erin at 2 – 4 New King Street on the corner between this and Watergate Street. The pub which went under a variety of names over the years as Round the Bend, Nobody’s Inn, Looney Tunes, closed as simply The Harp in 2014.

Panda Car Hire and taxi service to Airports, Theatres, Stations was next to the pub on Watergate St and had this rather odd imitation half-timbering which attracted my attention. Panda Cars seemed a strange business name, usually used to refer to small police cars driven by police officers which were often painted black and white. The building is still there, and in the same business as Water Gate Cars but has now a rather plainer frontage.

Parker's Corner, Evelyn St, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10g-46-Edit_2400 — *Parker’s Corner, Evelyn St, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10g-46*

I walked west along Evelyn Street. Parker’s Corner was around half a mile away, just before what is clearly a bridge although the Surrey Canal which used to go under it has long been filled in. I’d photographed this corner three years previously and wrote this about it: “Parkers Corner was next to the former Surrey Canal Blackhorse bridge in Evelyn Street on the corner of Dragoon Road.

Parker’s Timber were based at a wharf on the canal on the northeast of the bridge. The company moved to Belvedere, Kent in the 1960s. Although I was a great fan of Bird, someone else had beaten me to paint Charlie on the wall. ” In this frmae you can still see ‘Charlie’ though a little faded. The sign at top left is for Victoria Wharf, the site behind the wall, and lists some of the businesses there. The modern building behind, Parker House at 144 Evelyn Road, was demolished in 2015

Law Bros, Grove St, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10g-21-Edit_2400 — Law Bros, Grove St, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10g-21

The Victoria Wharf site stretched along Dragoon St from Evelyn Street to Grove Street where Law Bros had this building. Rather oddly a sign at right told me the Bros were Stewart & Alice and their business appear to be in Calor Gas according the the five signs in the picture. At left were signs for two other businesses on the wharf and above the doorway was another for Andrews.

I wondered what this building had been built as; it was marked as ‘Chapel’ on old large-scale OS maps on Grove St beside the wharf entrance. A very bad photograph in the Deptford Archives enabled me to identify it as Victoria Hall Methodist Church, opened in 1857 and demolished in 2015 as a part of the Timberyard development.

Scrap Dealer, Oxestalls Rd, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10g-14-Edit_2400 — *Scrap Dealer, Oxestalls Rd, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10g-1488-10g-14*

Oxestalls Road was created around 1966 when there was considerable redevelopment in the area with the creation of the Pepys estate, and it goes across the former route of the Surrey Canal at an elevated level. This view is looking roughly east and you can see the chimneys and roof of The Victoria pub on Grove Street above the sheds to the left of the picture along with a chimney which I think is at Deptford Power Station.

Holsten Pils, Liquor Barn, Evelyn St, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10g-15-Edit_2400

Tooheys Liquor Barn on Evelyn Street with the trailer of a lorry carrying a Holsten Pils waggon, probably designed to be horse-drawn. It appears to be part of the Evelyn Cash & Carry shed. In the background is Eddystone Tower on Oxestalls Road, 26 floors and 257ft high, part of the GLC Pepys Estate built in 1962.

My walk around Deptford will continue in a later post.

No Third Runway – 31 May 2008

No Third Runway – 31 May 2008 – several thousand campaigners against the expansion of London’s Heathrow Airport marched from Hatton Cross through part of the airport to the village of Sipson which will be obliterated if the third runway is built.

I’m not sure whether it was on this occasion or another similar event where I was approached and asked if I would like to be the official photographer at height on a cherry-picker taking the photograph of thousands below me on the ground in a giant ‘NO’ each holding up the message ‘NO’ but having no head at all for heights I was very pleased to be taking part in the event with both feet firmly on the ground. I was holding up my poster with its ‘NO’ in one hand and my camera in the other when I made this picture.

I don’t think I’ve ever had much of a head for heights. Perhaps it was my early experiences when my father was sometimes left with the baby and had to take to to work with him – even when he was up fixing roofs. I have some vague but vivid memories of being up on the roof of a house, perhaps our own, under the Heathrow flightpath with aircraft – propellor rather than jet in those days – passing low overhead. But things have worsened in more recent years as my balance has worsened, and now even low walls are a step too high.

The account on My London Diary – Heathrow – Make a Noise – No Third Runway – makes my views on Heathrow clear, beginning with the paragraph “It is now obvious to everyone with their head out of the sand is that London Heathrow is in the wrong place. It always was, since its creation by subterfuge and lies during the last years of the war, but no government since has had the nerve to challenge the powerful aviation lobby.“

It was a view backed by the politicians of all parties who came to speak at the rally, though Labour – then in government – were only (if ably) represented by local MP for Hayes and Harlington, John McDonnell. And although the Deputy Mayor of London was there, Mayor Boris Johnson who had promised to come had decided instead to fly off for a holiday in Turkey – just as he has done on various occasions as Prime Minister. The Archbishop of Canterbury had also been expected, but was at the last minute unable to make it and sent an envoy with his message.

Most of those marching were local residents, particularly from Sipson and Harmondsworth which would be destroyed by the development, but also from the other areas under the flightpath, which includes a great swathe of West London. Given the nature of the protest and those taking part the level of police interest in it seemed excessive, and it was noticeable that they seemed to be particularly interested in photographing and filming the photographers who were covering the protest – I several times found myself staring into the lens of the police team.

I don’t know why the police do this, nor what happens to the photographs and videos. On the only occasion I’ve bothered to send a Freedom of Information request requesting details of the photographs they have of me from a number of events where they had quite clearly taken them I received a reply stating that there were no images on record… We are not being told the truth.

*One of very few flights on the northern runway as the march went past*

Notably missing from the event were any representatives of Spelthorne Council, my local council and the only council in the area not to oppose the expansion. The Conservative MP for Spelthorne, David Wilsher also supported airport expansion against the then party line and “also denies that climate change is caused by human activities and some constituents expect him to announce his membership of the flat earth society any day soon. Best known for his introduction of the anti-gay ‘Section 28’ amendment in 1988 he replaced for the 2010 election by Kwasi Kwarteng after being implicated in an expenses scandal involving the payment of £105,00 of parliamentary expenses to a company set up with his partner to run his office. The inquiry into his expenses was suspended because of his poor health.

*John Stewart of HACAN and Geraldine Nicholson of NOTRAG perform a duet: NO THIRD RUNWAY*

You can read a full account of the march and rally with a large number of pictures on My London Diary: Heathrow – No Third Runway

Nurses, Coal, Art, Biafrans & Sunflowers

Nurses, Coal, Art, Biafrans & Sunflowers – Saturday May 30th 2015 was another varied day of events and protests across London.

Filipino Nurses tell Daily Mail to apologise – Kensington.

I began the day travelling to High Street Kensington, just a short walk from the offices of the Daily Mail. It has the largest circulation of any UK newspaper but is also the UK’s least reliable source of information. Recently The Factual analysed 1,000 articles from each of 245 major news sources from around the world although mainly from the USA and including international news organisations such as Reuters and AP. The Mail came out with the third lowest score of any with a Factual Grade of 39.7% compared to the average of 61.9%. In a table listing all the results, even The Sun does a little better, as do the Daily Express and RT News, though all of these are way below average while The Guardian was above average along with the BBC, though neither among the top scorers.

We don’t have a free press in this country, we have a press largely controlled by a small number of billionaires who, as these figures show, use it largely as a source of disinformation and the promotion of their prejudices – including homophobia, racism and misogyny. Articles are more generally written as click-bait rather than with any desire to inform or educate, and it was hardly surprising when in 2016 it was sanctioned by the International Press Standards Organisation for violating professional norms for accuracy and in 2017 Wikipedia editors decided it was a “generally unreliable” source.

I was there for the start of a long protest by Filipino health workers outside the Daily Mail over its reporting of the Victoriano Chua case which insulted Filipino NHS workers as a whole despite the vital contribution they make to the NHS. The demanded the Daily Mail apologise for its racist comments and to recognise the contribution that they make, keeping our NHS afloat. As someone who a dozen years earlier had been looked after in intensive care by a Filipino nurse I feel very grateful to them, though angry at the UK government for not training enough nurses and doctors – and in particular for removing the training bursary for nurses which has now made the situation much worse. But I did feel they were asking the leopard to change its spots.

Filipino Nurses tell Daily Mail apologise

Walking the Coal Line – Peckham

I left the Filipinos as their protest was still building up and journeyed across London to Peckham Rye where we were invited to take a tour of the proposed Peckham Coal Line elevated linear urban park between Peckham Rye and Queens Road Peckham stations as a distant part of the Chelsea Fringe Festival events – something vaguely related to the annual flower show.

The Coal Line was frankly hugely over-hyped, particularly in comparing it to New York’s ‘High Line’, and the walk was largely close to but not on the actual proposed line. The former coal sidings on the viaduct which inspired the project are next to a working rail line and could only be seen looking down from neighbouring buildings.

As I commented: “The walk is essentially an urban linear park that would make a useful short cut for some local walkers and cyclists, and could also be a part of a longer leisure walk from Brixton to the Thames. I hope it comes into existence, as the cost would be relatively low and it would be a useful addition to the area.“

But I still enjoyed an interesting walk, visiting both the Bussey Building in the former industrial estate Copeland Park south of the line and the multi-storey car park to the north which now houses a cafe, a local radio performance space and another rooftop bar next to the Derek Jarman memorial garden and has good views of Peckham and central London. And having followed the official route to Queens Road Peckham I walked back a different way vaguely along the Coal Line at ground level, finally travelling more closely along it in an Overground train that took me to Canada Water and the Jubilee Line to Waterloo.

Walking the Coal Line

UK Uncut Art Protest – Westminster Bridge

UK Uncut met outside Waterloo station for their mystery protest taking direct action at an undisclosed location. Police liaison officers tried to find out where they were going and what they intended to do, but nobody was talking to them. Finally they set off and marched the short distance to Westminster Bridge where they spread a large piece of cloth on the roadway and painted a banner telling Parliament that collecting dodged taxes would bring in more than cutting public services.

They lifted up the banner and then ‘dropped’ it over the side of the bridge. It was a long run to take a picture of it hanging from the bridge, and I’m not sure worth the effort. It would have been better to have lowered it on the downstream side so as to get the Houses of Parliament in the background.

Another group of protesters in Parliament Square were protesting against the plans to get rid of the Human Rights Act, and some of the UK Uncut people had joined them before the end of the ‘Art’ protest. In May 2022 the government announced it was getting rid of the act and replacing it with a ‘British Bill of Rights’ which will allow the police to “perform freer functions“, Leading charities concerned with human rights have condemned the changes as affecting “the ability of individuals to hold the government and public bodies to account by bringing cases when their human rights have been breached.” They state “The Human Rights Act has greatly benefited a vast number of people from across society, improving their health and wellbeing; ensuring their dignity, autonomy, privacy, and family life; and overall improving their quality of life.” Many see the changes as yet another move towards fascism and a police state.

UK Uncut Art Protest

Biafrans demand independence – Trafalgar Square.

Biafra came from the Kingdom of Nri of the Igbo people, which lasted from the 10th century to 1911 and was one of Africa’s great civilisations before the European colonisation.

Biafra was incorporated into Southern Nigeria by the colonialists in the 1884 Berlin Conference and then became part of the united Nigeria in 1914. Biafrans declared independence from Nigeria in 1967, but lost the long and bloody civil war that followed, with many Biafran civilians dying of starvation.

Biafrans demand independence

Mass rally Supports National Gallery strikers – Trafalgar Square

After a large rally in Trafalgar Square, National Gallery staff striking against privatisation marched towards the Sainsbury Wing, holding a sit down and short rally outside after police blocked the doors to the gallery. The gallery doors were then locked.

Candy Udwin, a PCS rep at the National Gallery had been sacked for her trade union activities in connection with the plans to privatise gallery staff and the opposition to it by staff. Exhibitions in the Sainsbury wing have already been guarded by privatised staff, and the security there is also run by the private company. After 100 days of strike action the dispute was finally resolived in early October 2015 after the appointment of a new gallery director with terms and conditions of service protected and Udwin returning to work.

Mass rally Supports National Gallery strikers

My London Diary Returns

I stopped putting new photographs on my ‘MY LONDON DIARY’ web site at the start of Covid, because there was little of much interest to add. But also for technical reasons, as I was getting rather close to the limit of number of files for the site of 262, 144 which is a restriction imposed by Linux.

*Black Livew Matter, Staines, June 2006*

I was ill in March 2020, and although my symptoms didn’t match those then listed on the NHS site they did accord with some accounts by confirmed Covid victims. Fortunately they were not too serious, though I felt pretty poor for a week or so, and months later was still having problems going up hills. As a journalist I could have continued working during the lockdown, but since both my age and diabetes both increased my risks and I decided to keep away from London, crowds of any kind and meeting people indoors.

I didn’t just stay indoors, but took advantage during the lockdown to explore the area around where I live, taking bike rides of around 10 miles most mornings at a moderate speed. It was great for the first few months when there was little traffic, and our area was unusually quiet with few drivers on the three motorways and few jets taking off and landing at Heathrow. I spent a lot of time walking and cycling along the course of one of our smaller local rivers, finding places where I could photograph it. And I wore out the chainwheel of my vintage bicycle – for which I’ve only yesterday found a replacement in rather less used condition. And I’ve also put around 20,000 of my older images, mainly of London, onto Flickr.

National Demonstration for Palestine, May 2021

Later came vaccinations, and a few weeks after my second jab decided I could stay home no longer, and I resumed work, though at a limited level on May Day 2021. But I still had not solved the problem about the file limit, so while I continued to upload pictures to the agency, I shared them with friends on Facebook rather than My London Diary.

I had another problem too. I had been writing My London Diary on a Windows 7 computer and had now moved to Windows 10. I’d been using the same version of Dreamweaver for around 20 years for writing this and other sites, as it worked for what I needed. But to get a new version for Windows 10 would mean doubling my Adobe subscription – and giving me something far more complex than I need. I hunted for the setup disks thinking I might be able to get the old software working on my new computer, but couldn’t find them – then realised I had installed it from floppy disks which would have been thrown away when I no longer had a drive to read them.

I woke up in the middle of the night a few months ago and realised a part solution to my problems. Which was to make My London Diary a front end for those albums which I had posted on Facebook but which then rapidly disappear into its extensive bowels and are seldom if ever seen again. When I’m writing pieces for >Re:PHOTO I make many searches on Google, and pictures I’ve put on Flickr (with captions and keywords) often turn up, but I don’t recall ever having seen one from FB. But I can find them by scrolling down my many albums and they do have a URL. One advantage is that the images are much larger before, though you will only see this if you right-click on them and open them in a separate tab or downlad them.

So far I’ve only put a few month’s work on line, and it still isn’t fully integrated with the rest of My London Diary. Here’s the page for June 2020, and then for when I restarted in May 2021. The free (and open source) web editor BlueGriffon is a little clunky compared to my ancient Dreamweaver and lacks its library elements so I can no longer automatically update elements in a large number of files. I’m also having problems finding the images for some events – and had to make new albums for a few events for a year ago.

Deptford Broadway And New Cross Road

Deptford Broadway And New Cross Road – this continues my walk in October 1988 from the previous post, More Deptford And A Little Greenwich.

Deptford Broadway, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10f-25-Edit_2400 — *Deptford Broadway, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10f-25*

The last image in my previous post was a general view of the north side of Deptford Broadway from close to the corner with Brookmill Road, and I commented on the ‘Antique Warehouse’ built for ‘Montague Burton, The Tailor of Taste’. I walked west along Deptfprd Broadway to take this picture from a closer viewpoint. As well as the antiques, this building was also in use as a Snooker Club, boast 16 full size tables and open 22 hours daily. Over the central door are the names Southampton and Bournemouth.

The name ‘Montague Burton the Tailor of Taste Ltd’ dates from the registration of the limited company in 1917 and was almost certainly originally visible in the large panel on the frontage although I can see no trace of it in my photograph. Burton’s architect Harry Wilson designed a whole range of similar variants of these Art Deco stores for towns and cities across the country in the 1930s, and there is a splendid ‘Spotters Guide‘ online – although it doesn’t mention Deptford. Over the central door are the names Southampton and Bournemouth, and stores often carried a list of a few of the leading branches across the frontage at the top of the ground floor windows. Burtons and Woolworths both built many branches in a Deco style and appear to have copied ideas from each other.

Deptford Broadway, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10f-26-Edit_2400 — *Deptford Broadway, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10f-26*

A slightly wonky view of No8 Deptford Broadway taken from the other side of the road. Almost all of these images were made with a 35mm Zuiko shift lens where the optical elements could be pushed both horizontally or vertically to enable me to produce images without converging or diverging verticals and play other small tricks with perspective. I still occasionally find myself trying to push other lenses in the same way and they don’t!

The Zuiko lens was a good example of this type of lens, but not entirely simple to use; it was a “manual lens” and you viewed the subject and made any necessary lens shift with the lens at its widest F2.8 aperture, then pressed a small lever to stop down the lens iris to the smaller aperture needed for the exposure. At full aperture the corners of the image were not sharp, and sometimes I failed to stop down sufficiently (or at all) to bring them into proper focus.

For this image I didn’t quite get the camera back vertical and the verticals in the building diverge, something rather less common in photographs than converging vertical. The shopfront here clearly goes across one building and a part of its neighbour (the rest of which housed the Dover Castle pub) and its missing panel allows us to view the lower part of the first floor window. Both these buildings have now been replace by a rather mediocre modern development

Deptford Seventh Day Adventist Church, New Cross Rd, New Cross,, Lewisham, 1988 88-10f-12-Edit_2400 — *Deptford Seventh Day Adventist Church, New Cross Rd, New Cross, Lewisham, 1988 88-10f-12*

Continuing west, Deptford Broadway turns into New Cross Road where this charming building was built as a private house, but around 1900 the New Cross Equitable Building Society – which was founded elsewhere in New Cross in 1866 – moved in. It remained here until the Registrar of Friendly Societies closed it down in 1984, for unsafe financial practices involving large borrowings which later became rather normal.

The building then became the Deptford Seventh Day Adventist Church as my photograph shows; in 1991 they bought and moved to rather large premises on the corner of Devonshire Drive and Egerton Drive, the former St Paul’s, built as an Anglican Church in 1865-6 by the prolific church architect S S Teulon which closed in 1978, and was then used by other church groups and scouts until becoming Greenwich Seventh Day Adventist Church. Since 1994 470 New Cross Road has been the Iyengar Yoga Institute

Zion Chapel, New Cross Rd Baptist Church, New Cross Rd, New Cross,, Lewisham, 1988 88-10f-13-Edit_2400 — *Zion Chapel, New Cross Rd Baptist Church, New Cross Rd, New Cross, Lewisham, 1988 88-10f-13*

More or less next door at 466 is this short passageway leading to Zion Chapel. Its Grade II listing places it in Brockley (its electoral ward) and dates it 1846. The listing does not mention the gateway and lantern which I think add greatly to its appeal – and which my choice of viewpoint was carefully chosen to include and emphasise.

Seventh Day Adventist, Baptist, Church,New Cross Rd, New Cross,, Lewisham, 1988 88-10f-15-Edit_2400 — *Seventh Day Adventist, Baptist, Church,New Cross Rd, New Cross, Lewisham, 1988 88-10f-15*

Another picture shows the Adventist Church, the house flanking the passage to Zion Chapel and its lantern and gateway, with at the left a part of Addey & Stanhope School. Both schools were ancient foundations in Deptford, Stanhope School being founded by the vicar of Deptford, George Stanhope in 1714. Addey School was only founded in 1821, but the money came from the will of John Addey (1550-1606), the Master Shipwright at Deptford Dockyard who left £200 for the poor of Deptford. The two schools were merged in the late 19th century and moved to this location in 1899. It has since expanded considerably.

Fire Brigade Union, New Cross Rd, New Cross, Lewisham, 1988 88-10f-01-Edit_2400 — *Fire Brigade Union, 435, New Cross Rd, New Cross, Lewisham, 1988 88-10f-01*

This house along with the others in the blocks on both sides of Mornington Road now look considerably smarter than in 1988. It appears to have once been some kind of offices of the Fire Brigade Union, FBU, founded in 1918. But it made me feel rather strange…

Two doors down, at 439 was the site of the 1981 New Cross Fire which killed 13 young black people, with one survivor taking his own life 2 years later. The police investigation of the fire which concluded, according to Wikipedia “that there was no evidence of arson and that the fire was believed to be accidental” enraged the black community and lead to a “Black People’s Day of Action” with 20,000 people marching from New Cross to Hyde Park. The Wikipedia article states ‘The New Cross fire, described by Darcus Howe in 2011 as “the blaze we cannot forget”, is significant as a turning point in the relationship between Black Britons, the police and the media, and marks an “intergenerational alliance to expose racism, injustices and the plight of black Britons“.’

New Cross Rd, New Cross,, Lewisham, 1988 88-10g-63

This doorway is still there at 455 New Cross Road, though looking just a little different and now with a metal gate. It seems a particularly elaborate entrance to the flats above the shops, and there was something about the light in the segment window above the door which made me see it as the dome of a head, some great intelligence incorporated into the building. Or perhaps I was hallucinating.

To be continued in a later post…

Class War, Edna, Police And Protesters

Class War, Edna, Police And Protesters – I had a long and busy day in Westminster on Wednesday 27th May 2015. It was the day of the Queen’s speech to parliament, reading out the intentions of the government’s coming session, and people and groups had come to the area to make their feelings about this clear.

I usually avoid any occasions involving royalty who I think reflect the worst aspects of our class-based society. We got it right in 1649, when Charles I was found guilty of attempting to “uphold in himself an unlimited and tyrannical power to rule according to his will, and to overthrow the rights and liberties of the people” and although the ‘Commonwealth’ wasn’t a great deal of fun the restoration of the monarchy was a a national tragedy even more retrograde than Brexit.

I don’t want to photograph crowds of sycophantic flag wavers – including many tourists, nor the royals themselves, who many feel are an inbred group of parasites who rose to wealth and power through the theiving, skullduggery and aggression of their ancestors, maintaining their position through a biased military, political and legal system. Certainly we would be a better and healthier nation without them and the class system they help perpetuate.

Royal occasions also bring out the very worst in our police, and this was clearly on show in their actions against Class War and some others who had come to protest at the event. Rather than upholding the law they were making it up on the spot to avoid any possible embarrassment to the Queen, forcing people to move and making arrests without any lawful basis.

Class War had come with their controversial banner showing the political leaders and I managed to get a few images of them was they held it up for a few seconds on the Queen’s route well before she was due to arrive. But they were immediately forced to take it down and told they would be arrested if they continued to protest, with the threat that the banner would be taken from them.

It was a copy of the one that police had seized at a ‘Poor Doors’ protest a couple of months earlier and held in Bethnal Green police station (where they lost it rather than hand it back when they had to admit they had no legal basis to have taken it.) Banners aren’t cheap and Class War funds are limited to a few individuals digging in their pockets, so they rolled it up and moved away.

Police then arrested two men, one holding a video camera, and another holding under his arm a small poster with a message about austerity being stupid. As my caption states “They tell the police correctly that they have committed no offence, but the police decide to arrest them anyway. Just in case.” They were released without charge a couple of hours later.

As a large group of police were following and harassing them, Class War and friends decided to leave for a nearby pub. I followed them, along with a large squad of police, and talked with them as they stood outside quietly having a drink. On the other side of the road were around 50 police standing around watching them, including a squad of TSG, looking menacing for over an hour. I was later told police kept following some of Class War for the next six hours. It all seemed a huge waste of public money.

I’d stayed with Class War so long because it looked likely that the police were going to take action, perhaps make more arrests although no offence was being committed, but also to let the crowds and policing around the Queen’s route disperse, and then made my way up Parliament Street to Whitehall where Compassion in Care were campaigning for ‘Edna’s Law’ which would make it an offence not to act on the genuine concerns of a whistleblower and protect those revealing scandals in social care and other sectors.

This would replace the Public Interest Disclosure Act which has failed to protect the public, the victims or the whistle-blowers. Compassion in Care say that the reccomendations of the then recent Francis review “will do nothing to protect whistle-blowers or encourage anyone else to raise concerns. This is because his recommendations rely on employers and regulators – which include the very same people who have “got away with” cover-ups, ignoring concerns, and victimising whistle-blowers for many years.”

I walked on up Whitehall to Trafalgar Square where people were beginning to gather for a National Campaign against Fees and Cuts rally. A group of police were gathered around a man and arresting him, but refusing to answer any questions from a concerned crowd around them as to what was happening. A small crowd followed the police as they took the man to a nearby police van, where a police officer assaulted a young bystander who was then also arrested. Finally as the van drove away, an officer told us that the man was wanted for an earlier offence and the arrest was in no way related to the protest that was gathering. If the police had made this clear from the start all this could have been avoided.

Back in Trafalgar Square a man appeared with a mobile disco and crew and people began to dance. This turned out to be Lee Marshall (aka Disco Boy) who describes himself as an “entertainer prankster DJ host”, and apparently has gained a huge social media following, with his video stunts watched by hundreds of thousands of people and had come to perform in Trafalgar Square and elsewhere in Westminster. He moved off as the rally began.

There was a short rally for the National Campaign against Fees and Cuts (NCAFC) with various groups including Class War holding banners on the plinth of Nelson’s column before they set of for the march.

Also in Trafalgar Square were Ahwazi protesters from the Hashem Shabani Action Group whose homeland, which includes most of Iran’s oilfields, was occupied by Iran in 1925. Since then Iran has attempted to suppress their heritage and identity, in part by resettling non-Ahwazi Iranians in the area.

The students and some others at the NCAFC protest then set off to march down Whitehall, where police made an unsuccessful attempt to stop them, at Downing St, arresting several forcefully. There seemed to be little point as police numbers were clearly too few and many protesters were simply walking around them and the barriers as I did.

The Ahwazi protesters had marched with the students and they stopped in Parliament Square for a rally while the rest marched on peacefully around the area for some time stopping to protest outside the Dept of Work & Pensions and the Tory Party HQ before returning to protest noisily in front of Downing Street which was protected by mass ranks of police. They then marched on, I think intending to go towards Buckingham Palace, but I’d had enough walking around.

On the pavement opposite Downing St at the same time as the NCAFC march the People’s Assembly were holding a static ‘End Austerity Now’ protest. I listened to a few of the speeches and photographed them. But it had been a long and rather confusing day and it was time for home.

More on the events of the day on My London Diary
People’s Assembly ‘End Austerity Now’
Ahwazi Arabs protest Iran’s war
NCAFC March against ‘undemocracy’
NCAFC rally in Trafalgar Square
Disco Boy plays Trafalgar Square
Police arrest man in Trafalgar Square
‘I am Edna’ – protect whistle-blowers
Class War protest Queen’s speech

Knives, Afrin and Vedanta

Knives, Afrin and Vedanta: Two of the four events I photographed on 26th May 2018 were connected with knife and gun crime in London, the other two about international events – the invasion of Afrin by Turkey and the fatal shooting by Indian police of protesters against the polluting activites of the Sterlite copper plant owned by Vedenta in Tamil Nadu.

‘Be the Change’ Knife and Gun Crime – Windrush Square, Brixton

London’s murder rate has increased by over a third in the last three years, and last year saw a 22% increase in recorded knife crime and 11% in gun crime. Of the 39 children and teenagers killed in the UK by knives last year over half were in London. The victims of knife crime are disproportionately young black men. Many attribute the rise in these crimes to the cuts in youth clubs, community projects, counselling and other services for young people, cuts in police and PCSO numbers and changes in illegal drug dealing.

Lambeth is an area that has suffered greatly from the cuts, and with a Labour council that often seems particularly insensitive to local needs, particular over housing where it has been colluding with developers over profiting from the destruction of social housing. It has also been subjected to some of the most discriminatory policing which has led to several riots or uprisings in Brixton over the years.

Brixton Seventh Day Adventist Church is in the centre of Brixton, worshipping a short walk from Windrush Square, where they had come on Saturday morning when normally they would be in church to protest and witness their concerns over the deaths. I’d missed photographing their march to the Square as they had taken a different route to that I’d expected but was able to spend some time photographing them speaking and singing the gospel. But it did seem to me that despite being hugely concerned and convinced in their beliefs that they were preaching only to the converted, with few of those walking past stopping to listen.

More pictures at ‘Be the Change’ Knife and Gun Crime.

Youth Peace Walk by Korean-based cult – Langham Place

I left Brixton and was making my way to the BBC when I was surprised by the Korean-based IYPG (International Peace Youth Group) making their way down Langham Place and stopped to photograph them. I knew nothing about them but saw they were marching with a posted about knife crime in London.

Back home later in the day I did my research on the web, finding the IYPG had held annual peace walks in countries around the world on or around May 25th since 2013, commemorating the ‘Declaration of World Peace’. The group was founded in South Korea by Mr Man Hee Lee, a war veteran and peacemaker who claims to have had a personal revelation linked to the biblical Book of Revelations. He is the leader of a strange heretical Christian cult in Korea called ShinChonji and a linked organisation Mannam. Critics say that although the IPYG hosts events such as these peace walks, they do nothing to promote peace but are a part of a recruiting drive for ShinConji whose followers are obliged to give large donations to the cult.

More pictures at Youth Peace Walk by Kor e an-based cult.

March Against Turkish Occupation of Afrin – BBC to Westminster

Kurds and supporters held a short rally outside the BBC before marching to Downing St and Parliament Square to call for an end to the Turkish occupation of Afrin.

Among those speaking was the aunt of British volunteer Anna Campbell, killed defending Afrin. The invasion of Afrin began in January, and was carried out by Turkish forces together with former ISIS fighters. The Kurdish forces withdrew in March when they were in danger of being encircled and have vowed to continue the fight to regain Afrin through a guerilla war.

Erdogan would like to completely eliminate the Kurds who have been persecuted for many years in Turkey and to end the autonomous Kurdish led areas in both Syria and Iraq. Afrin was a part of Rojava, the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria which has a liberal socialist constitution based on direct democracy which enshrines ethnic and gender equality and other fundamental human rights including freedom of religion – a huge contrast with Turkey’s increasingly Islamic autocracy.

I left the march after a short distance at Oxford Circus to make my way to the Indian High Commission in Aldwych.

More at March Against Turkish Occupation of Afrin.

India complicit in Thoothukudi killings – India House, Aldwych

Hundreds had come to protest outside the Indian High Commission protest at the Indian government complicity in the brutal repression of protests against pollution from the Sterlite copper plant at Thoothukudi, in the Southern State of Tamil Nadu. The protest was organised by Foil Vedanta, Tamil People in UK and PARAI – Voice of Freedom and supported by South Asia Solidarity Group and others including the Socialist Party.

On May 22nd, four days earlier, Indian police had fired into a crowd of protesters, killing 12 and wounding more than 60. Protests had been continuing for 100 days demanding that the plant, owned by a subsidiary of British company Vedanta Resources be closed down. Vedanta is said to be the largest donor to the Indian BJP party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Vedanta, set up by British Indian billionaire Anil Agarwal with UK government help in 2003 is notorious for its polluting activities in India, Goa, Zambia and elsewhere as well as unsafe working practices and tax evasion. Sterlite, which has a long record of dumping toxic waste and operating without proper licences is expanding and opening a second plant in the town. The London Mining Network say the Vedanta operates “like a house without a toilet” and “consistently dump waste next to their smelters and captive thermal power plants.”

Protesters called for an end to Vedanta’s polluting activities around the world, and an end for support for the company by both UK and Indian governments. They called for the Stock Exchange to delist the company – and the company delisted itself a few months later probably to avoid facing more public interest litigation in the UK.

More pictures at India complicit in Thoothukudi killings.

Pagan Pride – Beltane Bash

Pagan Pride – Beltane Bash: From 2004 to 2010 most years I photographed an event in central London where neo-pagans held a procession to celebrate Beltane, though for some reason they did so on the last Sunday in May rather than at the traditional time of Beltane, on or close to May Day. Perhaps the date was chosen so that those taking part in the event had the following day, the late May Bank Holiday, to recover. The event was the public part of a day-long event taking place in the Conway Hall, which backs onto Red Lion Square where the parade assembled.

Wikipedia describes Beltane as the Gaelic May Day festival, and says that historically it “was widely observed throughout Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man” but “had largely died out by the mid-20th century” before being revived by Celtic neopagans and Wiccans in the late 20th century. Here’s some of what I wrote about the 2008 event which took place fourteen years ago today on Sunday 25th March.

Pagans – or rather neo-Pagans – place great importance on nature and the cyclical nature of the seasons. Women play a very important role in most pagan beliefs and Goddesses as well as Gods, all generally linked to nature are often involved in their ceremonies and women play important roles in them.

Nature seemed not to be too kind to them as the rain bucketed down as the participants were supposed to gather, with only a few braver members (and some with umbrellas) coming out of the hall, but fortunately for them and the photographers it soon eased off, finally almost stopping as the parade got under way.

The fountain in Russell Square could have been designed with them in mind, with a strongly phallic character in the water jets, which in normal use rise and fall, but were left to flow at full strength for most of the ceremony. At first the group danced around the fountain in rings with hands joined, but then many of them started to run through the centre, many getting soaked. Even the drummers, who at first stood on the edge providing a rhythm for the dance, eventually ran though the jets, and finally so did the Green Man.

Pagan Pride – Beltane Bash

I photographed the event for the final time in 2010, though I’m not quite sure why. Possibly the organisers made changes for the following year, or perhaps I looked through my pictures and found I seemed largely to be repeating myself each year. But my work was becoming increasingly political, thanks at least in part to the changing political situation with Labour losing the 2010 general election, and I was covering fewer cultural events.

It was also becoming more difficult to cover events of all kinds, as there was a huge increase over the years in the number of spectators at events such as this, with both more photographers coming to take pictures and many others with camera phones also getting in the way. Particularly those viewing a screen at arms length seem to be much less aware of others around them and in particular generally have no idea that it might be impolite to walk in front of others who are taking pictures!

More at Pagan Pride – Beltane Bash