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Teachers March for Education – Westminster 2013

Teachers March for Education: On Tuesday 25th June 2013 teachers from the London area marched through central London today past the Department for Education to a rally. They shouted ‘Gove Must Go!‘ and called for the government to cease attacks on teachers and stop undermining our education system.

I should declare a personal interest. I spent 30 years as a full-time teacher, beginning in secondary education where I worked for almost 10 years in a rather unruly 2000+ comprehensive school before moving to a sixth-form and community college. Over the years I taught a wide range of subjects from science and photography with some computer training, business studies with a little personal and social education thrown in as well as setting up and managing a school computer network and then setting up a Cisco Networking Academy. Add pastoral work as a form teacher or group tutor, some careers advice and exam administration and I had a pretty wide experience of what was still for most of my time, the chalk face.

And of course, as well as teaching photography I also was a photographer, though my activities were then largely restricted to weekends and holidays – and even some of these were taken up by lesson preparation, marking, schemes of work and other administrative tasks.

Various governments had imposed changes on our education system over the years I was involved and few of them had improved our education system but I think all had made teaching as a career more onerous and less attractive. While the National Curriculum was a good idea, its implementation from the start by Kenneth Baker in 1989 was unduly detailed and prescriptive. To a small extent it was updated to make it simpler in 1994, but then under New Labour things got worse.

Education also suffered because of Margaret Thatcher’s determination to cut the power of local authorities with many administrative functions being removed from their grasp leading to schools becoming businesses. Back when I started schools didn’t have managers and there were very few staff who weren’t teachers other than the caretaker and cleaners. New Labour went further in 2000 with the setting up of academies which were totally independent of local authority schools and later the coalition government went further with so-called free schools.

Ofsted inspections had come in in 1993. Before that time school inspections were carried out by Her Majesty’s Inspectors and local authority teams. All involved I think had experience in education and their aim was to enable staff and schools to improve their performance. Ofsted was quite different with many inspectors having little or no experience in education and all were trained in a rigid framework for inspection which allowed no real dialogue with the schools or the teachers who were being inspected.

I was very pleased to be able to leave full-time teaching and move into the photographic area after I was invited to write about photography for a leading US web site as the administrative burden of teaching was becoming simply unbearable. And it certainly wasn’t improving my teaching.

I quoted Peter Glover, Liverpool NUT and NUT National Executive member for Merseyside and Cheshire on the reason for the forthcoming strike action and rallies:

“Pay, pensions, workload, holidays, OFSTED, surveillance…the attacks on teachers have never been as severe. In many schools this Government has created an atmosphere of terror. Managers with no teaching responsibility roam schools armed with clipboards and OFSTED-inspired grids, pouncing on teachers. ‘Drop-ins’ that turn into capability procedures are the vogue.”

*Jolyon Rubinstein and Heydon Prowse of ‘The Revolution Will Be Televised’ start taking the piss out of teachers, not all of whom are amused*

As I commented, “Many teachers feel that Minister Michael Gove is setting out to smash the teaching unions in the way that the Thatcher government took on the miners. Teaching is a highly unionised profession, and thus a prime candidate for attack. But teachers join teaching unions because they see them as working not just for their own interests, but more generally for education and for children, protecting educational standards against the attacks by successive governments. They are not just trade unions but professional bodies.”

The government was attacking the national pay system, allowing schools to employ unqualified teachers and worsening working conditions. Many also felt threatened by the general plans to raise “the retirement age to 68. Teaching is a very stressful career and as they say, ’68 is too late’.”

Gove was also responsible for changing the National Curriculum in ways that showed his unwillingness to “take notice of educational research or the views of experts in the field” relying instead on his own whims and unsuitable advisers. If you have children or grandchildren who can tell you abstruse (and sometimes academically contentious) grammatical terms such as “fronted adverbials” but can’t write an interesting story, then you have Gove to thank for it.

More about the march and more pictures on My London Diary at Teachers March for Education.

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Racists, Anti-Fascists, PR, Korea and a Victory Party – 2017

Racists, Anti-Fascists, PR, Korea and a Victory Party: Saturday 24th June 2017 was a long day for me, beginning with a march by the English Defence League and the anti-fascists who came to oppose it, moving on to another extreme right protest by the Football Lads Alliance on London Bridge then returning to Whitehall for a protest against the ongoing talks between Theresa May and the Ulster DUP to provide support for her minority government. In Parliament Square there was a picnic and rally against our ‘unfair first past the post’ voting system. From there I went to the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square where supporters of North Korea were calling for the US to withdraw its troops from South Korea. Finally I went to Burgess Park in South London where cleaners from the LSE were celebrating a successful end to 8 months of campaigning.

EDL march against terror – Whitehall

Racists, Anti-Fascists, PR, Korea and a Victory Party - 2017

The EDL march followed closely after the 3 June event when three Islamists drove a van into pedestrians on London Bridge killing eight people and injuring many more before being shot by police. Earlier in the year a police officer had been stabbed at the Houses of Parliament and a suicide bomber had killed 22 and injured over a thousand at the Manchester Arena.

Tempers were running high and just five days earlier a right-wing activist had driven a van into a Muslim crowd at the Finsbury Park Mosque. The Met were taking no chances and had issued strict conditions on both the EDL for their march and rally and for those who had come to oppose them, and had the police on the ground to enforce them.

The EDL were meeting outside (and inside) the Wetherspoons close to the north end of Whitehall and I joined them on the pavement. There were quite a few police in the area and the protesters were mainly happy to talk and be photographed. Eventually they were escorted by a large group of police to the starting point of their march, the police taking them through some back streets to avoid the counter-protesters who had previously been restricted to the corner of Northumberland Avenue.

EDL march against terror

Anti-fascists oppose the EDL – Northumberland Avenue

Several hundred Unite Against Fascism supporters had come to protest against the EDL march but although there were a few minor scuffles as EDL protesters made their way to the pub, a large police presence kept the two groups apart.

Police again handed out copies of the conditions opposed on their protest. A small group of protest clowns taunted the police but there was no real attempt to break the police conditions. Eventually the UAF held a rally opposite Downing Street kept by police well away from the EDL rally taking place at the same time on the Embankment.

Anti-fascists oppose the EDL

Football Lads Alliance at London Bridge

Well over a thousand supporters of the recently formed Football Lads Alliance marched to the centre of London Bridge to protest what they see as the UK government’s reluctance in tackling the current extremism problem. I arrived late when the march was over but was able to photograph some of those taking part as they posed with wreaths at the centre of the bridge.

I went on to photograph the many flowers and messages that had been put their by people in the days since the attack.

Football Lads Alliance at London Bridge

Women protest DUP/Tory talks – Downing St

Back at Downing Street women concerned over abortion rights, housing activists and others had come to protest against the talks taking place with the Democratic Unionist Party and the concessions Theresa May would make to get their support for her government after the 2017 general election had resulted in a hung parliament.

Many protesters were in red for the blood of lives lost without access to reproductive rights, but others came to protest about those who lost their lives at Grenfell tower because they were considered too poor or black to need safe housing, for the disabled who have died because of cuts and unfair assessments, for innocent civilians bombed overseas and by terrorists here, for the blood shed in Northern Ireland before the peace process and for the decision to gamble the rights, health and safety of LGBT+ people.

Women protest DUP/Tory talks

Time for PR – Save Our Democracy – Parliament Square

At the end of the rally at Downing Street I walked down to Parliament Square, where Make Votes Matter and Unlock Democracy had organised a picnic and rally after the recent election had again demonstrated the unfairness of our current voting system. The rally used various colours of balloons to represent the percentage of the vote gained by different parties.

Prime Minister Theresa May had called a snap election but failed to get the 326 seats needed for an overall majority with only 317 Conservatives elected. Her party had received 42.3% of the total votes. Labour under Jeremy Corbyn had improved its position and had gained 30 seats but was still well behind at 262 seats and 40% of the total votes. They had failed to gain some key marginals where the party right had managed to stop the party giving proper support to candidates or probably the party would have won the election. By making promises to the Democratic Unionist Party, DUP who had won 10 seats in Northern Ireland, May was able to remain as Prime Minister.

Time for PR – Save Our Democracy

Withdraw US troops from Korea – US Embassy

The UK Korean Friendship Association marked the 67th anniversary of the start of the Korean War, never officially ended, by a protest outside the US Embassy calling for the withdrawal of US troops from South Korea and an end to sanctions on the so-called Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, one of the least democratic countries in the world, a highly centralised authoritarian state ruled by the Kim family now for over 70 years, according to its constitution guided “only by great Kimilsungism–Kimjongilism.”

Withdraw US troops from Korea

LSE Cleaners Victory Party – Burgess Park, Southwark

*Mildred Simpson shows off the ‘Masters of Arts’ certificates that were presented to the cleaners at the protest*

Finally it was good to meet with the cleaners from the LSE and other members and friends of the United Voices of the World and Justice 4 Cleaners who were celebrating the end of their 8 months of campaigning at the LSE. I had been at the meeting when the campaign was launched as a part of the LSE’s 3-day ‘Resist’ Festival organised by Lisa McKenzie, then a research fellow at the LSE, and had photographed many of their protests and it was great to celebrate their success with them.

*Class War had supported the cleaners in their protests and some came to celebrate*

Their actions, including 7 days of strike, had achieved parity of terms and conditions of employment with directly employed workers and a promise that they would be brought in-house by the Spring of 2018.

Several of the cleaners spoke at the party and the cleaners were “presented with ‘Masters of Arts’ certificates with First Class Honours in Justice and Dignity.”

*Petros Elia, UVW General Secretary runs to organise everyone for a group photo*

The final part of the dispute was settled a month later in July 2017 when Alba became the 5th cleaner to be reinstated at the LSE in a year with the UVW “winning a groundbreaking, precedent setting tribunal hearing today which declared Alba’s dismissal not only unlawful but profoundly and manifestly unfair.”

LSE Cleaners Victory Party

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Stamford Brook, Ravenscourt Park and a Bull – 1990

Stamford Brook, Ravenscourt Park and a Bull: My photographs on Sunday 7th January 1990 began with a couple of views of the Thames though the window of my District Line train which I’ve not put online, but my walk started after I got off at Stamford Brook station and walked south down Goldhawk Rd.

*Goldhawk Rd, Stamford Brook, Hammersmith & Fulham, 1990, 90-1d-63*

This fine house at 397-399 attracted my attention. It had been Grade II listed in 1976, but the listing text was unusually vague about its date, calling it “Early to mid C19” and the Westcroft Square conservation area document is equally vague.

Beyond the house is a large noticeboard for ‘Z GREGORY BROTHERS, BUILDING CONTRACTORS’ at 399a, still there and I think only the phone number has changed, and another fairly grand semi-detached house which I think are late Victorian.

St Peter's Square, Hammersmith, Hammersmith & Fulham, 1990, 90-1d-53 — *St Peter’s Square, Hammersmith, Hammersmith & Fulham, 1990, 90-1d-53*

Since I was so close I couldn’t resist another short visit to St Peter’s Square south of the main road which changes its name here from Chiswick High Road to King Street. After the county of London was formed in 1889 this was the boundary between London and Middlesex and it is now the boundary between the London boroughs of Hounslow and Hammersmith & Fulham.

I’d photographed this square fairly extensively the previous month – see my post here) and only stopped to take a handful of pictures – this the only one online – and I was rather pleased with it.

Youngs Corner, Goldhawk Rd, King St, Stamford Brook, Hammersmith & Fulham, 1990, 90-1d-55 — *Young’s Corner, Goldhawk Rd, King St, Stamford Brook, Hammersmith & Fulham, 1990, 90-1d-55*

Back on the main road I photographed the corner of Goldhawk Road and King Street, known as Young’s Corner and, as a plaque at first floor level also informs us, ‘REBUILT 1894’, though I’m rather surprised the architect wanted his name on the rather drab two storey buildingon the corner. But at least it doesn’t completely hide the much grander Victorian building at 417 Goldhawk behind behind with its slim turret – and it is perhaps this building for which the architect was claiming credit rather than the shop.

Grocer John Young had leased a shop here in 1830, and it later also became a post office. When at his death in 1860 his youngest son Charles Spencer Young took over the business he eventually turned it into a shop to display prints as a successful picture dealer. When horse-drawn trams ran to here in 1882, the tramway stop was named Young’s Corner.

*King St, Stamford Brook, Hammersmith & Fulham, 1990, 90-1d-56*

A fine row of three shops at 352- 356 King Street. At left is a basic and rather ugly more modern building – described in the conservation area document as “modern infill of no merit and bulky appearance“.

Ravenscourt Park, 1990, 90-1d-45 — *Ravenscourt Park, Hammersmith & Fulham, 1990, 90-1d-45*

Ravenscourt Park is not just an Underground station, but a decent sized park with a lake fed by Stamford Brook, which originally was part of a moat around the manor house of Palingswick (or Paddenswick) Manor. It and the area got its name after the house was bought in 1747 by Thomas Corbett who renamed it Ravenscourt, thought to be a not very good pun on his name – ‘corbeau‘ being French for raven.

I hardly went into the park, and this house is 260 King Street.

Mac's Cameras, Shops, 250-8, King St, Hammersmith & Fulham, 1990, 90-1d-46 — *Mac’s Cameras, Shops, 250-8, King St, Hammersmith & Fulham, 1990, 90-1d-46*

The house at 260 King Street is at the left of this picture, followed by a row of shops including one of more interest to me than most, Mac’s Cameras. Max Irming-Geissler set up the shop here in the late 1950s and it continued more or less until his death in 2012. It was a great place to look at a window full of second-hand cameras and lenses, though I don’t think I ever actually bought anything there.

*The Bull, Ravenscourt Arms, King St, Hammersmith, Hammersmith & Fulham, 1990, 90-1d-31*

This Grade II listed black bull was created by Obadiah Pulham of Pulham & Son in Woodbridge, Suffolk, a well-known maker of garden ornaments, grottoes and follies. It is almost certainly made from Pulhamite, their own proprietary artificial rock, similar to the better-known Coade stone. I think it might actually have been William Lockwood’s Portland Stone Cement. James Pulham was an apprentice to Lockwood and became manager of Lockwood’s Spitalfields office around 1820 with his brother Obidiah as his assistant.

It was created as a pub sign for the Black Bull coaching inn at 122a Holborn and gets a mention from Dickens in Martin Chuzzlewit published in 1843. The pub was demolished in 1904 for an extension to Gamages but the bull was saved by Hammersmith MP Sir William Bull to put above the entrance to his law firm in King Street.

When these offices were demolished it was located outside a 1960s pub, at 257 King Street, a short way down Vencourt Place. The pub later changed its name from the Ravenscourt Arms to the Black Bull. The pub closed around 2018 but it and the bull are I think still there.

People’s Assembly, English National Alliance, Dykes – 2013

People’s Assembly, English National Alliance, Dykes: Saturday 22nd June 2013 saw a major rally by the Peoples’ Assembly in Methodist Central Hall with smaller protests outside by Class War, Occupy and others and a small march by the English National Alliance march to lay flowers at the Cenotaph and take a letter to David Cameron. My photography ended for the day at the Dyke March London 2013.

People’s Assembly – Methodist Central Hall

People's Assembly, English National Alliance, Dykes - 2013

I didn’t actually go to the People’s Assembly but did take pictures of some of the people and groups outside and people as they come out from the event. It had seemed to me and to others that it had been deliberately organised as a ‘safety valve’ “used by the trade union establishment to “disperse some of the head of steam that had built up among the rank and file” rather like “the huge ‘Stop the War’ protest in Feb 2003, when leaders who were now prominent in the Assembly failed to take any decisive action – simply calling for another (and in the event rather smaller) protest a while after Blair had declared it was war. “

The events inside were “stage managed so that any criticism of the Labour Party and trade unions was banned from the main hall – with for example Ken Loach being told there was no room for him to speak at the plenary.” The groups I photographed outside were also denied any voice. This was clearly as I described it, a “Labour love-in“.

People’s Assembly

Class War – Action Not Talk?

Ian Bone had called for “a f**king big mob outside” (my asterisks) the People’s Assembly, but the mob largely failed to turn up. Around enough for a football team. And in a questionable piece of timing his rally in the pulpit facing Methodist Central Hall started just a few minutes after the faithful had gone inside for another session of the “pointless jamboree“.

So Comrades Bone and Heath and the other speakers called for an end to talk talk, and for action on the streets following the examples of Turkey and Brazil to a largely empty London street. Even the Anonymous masked guys from Occupy couldn’t be bothered to leave their picnic to listen, though I found it amusing. And sad, because much of what was said was just too true.

Action Not Talk?

Anonymous Occupy the Grass

A small group of Occupy London supporters, some wearing ‘Anonymous’ masks handed out leaflets, offered free hugs, and had a picnic on the grass area outside the QEII centre in front of the People’s Assembly Against Austerity. There were also several other groups offering an alternative to the talk-shop going on inside Methodist Central Hall.

Anonymous Occupy the Grass

ENA Meet Left Opposition – Westminster

*English National Alliance leader Bill Baker leads his group away as police hold back anti-racists*

With a major left-wing event taking place in and around Methodist Central Hall it was probably not the best day for the extreme right English National Alliance to hold a march in Westminster, but it would have gone a little more smoothly if the police had not led them into the area filled with more radical small groups in front of the hall.

*The march set off with around ten people*

After the ENA had only gone a few yards into the area, some still shouting slogans including “No Surrender” they were surrounded by people shouting “Fascist scum!”, “Racists!” and some trying to bar their way. Police pushed them (and me) out of the way, but minor scuffles developed, with police making one arrest. A woman taking photographs told me she was hit by the stick one of the ENA was using.

Police rushed the marchers into the area in front of the QEII conference centre and then back onto Broad Sanctuary to Parliament Square, with a few counter-protesters accompanying them and shouting. I went with them to the gates of Downing Street where I declined their request to go with Baker, but did take a copy of the statement they were intending to deliver to David Cameron.

On My London Dairy I wrote more about the ENA and their complaints against the press as well as their policies. The start of the march was delayed as they waited for more to arrive (they didn’t) and we had a long discussion. I argued that accurate reporting was important and had that I tried hard to represent people’s views even when I don’t agree with them.

It was a sensibly conducted discussion but I was unable to convince them that the problems in housing were not caused by immigration by “the failure of successive governments to invest in social housing, exacerbated by the Thatcher’s right to buy policy and the subsidies to landlords through housing benefit.” Or that “Education is in a mess not because our pupils now have to learn about Muslims, or that we don’t teach British history (schools still do) but because of the failure of politicians to listen to those who know anything about it and a target-driven culture that mistakes better test results for better education etc.“

But I did try to present the views they expressed to Cameron in my piece on My London Diary, and I think these include some points the left might find surprising. As I concluded, “It seems to me to reflect a deeply felt dissatisfaction with changes in our society but to fail to see the real causes – largely class and capital – and instead to blame these on immigration and immigrants, who have enriched our society in so many ways through the ages and continue to do so.“

More at ENA Meet Left Opposition.

Dykes March – Berkeley Square to Soho

The previous year had seem the first Dyke March London for many years, but this years march had had less publicity and support and there were less than half as many people in Berkeley Sqaure for the start.

Speakers at the opening rally included the writer, critic, poet and deputy editor of the trans digital magazine META Roz Kaveney who read one of her poems, and founder of the UK’s LGBT History and long-standing LGBT activist Sue Sanders.

*Queer Sluts + Godesses – Empowerment though music Eros + cake’*

Sanders tested the crowd of several hundred women on their knowledge of lesbian icons such as Dame Ethel Smyth, a suffragette who was one of the better British composers of the twentieth century. I think I did better than average on her quiz.

From Berkeley Square the march went down to Piccadilly on its way to a rally in Soho Square, but I left them at Piccadilly Circus.

Dykes March

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Anti-Homeless Spikes & No More Austerity – 2014

Anti-Homeless Spikes & No More Austerity: On Saturday 21st June 2014 I photographed a small protest against anti-homeless spikes outside the Tesco Metro on Lower Regent Street on my way to a much larger protest against austerity meeting at the BBC in Portland Place and marching to a rally in Parliament Square.

Call for Nationwide Homeless Spikes Ban

Public disquiet was mounting against the increasing use of anti-homeless spikes on and around buildings, metal or concrete spikes used to make pavements, ledges and other horizontal surface impossible or very uncomfortable for people to lie down or sometimes even sit on, aimed in particular at stopping homeless people sleeping there.

These spikes and other ‘hostile measures’ are increasingly used to force homeless people out of public spaces – you can read more about it in a 2016 article on the Crisis web site as well as in various newspaper reports. ‘Defensive Architecture’ continues and you can read about a 2024 campaign against spikes by artist Stuart Semple and creative agency TBWA\MCR in Big Issue.

Call for Nationwide Homeless Spikes Ban

No More Austerity – Demand The Alternative

There was huge support for the march and rally by The People’s Assembly, trade unions and campaign groups calling for an end to austerity which gathered outside the BBC to march to a rally in Parliament Square.

Clearly the government cuts since 2010 were causing huge problems across the nation and were stifling economic growth. And while we were still wasting huge amounts on senseless projects such as Trident nuclear missiles, public services were being cut, public sector workers were getting cuts in pay through below inflation increases. Education was suffering, the NHS was being increasingly privatised and generally the interests of the majority were being sacrificed while the wealthy were getting even richer.

Measure such as 2012 bedroom tax and later the two child benefit cap brought in in 2017 plunged many of the poorest even deeper into poverty and there were continued attacks on disability benefits.

I put almost all of the pictures from the march on-line without captions with a promise to add them later but – as so often – later never came. But I think most of the pictures tell their own story,

Among them are a number of pictures of Class War – some of them carrying a banner which later became their manifesto for the 2015 general election – for which they became a political party and stood a handful of candidates – who each only received a handful of votes. But perhaps ‘DOUBLE DOLE – NO BEDROOM TAX – DOUBLE PENSIONS’ was never likely to be an entirely convincing alternative.

In 2017 we did have a real alternative and the Labour vote was up by 9.5% and it was only a deliberate and deceitful campaign by the party right who were in control of the party mechanism diverting resources from key marginals that stopped a Corbyn victory. They out-manoeuvred the left again in 2019 both to ensure defeat and for the key architect of the disastrous policy that lost them the vote as minister for Brexit to become party leader.

But people in 2024 still wanted change, and voted against the hopeless and hapless Tories who had blustered under Boris, wilted faster than lettuce under Truss and submerged under Sunak. But what we got was not chage but Tory-lite, even resurrecting the tired skeletons of Blair and Mandelson. It now seems more than likely that at the next election we may get change – but for the even worse.

I won’t bother to put any of the pictures of speakers at the rally on-line, though I photographed a long list of them – all on My London Diary.

Parliament Square was pretty full and people were still arriving at the square long after I made a picture of the crowd at the start of the rally.

More pictures:
People’s Assembly Rally
No more Austerity – demand the alternative

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London World Naked Bike Ride 2025

London World Naked Bike Ride

Last Saturday I photographed a couple of protests, went to a disappointing photographic exhibition, took a snap of the Red Arrows and found myself with time to spare to go and photograph the 2025 London World Naked Bike Ride at its start and then later on my way to my last protest of the day.

The first year I photographed this event was in 2006 and I came back to it in almost every year until 2014, then again rather briefly in 2019. Here I’ll post some of what I wrote about it on that first occasion and then my comments on returning to photograph it in 2019, and end with my thoughts about the 2025 ride. All the pictures in this post are from Saturday 14th June 2025.

Unfortunately Facebook’s “community standards” prevent me from publishing an album of my pictures there, but you can find a selection of images on my Alamy portfolio pages. Though you may have to search or browse a few pages to find them after I upload more work.

2006

People in over 50 cities around the world were taking place in the World Naked Bike Ride as a protest against oil dependency and car culture. In London. over 600 cyclists, along with a few rollerskaters, rollerbladers and others took part.

As a change, I congratulate the Met police for allowing the event (unlike the Brighton cops.) Police cyclists – looking rather over-dressed in their usual uniform – led the event in its ride around some of the busiest streets in central London, and kept riders safe from traffic. Most of them seemed to be amused by the event.

So too were the crowds in central London. Many obviously found it hard to believe the evidence of their eyes, but all I saw seemed amused and none offended. Riders handed out a leaflet explaining the purpose of the event and advising “if you don’t wish to see nudity, please avert your gaze – we’ll soon be out of sight,” but I didn’t see anyone following this advice. Indeed it looked like the event should attract even more tourists to the city.

I don’t have a great problem with nudity. I was brought up told we were created in the image of our maker, so feel it would be blasphemous to object about the display of the naked body, although generally we may find it more prudent to keep it covered, especially in our climate. As my pictures show, not all those taking part rode entirely naked: the invitation was to ride “as bare as you dare!”

Photographing an event like this could be awkward, but I recognised many of those taking part and they knew me. There were a few conditions, but only one person out of the several hundred made it clear she didn’t want me to take a picture, and of course I didn’t.

It was an afternoon when it was more comfortable to be without clothes than in them (so long as you had plenty of sun-screen) and it certainly made an interesting spectacle. I had chosen not to ride a bike, and just pretended to be one as I ran up Piccadilly fully dressed with the mass of cyclists. By the time we got to the top of Haymarket I was pretty much whacked, and continued by tube to Waterloo to meet the ride as it came up York Road and get a different viewpoint.

2019

I’ve never been too impressed by the protest side of this. It’s more a fun ride for people who want to ride around London with no or very few clothes on. For those of us watching on the streets it is certainly unusual and entertaining, and I think very few could be seriously upset by it. The normal response seems to be a lot of pointing and laughing.

Perhaps if it were more of a protest there would be more women taking part. This year the imbalance seemed even greater than previously, with perhaps 10 or 20 men for every one woman, though I didn’t try to make an accurate count. My pictures do tend to concentrate more on the women than the men for various reasons. To state the obvious, these pictures involve nudity. Please do not click on the link if you may be offended or if you are in a place where others may be offended.

2025

This year there were even fewer women on the ride which now seems to be dominated by male nudists, with some coming from the continent to take part. It has become an event very much more about “body positivity” than a protest about car culture and cycle safety. And it illustrated the huge anatomical variation of male members of our species.

A mere handful rode with political messages written on their bodies and even fewer with flags or posters on their bikes. There was little of the creative face and body paint and fancy dress which had enlivened earlier years. It’s an event that has lost much of its interest for me and is far more drab than my pictures, which concentrate on the things that still interest me. Perhaps this is an event which has outlived its times.

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Wimbledon, Pensions & Hammersmith – 2004

Wimbledon, Pensions & Hammersmith: On Saturday 19th June 2004 I paid a short visit to Wimbledon Village Fair before photographing a TUC protest calling for changes in pension law and better pensions in Westminster and then going for a short riverside walk in Hammersmith. There are more pictures from the protest on My London Diary, I’ll include the short text I wrote at the time about the day as well as some from the captions I wrote in 2004.

Wimbledon Village Fair

Wimbledon, Pensions & Hammersmith - 2004

Home of tennis and the Wombles, Wimbledon always strikes me as an alien implant in London by some civilisation with a time machine, a sense of humour and a very fat wallet. I dropped in to the Village Fair just to see it still existed.

Pay Up For Pensions – Trade Union Congress March and Rally

Half an hour later I was back in the real world. Where companies make off with the pension funds leaving people who have paid in to schemes for years with no pensions. where other creditors come before pension holders when companies go bust.

Where millions of lower paid workers now have no employment pension rights at all. Where women have always been treated unfairly in many respects. Where government has worsened conditions for civil servants, teachers and others. As TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber says “Those who used to have good pensions now have poor pensions. Those who used to have poor pensions, now have no pension.”

*Marchers included many workers who have already lost their pensions when their companies folded*

*Banners on the march included many union branches including those for civil servants*

*People of all ages took part; not only the old are affected by pensions.*

*Marchers included pensioners who had served in WW2*

*Women have never been treated fairly over pensions by employers or state*

*The pink pensions pig caught between Big Ben and Parliamentary Offices*

*Workers from Samuel Jones lost their pensions when the company was taken over*

*‘Protect the Pension Promise’, ‘NO to work ’till you drop”. The labour movement looks to the government to act on pensions*

*Pensioners want a better deal, and the unfairness of pension theft is widely recognise*d

Unfortunately the New Labour Government wasn’t listening and the “the great British pension theft” begun by Margaret Thatcher and taken over by Gordon Brown continued, while ineffectual legislation introduced after the scandal when Robert Maxwell stole £460 million from the Mirror pensioners continued to allow companies to steal pensions from their workers. Despite pension protection schemes, workers can still lose when companies are taken over or fail.

More pictures on My London Diary.

Hammersmith

On the way home I went for a walk by the river in Hammersmith, another area of London strongly associated with William Morris. The Funivall Sculling Club here was established in 1896 as the Hammersmith Sculling Club For Girls – the world’s first women’s rowing club – by Dr Frederick Furnivall; it went unisex in 1901. Furnival had earlier championed rowing for working men. He served as the model for Ratty, the water rat in ‘Wind In The Willows’, as well as being involved with the preparation of the Oxford English Dictionary.

*Hammersmith Mall* – The second building is the Furnival Sculling Club

*Plastic bottles and other rubbish collected up by this landing stage near Hammersmith Bridge*

The former BBC Riverside Studios – part converted to offices which were advertised by the banner at roof level. It was imaginatively redeveloped in 2014-6 to provide better public facilities, a riverside walkway and 165 flats.

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1995 Colour – Poplar, Bow, Leyton, North Woolwich & Silvertown

Poplar, Bow, Leyton, North Woolwich & Silvertown: These pictures come from a number of visits to areas of London working on several different projects and are my final selection of colour panoramas made in 1995. There are a few more colour images, including some panoramas I made in 1995 in the images in the Flickr album as well as many I have not digitised; some very similar to those online, others that I now find of less interest. Some of these were taken as a part of my project on the Greenwich Meridian in London – you can see a set of 16 images from this on the urban landscape web site.

*Bow Locks, River Lea, Bow Creek, Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1995, 95p4-752*

Bow Locks separate the tidal River Lea from the Lea Navigation and the Limehouse Cut which offers an alternative route to the Thames to avoid the winding and dangerous Bow Creek. First built in 1850 they were remodelled in 1930. At the highest Spring tides water from Bow Creek would overtop the locks and raise the level of the canals here – the locks were modified in 2000 to stop this and avoid the silting it caused.

London Galvanizers, Leven Rd, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 5p4-743 — *London Galvanizers, Leven Rd, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 95p4-743*

The Poplar Gas Coompany built a local gas works here in the 1820s at the request of the Poplar Vestry after ratepayers lobbied them to provide gas street lighting. The site was cleared in 2011 and I was commissioned to photograph the removal of toxic earth from the site using barges on Bow Creek. Something around an eigth of the material was removed in this way, tides making the removal of more difficult. The original gasholders had to be built to special safety standards because of their proximity to the West India Dock wall. The last of the gasholders was removed in 2017.

London Galvanizers had modernised their galvanizing plant here in 1983-5 and were one of the most important jobbing galvanizers in London and the Home Counties.

*Langthorne Rd, Leyton, Waltham Forest, 1995, 95p4-862*

This street corner is close to the Meridian and I had stood here for some time outside the Chinese restaurant which was having some joinery work done. I liked the contrast between its orange paint and the blue on the opposite corner and the warm brown of the Birkbeck Tavern at right. I think I had made at least one exposure when a young girl in a red coat on roller skates came to see what I was doing – and I made this exposure as a red car come around, filling an otherwise rather empty grey space.

St Patrick's Catholic Cemetery, Langthorne Rd, Leyton, Waltham Forest, 1995, 95p4-841 — *St Patrick’s Catholic Cemetery, Langthorne Rd, Leyton, Waltham Forest, 1995, 95p4-841*

The Meridian also passes through this cemetery and I chose a viewpoint which included the cemetery chapel with a fine group of monuments in the foreground, I think all for people of Italian origin.

Stratford Station, Great Eastern Rd, Stratford, 1995, 95p4-963 — *Stratford Station, Great Eastern Rd, Stratford, Newham,1995, 95p4-963*

I’m unsure what this railway building to the east of the station was, perhaps a 1930s signal box. Parts of this area have now been redeveloped, and this has been behind fences for more than ten years and could stil be there, as least in part.

*King George V Dock, Woolwich Manor Way, North Woolwich, Newham, 1995, 95p9-171*

Finally four pictures from a walk along Woolwich Manor Way, this taken looking westwards along the south side of the King George V Dock. You can see the bridge over the dock entrance at right and the City Airport terminal and Canary Wharf at the end of the dock.

*Royal Albert Dock Basin, Woolwich Manor Way, North Woolwich, Newham, 1995, 95p9-161*

At left is the old swing bridge that took the road over the dock entrance from the basin. To its right is the elevated DLR and the pumping station at the centre of the Gallions roundabout. Further on only two buildings were standing along the side of the Basin, the Gallions Hotel and the Royal Docks Pumping Station.

*Containers, Woolwich Manor Way, North Woolwich, Newham, 1995, 95p9-162*

Land to the south of the Royal Albert Dock Basin just east of Woolwich Manor Way.

*King George V Lock, Woolwich Manor Way, North Woolwich, Newham, 1995, 95p9-153*

This swing bridge across the dock entrance is still there.

*Royal Victoria Dock, Silvertown, Newham, 1995, 95p11-262*

This was taken from Silvertown Way, looking across the Royal Victoria Dock. There are still cranes along the dockside here but the foreground now has flats. The Millenium Mills are still there, but there is nothing in the picture where the Excel Centre now stands and none of the other new developments on the north side of the dock. The council flats at the right have been demolished.

You can see these and some other colour pictures I took in 1995 at 1995 London Colour.

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Chariot Festival & Vigil for Custody Deaths – 2012

Chariot Festival & Vigil for Custody Deaths: On Sunday 17th June 2012 I photographed the Rathayatra Chariots Festival in Hyde Park, leaving as it set off to go to Brixton. Families of men killed in police custody were holding Fathers Day vigils outside police stations and at Brixton, the family of Ricky Bishop was joined by the sisters of Sean Rigg, whose inquest 4 years after his death there had just started and was in the news.

Hare Krishna Chariot Festival – Hyde Park

Chariot Festival & Vigil for Custody Deaths - 2012 — *Effigy of A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896-1977) the founder of ISKCON (Hare Krishna)*

The annual Rathayatra Chariots Festival is now one of the largest and most colourful religious processions in London with more than a thousand devotees pulling the three giant chariots through the streets from Hyde Park to Trafalgar Square, chanting ‘Hare Krishna’ and dancing.

The ceremony which began at the Jagannatha temple in Puri, Orissa on the Indian east coast at least a thousand years ago celebrates the time when Krishna grew up on earth; when he became a great lord he moved away from his childhood friends who were cowherds and they came with a cart and tried to kidnap him and take him back to their village.

Jagannath means ‘Master of the Universe’ and his name and the chariots in the festival give us the word “juggernaut”.

The first Rathayatra festival in the west was in San Francisco in 1967 and two years later it was begun in London by disciples from the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (better known as the Hare Krishna.)

Krishna, his sister Subhadra and elder brother Balarama each have a chariot and an effigy of the founder of ISKCON, C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896-1977) is also carried on one of the chariots in the festival.

More on My London Diary at Hare Krishna Chariot Festival.

Fathers Day Vigil for Custody Deaths – Brixton Police Station

At the vigil outside Brixton Police Station the family of Ricky Bishop was joined by the sisters of Sean Rigg; both were young men in their twenties died after being taken into the police station, Bishop in 2001 and Rigg in 2008.

On My London Diary you can read more about the two deaths and the steps police have taken to stop the truth about their deaths emerging with lies and failures to investigate. The inquiry by the IPCC wailed to question the officers concerned until 8 month after Sean Rigg’s death and the inquest was delayed for four years, beginning a few days before this protest. It was only because of the huge battles by his family that many of the facts emerged. A report into the IPCC investigation in 2013 had concluded they had committed a series of major blunders.

Two months after this vigil, Wikipedia states ‘the inquest jury returned a narrative verdict which concluded that the police had used “unsuitable and unnecessary force” on Rigg, that officers failed to uphold his basic rights and that the failings of the police “more than minimally” contributed to his death.’

Other vigils were taking place on the same day at Birmingham West Midlands Police HQ and in High Wycombe for Habib ‘Paps’ Ullah, in Manchester for Anthony Grainger, Slough for Philmore Mills and at New Scotland Yard for Azelle Rodney.

More at Fathers Day Vigil.

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North Woolwich Photos – 2006

North Woolwich Photos: My account of my day on Friday 16 June 2006 is rather short – and manages to include a mis-spelling: “I took a trip to North Woolich and made some pictures there.” And the 45 pictures I posted had only the additional heading “North Woolwich, Thames, Royal Docks & Silvertown” but no captions. I think they deserve more, so I’ll correct that for a few of them in this post.

The ferry is the James Newman, built in 1963 and named after a prominent local figure who was Mayor of Woolwich in 1923–25 and was taken out of service in 2018. But I hadn’t arrived on the ferry but had put my folding bike onto a Silverlink service on the North London Line which then ran from Richmond to North Woolwich Station (the section from Stratford to North Woolwich close at the end of 2006.)

The building in the background of the second image is North Woolwich Station, though it had by that date been abandoned by trains which stopped being used as a station in 1979, replaced by a considerably less grand and basic structure on its south side. For some years it was a museum and this fine 1854 building is now home to the New Covenant Church. My picture is taken from the riverside path.

Next came three pictures showing the reverside flats just past the Old Bargehouse Draw Dock and Causeway at the end of Bargehouse Road. Until the Woolwich Free Ferry was introduced in 1889 this was where ferries ran across the river to Woolwich. On this occasion I’d cycled past the remains of the Free Ferry without taking any pictures, probably because I had photographed them on several occasions before. You can see the other two pictures of the flats on My London Diary.

I took a few pictures looking across the River Thames most of which I didn’t post on My London Diary and then this one after I’d crossed the lock gates of the King George V Dock entrance and had come to the lock entrance to the Royal Albert Dock Basin. The building here has since been replaced by the flats of Lockside Way.

The riverside path – part of the Capital Way – continues north to an abrupt end close to Atlantis Avenue and this view from its end shows the remains of the jetty which brought coal to the Beckton Gas Works. I retraced my path, taking more pictures – some concrete pipe sections, a disused lock gate and a lorry park on My London Diary and then made my way to Woolwich Manor Way.

Here I could photograph across the dock. At the left are new flats built between the dock and University Way and in the foreground are two yellow towers carrying approach lights for the runway of London City Airport.

*A plane takes off from London City Airport*

The haze that you see in this picture, taken with a 300mm (equivalent) lens is a little more obvious than in the other pictures thanks to air pollution, which the airport contributes to.

I made some more photographs in North Woolwich – tthere was a Football World Cup taking place in Germany – England were eventually knocked out by Portugal in the quarter-finals.

London City Airport DLR station had opened in December 2005 and I was able to take photographs from there both of the Airport Terminal and of Tate & Lyle’s sugar refinery.

I took more pictures in Silvertown and Canning Town, some of which you can see on My London Diary, before making my way back to Central London. There I took some more pictures around Brick Lane, some of which I put on My London Diary in a seperate post. It had been a good day for me.

More pictures:
North Woolwich, Thames, Royal Docks & Silvertown
Brick Lane

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