Zuma, Boat Dwellers, Syria & Latin Village: Saturday 8th April 2017 was another varied day for me in London with protests against South African President Zuma, the Canal & River Trust, chemical warfare in Syra and against the planned demolition of the largest Latin American community market in England.
Zuma Must Go – Trafalgar Square
South Africans living in the UK had come to protest outside the South African High Commission after President Zuma sacked the Finance Minister and his deputy.
They accuse Zuma and the African National Congress government of wrecking the South African economy and say that “Zuma must fall”.
Police had set barriers outside the High Commission for the protest and the protesters were so densely packed into the area that it was very difficult to move around an take photographs.
It was a colourful protest and certainly demonstrated the anger of those taking part but the ANC would still remain the leading party and if Zuma resigned he would be replaced by another ANC leader.
Zuma did finally go, replaced by Cyril Ramaphosa in 2018 because of the increasing allegations of corruption and cronyism and in 2021 was given a 15 month contempt of court sentence for refusing to testify. Ramaphosa is also a controversial figure with various allegations of corruption, and as as London Platinum non-executive director urged the police to take the action which lead to the police massacre at Marikana on August 16, 2012 which lead to the deaths of 44 miners and over 70 more with serious injuries.
The elections next month, May 2024 are expected to be the first since the end of apartheid in 1994 in which the ANC will not gain over 50% of the vote and the country may get a coalition government. Zuma who has now joined the opposition Umkhonto weSizwe (MK) party has been banned from standing in the election but has appealed the ban.
Boat dwellers held a rally in Embankment Gardens before marching to Downing St and DEFRA to demand the Canal & River Trust (CRT) stops evicting or threatening to evict boat dwellers without permanent moorings.
The say the British Waterways Act 1995 includes the right to live on a boat without a permanent mooring and that the CRT is acting illegally in evicting or threatening to evict boat dwellers.
Although boats can be required to move after 14 days at a mooring, the law requires at least 28 days notice and does not lay down restrictions on the distance boats have to move or that they should be making a “progressive journey.”
Some of the speakers at the rally had horror stories about boats being seized and other illegal activities by the trust, a charity set up in 2012 to look after the canals and navigable rivers.
Boat dwellers also oppose the plans being made for chargeable bookable moorings and want the trust to maintain the canals properly. The rally was still continuing when I needed to leave.
March Against Chemical Warfare in Syria – Marble Arch
RefugEase and Syria Solidarity Campaign had organised this march calling on the UK Government to protect civilians in Syria.
President Assad’s forces used Sarin nerve agent three years earlier at Ghouta, and a few days before the protest there had been another attack using Sarin at Khan Sheikhoon near Idlib on April 4th.
The West’s response to the Syrian Revolution has been confusing and largely ineffectual. The US and Turkey encouraged and aided the setting up of an Islamic state and allowed it to export oil to finance its operations – and later the US gave air support to the Kurds to defeat ISIS. And although there were strong words over the use of chemical weapons at Ghouta, there was no real action. Nor has their been any opposition to the invasion and occupation of large parts of Syria by Turkish forces.
The march to Downing St began at Marble Arch and I walked with it down Oxford Street as far as Oxford Circus Station where I caught the Victoria Line to Seven Sisters.
The indoor market next to Seven Sisters station in South Tottenham had been reinvigorated in recent years by the local Latin American community and had become the largest Latin American community market in England.
Part of the site at Ward’s Corner has been derelict for some years and the local authority, Haringey Council, wants to demolish the who block together with property developers which would convert it to expensive flats and chain stores, profiting investors at the expense of the community.
In 2008 the community gained the support of London Mayor Boris Johnson who wrote to the council asking them to review the scheme. But the council were determined to go ahead along with property developer Grainger PLC and issued a compulsory purchase order in 2016 which was finally approved by the secretary of state for housing, communities, and local government James Brokenshire in 2019.
The community in the area had been fighting since 2002 to save the Latin Village from this social cleansing and gentrification and on Saturday 8th April 2017 held a festival there. The speeches and performances paused for everyone to join hands in a human chain around a quarter of a mile long around the whole block.
In 2020 Transport for London who had taken over the management of the indoor market closed it down. But in 2021 Grainger PLC withdrew from the plans for the site. You can read more about the Wards Corner Community Plan online. The Community Benefit Society was launched in 2022 and planned to reopen the site in 2024.
Kenfig, Hedon Sand & River Hull – these pictures I made on Monday 21st August 1989 on a short section of the River Hull. I had hoped to walk along the footpath beside the river between Drypool Bridge and North Bridge.
Boats, River Hull, downstream, Drypool Bridge, Hull, 1989 89-8n-35
The small tug Felix-Tow has got around a bit since it was built in the Netherlands in 1955. After working in Rotterdam the Ijssel came to Felixtowe in 1967 where it was renamed FELIX-TOW. I think it was fairly new to Hull where it was owned by Dean’s Tugs Ltd – and was still in service in 2008 – perhaps still now.
Boats, River Hull, upstream, Drypool Bridge, Hull, 1989 89-8n-36
The vessel in the foreground is a coastal tanker belonging to the Hull based petroleum company RIX which still operates a fleet of coastal oil tankers, estuarial barges and crew transfer vehicles. Rix have oil storage tanks around a mile further up the river.
The company, as their web site relates, began in 1873 when Robert Rix, a sea Captain and Merchant Adventurer working in Hull set up in business building small coastal craft on the south bank of the River Tees in Stockton. In the 1900s the company bought steam ships and began operating them. The move into petroleum products came in 1927 when they began importing tractor vaporising oil and Lamp oil, packed in oak casks on their ships from Russia to the Humber.
The company expanded rapidly after the end of World War Two, supplying agricultural and commercial diesel across Yorkshire and opening petrol filling stations around Hull. The company has continued to grow and expand into new areas.
Vessels, River Hull, upstream, Drypool Bridge, Hull, 1989 89-8n-21
Barges like these in the middle of the picture were once very common, and were often moored three or four abreast in the Old Harbour downstream of Drypool Bridge, but by 1989 were becoming much less common, though some are still in use. Others have been converted to houseboats.
Barges like this might carry as much as 24 large lorries and could transfer goods from the docks to river wharves at much lower costs than road transport, with much lower pollution and carbon footprint. But of course they could only take goods to sites on navigable rivers and canals and so are much less flexible than road transport.
Hedon Sand, River Hull, upstream, Drypool Bridge, Hull, 1989 89-8n-22
Hedon Sand, IMO 5185875 was a Grab Hopper Dredger built in 1954 close to Hull at Richard Dunston’s Hessle Yard. The ship had gross tonnage 677 tons, deadweight 813 tons and was around 50 metres long with a breadth of 10 meters. An 8 cylinder four-stroke msrine Ruston & Hornsby engine give it a top speed of 9 knots.
Hedon Sand, River Hull, upstream, Drypool Bridge, Hull, 1989 89-8n-23
Known for most of its active life as Kenfig, it had been built for the British Transport Commission and was transfered to the British Transport Docks Board in Cardiff in 1963. It returned to the Humber and was used in dredging the Humber Dock Basin when Humber Dock was being converted to the Marina.
Mud is always a problem in the Humber and in the River Hull and I think dredging was always needed when the River Hull was still a commercial river. In recent years there seems to be far more mud in the river close to the mouth than I remember.
Hedon Sand, River Hull, upstream, Drypool Bridge, Hull, 1989 89-8n-24
Kenfig was sold to Jones & Bailey Contractors Ltd, Hull in 1983 – they also owned another dredger, Grassendale and they renamed it Hedon Sand. In 1989 when I took these pictures the vessel was sold to be broken up in Hull.
River Hull, upstream, Drypool Bridge, Hull, 1989 89-8n-25
I think some at least of these massive wooden beams had probably once supported parts of the riverside path I had hoped to walk.
Kenfig, River Hull, upstream, Drypool Bridge, Hull, 1989 89-8n-26
Ahead of me I could see North Bridge but with extensive work taking place on the riverbank there was no way I could continue to walk along it and I had to retrace my steps to Drypool Bridge
Hedon Sand, River Hull, upstream, Drypool Bridge, Hull, 1989 89-8n-12
On my way I took another picture of Hedon Sand before walking up to the road and going on into East Hull – where I took more pictures. More later.
Sudan and Brunei Gay Sex: I began work on Saturday 6th April 2019 at the Sudanese Embassy and then left for the Dorchester Hotel in Mayfair where protesters had come after the Sultan of Brunei had announced death by stoning as a punishment for gay sex, adultery and blasphemy.
Sudanese for Freedom, Peace and Justice – Sudan Embassy
War is raging again now in Sudan between between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
Back in 2019 people were protesting against the extreme violence in Sudan against peaceful protests calling for for an end to the violent and corrupt Sudanese regime and for president Omar al-Bashir to ‘Just Fall’ and stand trial by the ICC for genocide in Darfur, the Nuba Mountains and South Blue Nile.
People in Sudan had been protesting for 17 weeks and over 70 protesters had been killed and thousands injured.
Five days later, Omar al-Bashir was deposed by the Sudanese Armed Forces and in May 2019 was charged al-Bashir with “inciting and participating in” the killing of protesters. Later other charges were brought, including of corruption and money laundering. Other trials followed and he has been accused of genocide. The prison in which he was being held has been overrun by the current fighting between forces led by the generals who deposed him and he is currently held in a military hospital in Khartoum.
I left the protesters still in and around the protest pen outside the embassy opposite St James Palace in Cleveland Row and rushed the three quarters of a mile or so to the Dorchester Hotel in Park Lane, where I knew the protest had already begun.
Brunei Sultan gay sex stoning protest – Dorchester Hotel
A large crowd had gathered on the streets in front of the Dorchester Hotel behind barriers that kept them out of the area directly in front of the entrance.
There were a number of speeches including those by Labour Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Emily Thornberry MP and activist Peter Tatchell condemining the announcement by the Sultan of Brunei of death by stoning as a punishment for gay sex, adultery and blasphemy.
It was a colourful protest with many from the gay community with some interesting posters and placards. Police continually harassed protesters to keep the roads open, although there were really too many people to make this sensible.
After an hour or so, Class War decided to move from behind the barriers and pushed some aside to protest directly in front of the hotel doors. They were followed by many of the other protesters and a noisy protest continued there.
Trinity House & High Street. On Monday 21st August 1989 I took a bus to Queen’s Gardens and then walked down Prince’s Dock Street and on to the High Street at the heart of the Old Town.
Hull Trinity House, Princes Dock Street, Hull, 1989 89-8n-56
This massive archway on Princes Dock Street led through to Trinity House Navigation School and other buildings of Hull’s Trinity House. The date 1842 above the entrance is for this building, erected a few years after Princes Dock was opened as Junction Dock in 1829 – and before it was renamed in honour of Prince Albert for the royal visit of 1854. Junction Dock joined the Old Dock (Queen’s Dock) to Humber Dock creating a string of docks joining the River Hull to the River Humber and making an island of the Old Town.
Hull’s Trinity House is of course far older, established in 1369 as the Guild of the Holy Trinity by Alderman Robert Marshall (I’m sure no relation of mine) and around 50 others as a sort of ‘Friendly Society’ for parishioners of Holy Trinity Church. It was only in 1457 when Edward IV granted it the right to charge duties for loading and unloading goods at Hull to fund an almshouse for seafarers that it got a maritime connection, and it acquired its premises from Carmelite friars, though the current Trinity House Lane building is a 1753 rebuild.
Later monarchs gave it the right to settle nautical disputes, to charge import taxes to maintain the harbour, set buoys and licence pilots for the Humber. In 1785 it set up a school which taught boys in reading, writing, accountancy, religion and navigation for three years before they began their apprenticeship. The school is now an academy and has moved to another site, and the archway now leads to a car park and events area which has been named Zebedee’s Yard after Zebedee Scaping (1803-1909) who served as Headmaster for 55 years.
Doorway, Old Town, Hull, 1989 89-8n-41
You can still see this doorway at 39, High Street, though it is currently not numbered, just to the north of the entrance to Bishop Lane Staith. The area below the semicircular window at top right has been opened up as a larger window, though the sill in my picture suggests it was earlier bricked up.
Transport Museum, High St, Hull, 1989 89-8n-44
The Transport Museum was set up by Thomas Sheppard and opened in 1925 as the Museum of Commerce and Transport and housed in the former Corn Exchange on High Street and had a very extensive display showing the evolution of transport and Hull’s principle industries, along with ten veteran cars bought from a private museum and horse-drawn vehicles from East Yorkshire.
Like much of Hull it suffered extensive wartime damage – Hull was the most severely damaged British city or town during the Second World War, with 95 percent of houses damaged and almost half of the population made homeless. But news reports except on rare occasions were only allowed to refer to it as a “north-east coast town” and even now many histories of the war ignore the incredible damage to the city.
The museum reopened in 1957 as the Transport and Archaeology Museum. But in 2002 the transport collection moved to the new Streetlife Museum and this building became the Hull and East Riding Museum
Wilberforce House, High St, Hull, 1989 89-8n-46
Thomas Sheppard became the first curator of the Hull Municipal Museum in 1901 and achieved a massive increase in its visitor numbers by refurbishing the display and making entry free. Sheppard went on to set up half a dozen other Hull museums, the first of which in 1906 was Wilberforce House, opened as a museum in 1906, dedicated to the slave trade and the work of abolitionists and a memorial to Hull’s best-known citizen, William Wilberforce MP.
Wilberforce House, High St, Hull, 1989 89-8n-31
William Wilberforce was born in this house on the High Street in 1759. The house is one of the oldest in Hull, built in 1660 but extended by the Wilberforce family in the 1730s and 1760s. In 1784 part of the premises became the the Wilberforce, Smith & Co Bank.
Wilberforce sold the house in 1830. After Hull Council brought in a rate to fund the preservation of historic buildings in 1891, a campaign began for the council to buy the house which they did in 1903, opening it as a public museum in 1906.
Wilberforce House, High St, Hull, 1989 89-8n-32
The display that many in Hull had grown up with was updated in 1983 to the dismay of many residents who felt it lacked the detail and impact of the original and that it represented a move towards entertainment rather than enlightenment.
The displays were again altered in 2006-7 with improvements to access and reopened in 2007, which was the 200th Anniversary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade in Britain.
House, 23-4, High St, Hull, 1989 89-8n-33
These houses dating from around 1760 and restored after wartime bombing according to the Grade II listing text were incorporated into the Wilberforce museum in 1956.
House, 23-4, High St, Hull, 1989 89-8n-34
Here you see the view south down High Street from the houses, past Wilberforce House
From High Street I walked on to Drypool Bridge where the next post in this series will begin.
Treasure, Fresh Meat, Rose Villa… has some more pictures on Beverley Road, from where I walked into Pearson Park andthrough the Avenues back to my parents-in-law’s home.
Treasure Chest at 220 Beverley Road had closed and was to let, but its frontage contained messages at various levels, including an ‘OPEN’ sign on the door. the shop is still there, one in a row of shops on the east side of the road going north from Temple Street, and in 2022 was occupied by ‘Edward Scissor Barbers’. It had gone through a number of changes since 1989, including ‘£1PLUS’, a Polish Butcher, a Unisex Hair Salon and doubtless more.
I’m not sure what Treasure Chest had offered, though previously it appeared to be possibly a secondhand furniture shop offering to carry out home clearances. The windows were flyposted, with ‘Can Gorbachev reform Russia‘, a meeting at the New White Harte and an SWP ‘Troops out Now‘ protest in London (I think out of Ireland.)
But more mystifying were the two carefully printed ‘SIMPLE MINDS‘ at the top of each window. Were these for the Glasgow rock band?
Fresh Meat, Beverley Rd, Hull, 1989 89-8n-65
Another mystery door behind a wire screen protecting the frontage. It advertises ‘FRESH MEAT’ but with pictures of what I thought was a hamster and some kind of tropical fish. On the door an invitation to ‘JOIN OUR CHRISTMAS CLUB’ has been posted on top of another advertising a holiday play scheme at Kingston Community Centre – what I first took to be a pile of bodies is actually a rather sinister clown whose cap offers ‘TONS OF FUN’.
This picture was taken on Sunday 20th August 1989 and the shop was closed, but otherwise I’m sure it was still in use.
Rose Villa, 269-71, Beverley Rd, Hull, 1989 89-8n-66
Rose Villa, now a nursing home, is on the west side of Beverley Rd on its corner with Pearson Park, facing the Dorchester Hotel. The Beverley Road Heritage Trail leaflet states:
“Rose Villa is now a care home but was originally Claremont Villa, the home of coal and wool merchant William Croft. His business partner Henry Croft lived just across the road at the Dorchester Hotel, which at the time was three houses: Dorchester House, Tamworth Lodge and Stanley House.
The buildings are notable for their fanciful shaped gables and turrets, built by Bellamy and Hardy in 1861-2. Other occupiers here have included ship owners, timber merchants, and popular local grocer William Cussons.”
The Dorchester Hotel was at one time owned by one of my wife’s relatives, though I never went there.
Pearson Park, Archway, Pearson Ave, Hull, 1989 89-8n-51
This Grade II listed gateway to Pearson Park was made by Young & Wood of Hull and is cast-iron in a Classical Revival style.
Pearson Park was Hull’s first public park, laid out on land given to the Corporation by Zacharia Pearson, Mayor of Hull in 1860. Pearson was sent to school by his uncle after this mother died, and ran away to sea when his was 12, but was sent back to complete his sentence at Hull Grammar. He went back to sea on leaving school and rapidly progressed to becoming a captain and then a ship owner. With his brother-in-law he founded Pearson, Coleman & Co shipping timber from the Baltic and freight and later passengers to America – and later Australia and New Zealand.
Pearson became mayor in 1859 and donated liberally to various charities in Hull as well as giving the land for Pearson Park. But in the 1860s several of his business affairs went disastrously wrong. His worst mistake came with the US Civil War where he tried to keep Hull’s cotton mills in work by sending ten ships to try to break the blocade and all ten and their cargoes were lost. His bankruptcy was for a spectacular £646,000 – something like £63m now allowing for inflation – and he was ostracised from civic life in the Hull.
Pearson Park, Archway, Pearson Ave, Hull, 1989 89-8n-52
Despite his spectacular removal from Hull society, Pearson Park retains his name, and Pearson is still among the great philanthropists of Hull. This archway seemed in fairly good condition when I made these two pictures in 1989 , but had long lost both its gates and the maritime themed decorations and urns which had stood on top of the arch and a few large cracks can be seen at the top of the arch.
The archway was returned to its original grandeur by restoration specialists Lost Art in 2019 in an extensive project. It is now also stronger to be more resilient to the extra weight of modern traffic.
House, Salisbury St, Park Avenue, Hull, 1989 89-8n-53
I walked through the park and crossed Princes Avenue to walk down Park Avenue. You can see in this picture the poor condition back in 1989 of these grand houses close to the corner with Salisbury Street. I think this was 109 Park Avenue, but there is a virtually identical house in Salisbury St.
House, Salisbury St, Park Avenue, Hull, 1989 89-8n-55
This group of eight Grade II listed houses are thought to be the only remaining examples of domestic buildings by George Gilbert Scott Junior, an early exponent of the Queen Anne style.
House, Salisbury St, Park Avenue, Hull, 1989 89-8n-54
Some of these houses had already been restored as this view shows. All now look in good condition.
This was the last picture I took on this walk on Sunday 20th August 1989, but I was back in the centre of Hull taking pictures the following day – which I’ll post shortly.
Thames Path: Buscot to Cricklade: Together with my wife and elder son I had on Saturdays spread over several years walked much of the Thames path. We’d walked it chunks of around 8-12 miles a day between places which could be reached by public transport but had come to a halt at Shifford, near Hinton Waldrist, 9 miles to the southwest of Oxford from which, at least back around 2012 it was still possible to take a bus. Thanks to cuts I think the bus service is now too infrequent to be of use.
The room next to ours at Buscot had a four poster bed
But further upstream there was little or no public transport – and what little there was didn’t go in useful directions for us. So my son had booked us into a couple of hotels to bridge the gap, giving three longish days of walking. We travelled fairly light with just essentials in rucksacks – and of course for me a small camera bag, but it was still fairly taxing – and something I couldn’t repeat now, 11 years later.
I’d kept my photography equipment minimal too, taking just one camera, a Fuji X-Pro1 and I think two lenses. One was the Fujifilm XF18-55mmF2.8-4 R LM OIS, a mouthful almost larger than the lens itself, Fuji’s 18-55mm kit lens. It’s a fairly small and light lens but a remarkably good one. Fuji has since brought out zooms with wider focal length ranges, wider apertures (and higher prices) and I have some, but within its limitations I think this remains my favourite.
Halfpenny Bridge – the toll house at right – Lechlade
I don’t think I then owned a wider Fuji lens than the zoom with the 18mm being equivalent to 27mm on a full-frame camera, rather a moderated wide-angle for me, but for those scenes where I felt a need for a wider view I also took my Nikon DX 10.5mm fisheye with a Fuji adaptor. Compact and lightweight, this worked well but was a little fiddly to use. I’ve never found using lenses with adaptors quite as satisfactory as those in the actually camera fitting. I don’t think any of the pictures I put online for this section of the walk were made with this, though some for both other days are.
The entrance to the Thames and Severn Canal across the Thames
The Buscot to Cricklade section of the walk was a little shorter than the first day when we probably walked a total of sixteen or seventeen miles, but includes some of the best and some of the worst parts of the route. There are some delightful sections of riverside walking and Lechlade is certainly a town worth visiting, as we did, although a diversion from the Thames Path itself.
The next mile or so is arguably the most interesting section of the Thames Path, at least in its upper reaches, with the start of the Thames and Severn Canal. It’s also here that the Thames towpath begins – or for us ends.
And a short distance further on is the remarkable St John the Baptist Church at Inglesham, saved and restored by William Morris and his his pre-Raphaelite friends founded the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB) or ‘Anti-Scrape’ to oppose the gothicisation of buildings such as these.
But then comes a long trek over a mile beside a busy A361 followed by a longer one along along paths and lanes with hardly a sniff of a the river until you reach Castle Eaton, a village which seemed closed (and its pub certainly was.)
From there the path does follow the river all the way into Cricklade, though as I noted “going every direction except a straight line to there“. Finally we arrived at the White Hart, supposedly the poshest and oldest principal coaching inn at Cricklade since the time of Elizabeth 1 but bought by Arkells Brewery in 1973. Our rooms in a more modern part of the building were comfortable enough but rather less impressive than those on the previous night at Buscot.
Binnington seems to be a relatively common family name in parts of Yorkshire, though not one I’d come across before elsewhere. It’s hard to read the street number but I think it is 323, one of a short run of shops between the railway bridge and De Grey St on the west side of Beverley Rd.
I hadn’t come across many shops that were both hairdressers and tobacconists, though I think there may have been a couple of others in Hull. I wasn’t sure whether the CLOSED notice in the window was merely out of opening hours or more permanent.
Newland United Reformed Church, Beverley Rd, Hull, 1989 89-8m-13
Newland United Reformed Church was on the corner of Beverley Road and Brooklyn Street but was sold in 2012 and demolished. Nothing had been built on the site by May 2022.
There had been a church here, Hope Street Congregational Church since 1797. In 1903 it had been replaced by Newland Congregational Church, a simplified Gothic brick church designed by Moulds and Porritt in red and yellow brick with terracotta dressings which was demolished in 1969. Presumably it was then replaced with this simpler structure – Newland United Reformed Church from 1972.
May Street runs east from Beverley Rd, and Mayfair Unisex Salon was on its northern corner with Beverley Rd. As well as the obvious attraction for me of the male and female silhouettes for the ‘SUPPLIERS OF N.H.S WIGS GREAT SELECTION’. But also a face peers down from the upper window.
Hills, Beverley Rd, Hull, 1989 89-8m-15
Not only Mayfair, Hull also had (and still has) its Park Lane, though the lane now looks very different with no trace of Hills or any of its buildings.
The corner is now occupied by a building with a brickwork panel showing a junk and some Chinese characters and was built by the Hon Lok Senior Association along with ten houses and ten bungalows in Park Lane.
Hills, Office, Park Lane, Bull Inn, pub, Beverley Rd, Hull, 1989 89-8m-16
Thomas Hill Engineering Co. (Hull) Ltd had offices on the corner of their site on Park Lane opposite the Bull Inn. I’m not sure what kind of thinks they engineered but apparently in 1977 they were granted US Patent 4031764 on ‘Devices for “rotating articles in which the disadvantages of existing devices are minimized, and in which the containers are kept in line.”
Stepney Chapel is still on the corner of Cave Street and Beverley Road, but now looks in a very sorry state, around ten years or more since there were last services at Glad Tidings Hall (Pentecostal). The Chapel was built in 1849 when Stepney was still a small village as a Methodist New Connexion Chapel, but was replaced in 1869 by a much larger and grander Gothic church with seating for 600. This closed in 1966 and was demolished with a supermarket now on its site.
The Methodist New Connexion began in Sheffield in 1797 by secession from the Wesleyan Methodists led by Alexander Kilham and William Thom and grew rapidly. Accused of having sympathies with Tom Paine and the French Revolution it gave greater power to the lay member of the churches than the minister dominated Wesleyan Methodists. It grew rapidly paricularly across the north of England, though in the 20th century the various Methodist groupings re-united. William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, was ordained as a Methodist New Connexion Minister in 1858.
As my picture shows clearly, the chapel is aligned to Cave St rather than Beverley Rd.
CND Easter Monday Protest: On Easter Monday 2013 CND organised a large protest at the UK’s nuclear weapons establishment at Aldermaston, 12 miles to the west of Reading.
As this year, Easter Monday was also April Fool’s Day, and on Monday 1st April 2013 this was the Nuclear Fool’s Day – Scrap Trident rally. But Aldermaston is a huge site and the protesters were spread between the half dozen gates around its 5 mile fenced perimeter, with speakers travelling between the gates in a number of cars and lorries.
Pat Arrowsmith
I’d put my bike on the train to Reading, then cycled from there to the event. I found it quite a tiring ride with some long uphill sections against a prevailing westerly wind, and was rather tired by the time I arrived.
Natalie Bennett, then Leader of the Green Party
Every time I’ve been to Aldermaston I’ve always felt a slight tension in the air.I don’t really believe the air there is any more radioactive than around my home on the edge of London, and it’s certainly otherwise less pollution laden. And although it’s possible that many of the pictures I take are going to contravene our draconian Official Secrets Act 1911 (now replaced by the National Security Act 2023) I know that it is remotely unlikely I will have any problems reporting the event.
But having the bike with me enabled me to ride around to each of the gates in turn and take pictures of what was happening at them, as well as some people stretched out along the fences away from the gates. By the start of the protest at noon there were groups of between 50 and several hundred at each of half a dozen gates around the over 5 miles of the site perimeter, with others walking around the path around the site, attaching messages and banners to its tall security fence.
Gates had been allocated to different groups from around the country, and there was also a women’s gate and a faith gate, with Christians, Buddhists and others. Police were standing behind the gates, with a few mixing with the protesters, and others driving around the roads by the site.
Among the speakers I heard were CND Vice-Chairs Jeremy Corbyn MP and Bruce Kent, CND General Secretary Kate Hudson, Green Party Leader Natalie Bennett and South East Green MEP Keith Taylor, Stop the War’s Chris Nineham and CND founding member Pat Arrowsmith and another veteran Walter Wolfgang, as well as US activist Linda Pentz Gunter, the founder of ‘Beyond Nuclear’.
The ‘Allelulia’ is taken from the coffin where it was placed outside the Defence Ministry on Shrove Tuesday
At the ‘Faith Gate’ there was a short ‘Easter Resurrection Hope‘ service in which an ‘Alleluia’ which had been symbolically placed in a coffin at the Ministry of Defence in London on Shrove Tuesday at the beginning of Lent was lifted out and held aloft, with a call for ‘a new heaven and a new earth‘ and the hope that ‘light and love might overcome the shadow of destruction in this place.’ This was followed by some Buddhist prayers, and some statements from other faith groups about peace.
Walter Wolfgang
The event ended with everyone around the site making a loud noise and some had brought various musical instruments while others joined in banging pots and pans, whistling and shouting.
I still had 12 miles to cycle back to Reading Station, but at least this way much of it was downhill and I had the wind behind me.
Israeli Land Day Massacre & Afrin March – On Saturday 31st March 2018 two emergency protests in London condemned the cold-blooded shooting by the Israeli army of peaceful protesters near the separation wall in Gaza the previous day, Palestinian Land Day. The was also a march calling for an end to the invasion of Afrin by Turkey and al Qaeda-affiliated militias intended to destroy this peaceful state and eliminate the majority Kurdish population of the area.
Land Day protest against supporters of Israeli state – Oxford St
Protesters from the Revolutionary Communist Group have held regular protests outside the Marks and Spencer flagship store on Oxford Street for many years. They were met there this morning by others apalled by the news of the 17 unarmed Palestinian civilians shot dead by Israeli snipers.
Those murdered in cold blood were taking part in the first of a weekly series of marches, the ‘Great March of Return‘, beginning on Land Day, the anniversary of protests against the state confiscation of swathes of Palestinian land in Galilee in 1976 until Nakba Day on May 15, the anniversary of the expulsion of millions of Palestinians from their homes and villages in 1948.
The protesters went from M&S to protest outside other stores on Oxford St with business links with apartheid Israel, calling for shoppers to boycott them. While I was with them they also protested outside Selfridges, which sells Israeli wines, Adidas which supports the Israel football team, Boots which sells cosmetics made in Israel and Carphone Warehouse and were continuing along the street when I had to leave.
Turkey’s attack on Afrin in north-west Syria is a clear violation of international law, and air strikes have deliberately targeted civilian areas.
Turkey has NATO’s second largest army and much of its weapons come from European states including the UK which had recently signed a major arms deal. The UK government has expressed support for Turkey, claiming it has a right to defend it borders, but this attack is outside these and Turkey has clearly announce an intention to push far into Syria.
Turkish aims are clearly genocidal with Turkish president Erdogan having stated he intends to invade all the Kurdish areas of Syria and “cleanse” the area of its Kurdish people.
As well as calling for an immediate ceasefire and end to the Turkish invasion of Syrian and UK support for this, they called for an end of UK arms sales to all human rights abusing regimes in the Middle East and for humanitarian relief for Afrin and other areas of Syria and for an investigation into human rights abuses there. They also called on the UK government to demand Turkey return the body of YPJ volunteer Anna Campbell to her family in Sussex.
I joined others close to the Israeli embassy in Kensington for an emergency protest against the shooting of unarmed protesters several hundred yards from the Gaza separation wall by IDF snipers. 17 Civilians were killed and over 750 seriously injured by live fire, with others injured by rubber bullets and tear gas.
The massacre the previous day had shocked the world and led the UN to call for an independent investigation, which Israel have refused – just as they have refused calls for independent investigation into other massacres. The news had come too late for a large protest to be organised – which followed in April.
Coverage of the event in the UK media on the day had been surprisingly muted, with the BBC giving considerable air-time to Israeli state speakers shamefully claiming the massacre was reasonable and fully justified. The same thing has been happening over events in Gaza in recent months, though I think it has now become very much clearer that they have lost all credibility and even some presenters have sometimes challenged them.
Palestinian Land Day remembers the day in 1976 when unarmed protesters were killed when marches in Arab towns against the confiscation of land were confronted by Israeli army and police. Six unarmed Palestinians were killed around a hundred wounded and hundreds arrested. Most of the information here on Land Day is from Wikipedia.
The numbers involved now seem so small compared to the over 32,000 murdered in Gaza in recent months but it was a significant event as the marches were the first since 1948 in which Palestinians had organised nationally together against Israeli policies with these marches and a national strike.
The protests were against plans to confiscate Arab land and to expand Jewish settlements in Galilee were a part of an increasing seizure of Arab land.
In response to the planned strike and marches there had been a much increased police and military presence in the area, with armoured vehicles and tanks being driven “along the unpaved roads of various villages of the Galilee“. Some of these military convoys were attacked by youths with stones and even, according to Israeli government sources, Molotov cocktails.
The Israeli government had declared the strikes and all demonstrations illegal and some Palestinian leaders had voted against supporting them, but these actions seem only to have hardened the resolve of the Palestinians.
According to the Wikipedia article, quoting an academic source, the events led to “a new sense of national pride, together with anger toward the state and police and sorrow over the dead protesters, developed among the Arab community in Israel.” And in 1988, Land Day was announced as “a Palestinian-Israeli civil national day of commemoration and a day of identification with Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza, to be marked by yearly demonstrations and general strikes.“
The Freedom, justice & equality for Palestinians protest in London close to the Israeli Embassy in Kensington on Land Day, 30th March 2019 came a year after the 2018 Land Day Protest in Gaza, also known as The Great March of Return. On that day in Gaza, 30,0000 Palestinians took part in a largely peaceful march some distance from the border fence. But Israeli snipers in safe positions opened fire on those who approached the fence, some to burn tyres or through objects at the fence. 17 Palestinians were killed, including five Hamas members, and more than 1,400 injured.
A small group of Zionists had come to oppose the protest
Smaller marches in Gaza continued at weekly intervals and by Land Day 2019 a total of over 250 mainly unarmed protesters had been killed and thousands injured.
It’s hard to look back on history to Land Day (and beyond) and not see how Zionist right wing policies have failed both Israel and Palestine and are continuing to fall all those in the area. Balfour is often blamed for kicking the situation off, but had his “it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine” ever been taken seriously we would not be where we are now.
A line of police protects the Zionist pen
The Oslo Accords were another start to a possible peace process, but again firmly opposed by the right-wing Zionist parties – and Israeli prime minister Yitshak Rabin was assassinated for signing them. Leaders opposed to the accords – Ariel Sharon and current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to power.
This man shouts repeatedly ‘There are no Palestinians in Gaza!’
On Land Day 2019, a group of Zionist extremists had come along to the Palestinian protest to try and shout down those speaking. Police kept them a short distance away and with a relatively powerful public address system their efforts were largely inaudible.
Some of the Palestinians took a large Palestine flag and hid the group behind it until police persuaded them back and other protesters moved in to argue with and shout at them. Police tried to move the Palestinians away with little success while I was present
Taking part in the Palestinian protest were as usual many Jews, including the ultra-orthodox Neturei Karta who see Zionism as diametrically opposed to Judiasm.
