>Re:PHOTO Peter Marshall - Thoughts on Photography

London Walk January 2006

London Walk January 2006: I now have no idea why I spent around two and a half hours wandering around London on the afternoon of 20th January 2006, but the pictures tell the story of my route. These images are a selection from a rather larger number I actually made. [The pictures are larger than they appear in this post and you may download them, but like all pictures on this blog are copyright; they must be attributed if posted on social media and a licence is required for any commercial use.]

I suspect I was going to some evening event and simply took advantage of some fine weather to go up earlier and take some pictures. The first one shows some of the sculptural detail above the outpatients entrance of the former Royal Waterloo Hospital for Children and Women on Waterloo Road the roundabout close to the station, where I will have arrived by train.

I then walked on to Waterloo Bridge, pausing to take a picture of the National Theatre, with the roof of the film museum in the foreground.

There was an exhibition ‘after the wave’ on square pillars in front of the National Theatre which rather seemed to echo the shape of the building.

On Waterloo Bridge I took several pictures looking downstream across the River Thames, this one concentrating on the north bank and St Paul’s Cathedral.

A wider view shows boats moored in the river and the skyline of London, now rather more crowded.

Another with St Paul’s at the left .

On Strand I photographed this lion and two Chinese men relaxing above Twinings, providers of tea to the Queen.

And these fine fish on Lloyds Bank Law Court Branch at 222 Strand, then still open as a bank – it closed in 2017. It had been called the most beautiful bank in the country. The fish are presumably because this Grade II listed building was built in 1882 by Goymour Cuthbert and W Wimble for the Palsgave Restaurant for the Royal Courts of Justice opposite and was only taken over by Lloyds in 1894.

Some fine ironwork and a beehive above the doorway to the bank.

Above the doorway at 193 Fleet Street is this figure of statue of Kaled, the page of Byron’s Count Lara by Giuseppe Grandi, dating from 1872. More about it on Ornamental Passions.

The building was built for pawnbrokers George Attenborough and Son in 1883 and has some fine sculptural detail including these winged lions, on either side of the wrought iron support from which originally the pawnbrokers three balls were hung. The Latin motto underneath is ‘Sub Hoc floresco‘, Under This I flourish.

On each side of the clock of St Dunstan’s in the West on Fleet Street are the two mythical giants, Gog and Magog (Corineus and Gogmagog) described in the biblical book of Revelation as the allies of Satan against God when we come to the end of days, but also the guardians of London – and the City is surely on Satan’s side as the money laundering capital of the world. They strike the chimes for the clock here, said to be the oldest public clock in London.

My walk continued – and I’ll post some more from it at some later date. You can already see some of the pictures on My London Diary.

Flickr – Facebook – My London Diary – Hull Photos – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photos

All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
Contact me to buy prints or licence to reproduce.

Grants Not Debt – 2016

Grants Not Debt Protest Blocks Bridge: The previous week a parliamentary committee had scrapped the means-tested maintenance grants for for students and on Tuesday 19th January 2016 the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts (NCAFC) organised a rally and protest to support that day’s Labour party debate against the action and the government’s flagrant denial of democratic process.

Student maintenance grants to cover living costs were brought in in 1962, nicely in time for me to go to university the following year. Before that students from poorer homes had been reliant on awards by their counties, some more generous than others. UK students then paid no fees for their courses, and though New Labour abolished the grants in 1999 they brought them back in 2006 when they brought in higher course fees.

In his 2015 budget, Tory Chancellor George Osborne had announced the intention to abolish grants and replace them with increased maintenance loans.

Grants Not Debt Clive Lewis — *Clive Lewis* MP

But the change was only actually brought in by a committee vote under the Education (Student Support) (Amendment) Regulations 2015. The Third Delegated Legislation Committee approved the changes for students beginning their courses in the 2016/17 academic year on Thursday 14 January 2016 by ten votes to eight.

The amount of money students would be eligible to receive would not be changed (it would actually increase by inflation) but it would very nearly double the amount of debt for students from the poorest homes who had qualified for the full grant who would now end a three year course owing around £35,000 extra. Of course these amounts have greatly increased since 2016.

Students living in London – as many of those at this protest were – would in 2025/6 be eligible for a maintenance loan of £13,762 in their first year – and a total well over £40,000 for their 3 year course. With the cost of tuition fees this would bring their total student loan up to around £70,000.

The rally began in Parliament Square and there were a number of speeches including from Labour Shadow Minister in Department of Energy and Climate Change Clive Lewis MP and Shelly Asquith the NUS Vice President (Welfare).

At the end of her speech the students decided it was time to take some action and began to march past the Houses of Parliament onto Westminster Bridge. Some had brought a banner ‘NO GRANTS = NO BRIDGE’.

On the bridge many of them sat down while others remained standing with their banners and traffic was blocked. A police officer tried to persuade Shelly Asquith to get the protesters to move but she ignored him and the protest continued.

Eventually the police managed to clear the north-bound carriage way but the protest continued to block traffic going south.

After an hour or so the protest appeared to be dying down, with some students leaving and although the protest was still continuing I decided to go too.

Many more pictures on My London Diary.

Flickr – Facebook – My London Diary – Hull Photos – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photos

All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
Contact me to buy prints or licence to reproduce.

1995 Colour – Part 2 – Greenwich Meridian

1995 Colour – Greenwich Meridian: The second of a series of posts on my colour work, mainly in London, from 1995, 35 years ago and when I’d been working extensively with colour negative film for ten years, though still continuing to work with black and white.

*Obelisk, Trig Point, Pole Hill, Chingford, Waltham Forest, 1995, 95p03-841*

In 1992 I began making colour panoramas using a Japanese Widelux F8 swing lens panoramic camera – and later I used a Russian Horizon which gave similar results. Both worked with normal 35mm film but produced negatives that were a little under 60mm wide rather than the 36mm of normal cameras. Both use clockwork to swing the taking lens around a third of a circle exposing the film through a narrow slit behind the lens. The film was held in a curved path – again around a third of a circle – with the lens at the centre of the circle so that the lens to film distance remained constant.

Peacham Hall, King's Head Hill, Woodberry Way, Chingford, Waltham Forest, 1995, 95p03-411 — *Peacham Hall, King’s Head Hill, Woodberry Way, Chingford, Waltham Forest, 1995, 95p03-411*

This arrangement avoided the change in distance from the lens to film that gives some stretching of the subject towards the edges of the frame – and begins to become very noticeable in ultra-wide lenses, particularly wider than around 18mm focal length on a 35mm camera.

95p03-552-Edit — *Level Crossing, Highams Park*, *Waltham Forest, 95p03-552*

Using the curved film plane avoids this distortion and enables a much wider field of view, while using a fairly moderate focal length – the Widelux has a 26mm f2.8 lens and gives negatives 24x56mm with a horizontal angle of view of 123 degrees.

*Bridges, North Circular, Hale End Rd, Hale End, Waltham Forest, 1995, 95p03-463*

But there is a downside. Creating the image in this way gives a curvature to objects which is unlike our normal vision which is particularly noticeable on any straight lines, though lines parallel to the axis the lens rotates around remain straight – so if you hold the camera level, verticals will remain straight. But other lines become curved with the effect increasing away from the image centre, giving what is often called a “cigar effect“.

*Raglan Rd, Lea Bridge Rd, Whipps Cross, Waltham Forest, 1995, 95p4-373*

This is a constraint which makes composition far more difficult using a swing lens camera, and was not helped by a rather poor viewfinder on the Widelux. Usually for landscape work I tried to visualise the effect of the curvature and chose a suitable camera position, levelled the camera on a heavy Manfrotto tripod using the spirit level on the camera top plate, lining the camera up using two arrows on the top plate to show the extent of the view (more accurately than the viewfinder) and then pressing the cable release to make the picture.

Stratford Bus Station, Great Eastern Rd, Stratford,, 1995, 95p4-922 — *Stratford Bus Station, Great Eastern Rd, Stratford, Newham, 1995, 95p4-922*

For photographing events and some creative effects this is a camera you can use handheld, but you have to remember that even when using its fastest speed of 1/250 second the camera actually takes quite a lot longer to scan around the curved film.

Crowley's Wharf, River Thames, Greenwich, 1995, 95p4-672 — *Crowley’s Wharf, River Thames, Greenwich, 1995, 95p4-672*

These pictures are from a project I began in 1995 with the approaching Millennium in mind. It seemed to me to make sense to carry out a project based on the Greenwich Meridian.

*Greenwich Boating Pond, Park Vista, Greenwich, 1995, 95p4-1431*

So I set about walking the Meridian, photographing it at various points in London and used some of these pictures in an attempt to get public funding for a Meridian Walk with some markers in pavements and a web site and publication. Panoramic images seemed a very appropriate format for illustrating the line.

*Greenwich Meridian, Royal Observatory, Greenwich, 1995, 95p4-1242*

Unfortunately my grant application as usual was unsuccessful, but I did go on to take some more photographs. In 2009 others produced a Greenwich Meridian Long Distance Path covering all of the Meridian in England from Peacehaven to Sand La Mere which of course goes through London and we also have The Line Sculpture Trail. Quite a few more Meridian markers were also added in London since I made this walk.

Many more panoramas from my Meridian project and other colour images from 1995 in the album 1995 London Colour.

Flickr – Facebook – My London Diary – Hull Photos – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photos

All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
Contact me to buy prints or licence to reproduce.

Heathrow, Gaza & the Tamils – 2009

Heathrow, Gaza & the Tamils: On Saturday 17th January 2009 I took a bus to Heathrow for a flash mob against a third runway, then the tube into Westminster for a protest against Israeli attacks on Gaza in Trafalgar Square which ended with a march to protest at Downing Street, where Tamils were protesting against the genocide taking place in Sri Lanka.

No Third Runway Decision Day Flashmob – Terminal 5, Heathrow Airport

Earlier in the week the Labour government under Gordon Brown had announced they were to press ahead with airport expansion and build a third runway at Heathrow despite the environmental consequences. Several hundred people turned up at Terminal 5 for a ‘flashmob’ protest at 12 noon.

“Attracting most press attention were four brave young ladies who had saved the ten quid for a red ‘STOP AIRPORT EXPANSION’ t-shirt and instead opted for red body paint with a black message across their midriffs, ‘Simply No Slaughter‘ and a pair of strategically placed gold sticking plasters proclaiming ‘art‘ and ‘port‘ (port was indeed on the left.)”

Many local residents were there, some with their children, along with John Stewart of HACAN (Heathrow Association for the Control of Aircraft Noise) the organisers of the event, and local MP John McDonnell who was being congratulated for his seizing the mace in the House of Commons when the announcement was made.

The demonstrators chanted, thrown red balloons in the air, red tennis balls at an ‘Aunt Sally’ of Transport Secretary Geoff Hoon and conga’ed around the area while a large squad of photographers photographed and videoed.

The campaigners were surrounded in a loose ring by police and airport security who made no attempt to stop them, though police had made some searches before the event began. Some of them were clearly amused by the event as were a few passengers making their way through the departure area.

*John Stewart of HACAN thanks everyone for coming*

After almost three-quarters of an hour of protest John Stewart thanked everyone for coming and repeated the determination of all those involved to keep up the fight to ensure that, despite the decision, the runway will never be built. So far it has been prevented, though it seems likely that despite the increasingly obvious and critical environmental crisis our current Labour government will resurrect this enviornmental catastrophe, though it remains doubtful if the private finance required can be found.

And there was a cheer for John McDonnell’s action in Parliament and a final chance to pelt the Transport Secretary before we all left for buses or tube.

Many more pictures at No Third Runway Decision Day Flashmob.

1000 Dead and Nothing Said – End the Slaughter of Gaza – Trafalgar Square

*A man burns an Israeli flag in at the rally in Trafalgar Square*

I was a little late arriving at the rally in Trafalgar Square but got there just in time to hear Tony Benn being announced and getting a huge greeting. As I commented he was “One of the greatest political figures of the last 50 years, [and} it’s a national tragedy that while he has so often been right on major issues, governments have seldom if ever followed his lead.”

*An 11 year old Palestinian girl, now living in Manchester speaks*

The square was fairly full with perhaps 5-10,000 protesters though there had been a much larger national protest in London a week earlier against the attacks on Gaza in previous weeks that had killed over a thousand Palestinians including more than 300 children.

*Palestinian singer Reem Kelani spoke before singing a traditional song*

After some more speeches a group of children all dressed in white robes marked with bloody red handprints who had been standing on the plinth came down and went with a deputation to take a letter from the rally to Downing St, calling for an immediate ceasefire and reparations for the war damage inflicted by the Israeli attacks.

I went with them down Whitehall to Downing St, where police led them into a pen close to the gates.

While Diane Abbott, MP, PSC General Secretary Betty Hunter and Lindsay German of Stop the War with others took the letter into Downing St, the children posed for pictures, at first while standing and then lying on the ground as if the innocent victims of an Israeli attack.

But unlike those 300 childen in Gaza, these children were just playing dead.

A few hours after this protest Israel announced a ceasefire on its own terms. The end of the killing was welcome, but there was no justice for Palestine.

Much more and many more pictures at Gaza: 1000 Dead and Nothing Said.

Tamils protest Sri Lankan Genocide – Downing St

Several hundred Tamils were densely packed into a pen opposite opposite Downing Street to draw attention to the continuing attacks on Tamil civilians, schools, hospitals and churches by the Sri Lankan Army and Air Force and to call for an independent Tamil state, Tamil Eelam, in Sri Lanka.

Tamils accuse the Sri Lankan government of genocide, and claim that in the past month alone over 300,000 Tamils have been forced to move out of their homes by the bombardment.

The decades long civil war which ended in May 2009 with the defeat of the Tamil Tigers had attracted relatively little attention in the mainstream media, but the assasination of leading Sri Lankan opposition newspaper editor Lasantha Wickramatunga on his way to work a week earlier and the publication of the obituary he had written for himself, And then they came for me, was the subject of a two page article in The Guardian on the day of this protest.

Tamils protest Sri Lankan Genocide

Flickr – Facebook – My London Diary – Hull Photos – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photos

All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
Contact me to buy prints or licence to reproduce.

Hackney Wick & Manor Gardens – 2007

Hackney Wick & Manor Gardens: On Tuesday January 16 2007 I took a walk in Hackney Wick on my way to what was to become one of many casualties to the London Olympics, the Manor Gardens allotments, for an open day when the press and public were invited to see the vibrant site that was under threat.

Here with a few corrections and some of the pictures is what I wrote about the day. Many more pictures are still on My London Diary.

Hackney Wick remains one of the more interesting areas of London, and I took a few pictures despite the light rain on my rather meandering way to the Manor Gardens Allotments off Waterden Road.

The Manor Gardens Allotments were another of the charitable provisions that came out of the link with Eton College and the Eton College Mission set up in Hackney Wick.

Arthur Villiers was one of four Old Etonians (the others were Gerald Wellesley, founder of the Eton Manor Old Boys Club for over 18s, Alfred Wagg and Sir Edward Cadogan) who in 1924 set up a charitable trust to keep the clubs running.

Villiers, who was a director of Barings Bank, had previously in around 1900 provided the Manor Gardens Allotments on an adjoining site as a means of providing both healthy exercise as well as suitable nutrition for the young men of the area. The land was provided for the community to use in perpetuity.

Since then it has continued in use, with a short break when the area was used for a wartime gun battery. At least a couple of the allotment ‘sheds’ are heavy concrete structures left over from this use.

Over the years it has been a thriving community of cultivators, recovering in recent years from some slight loss of interest, with the current renewal of interest in green and healthy living and eating.

Then came the London Bid for the 2012 Olympics, which put the allotments within the site. It could have been seen as a golden opportunity to give the games some green credibility behind the lip-service the bid gave to biodiversity and sustainability, and certainly as a commitment to the post-2012 legacy of the games – to leave sites such as Manor Gardens and the adjoining nature reserve as a green centerpiece to the site. Unfortunately the architects and developers seem hell-bent to create a brown Olympics, creating an irredeemably distressed site that will only be economically recoverable when all the concrete has crumbled.

The New Year Feast was an Open Day at Manor Garden Allotments, inviting the public and press to see the site and the 80 plots for themselves. A rather low-tech ‘Olympic torch’ was carried across the bridge to the site and used to start a bonfire.

Then we had a party around it, with a couple of speeches and some tasty refreshments. There was support from some celebrities, as well as the opportunity to meet some of the plot-holders, some of whom have raised crops here since the 1940s – and those whose parents had plots in the 1920s. There are also many newer tenants, very much reflecting the multicultural nature of the surrounding area.

It would be a great shame to lose this splendid facility for four weeks of use in 2012, when it could easily be built around. It isn’t in a critical area but will simply be under concrete as a footpath, and probably also the site of a huge advertising ‘scoreboard’ for the games sponsor.

What will it say about the 2012 Olympics for a site that is currently a beacon for healthy green eating to be selling Big Macs?

The planning application was to submitted on 1st Feb 2007, with eviction expected on 2nd April 2007. it is unlikely that the replacement site offered at Marsh Lane can be ready before 2008. Hopes are not high, but it would certainly be a great green miracle if the allotments survive.

Of course the miracle did not happen, and the Olympic juggernaut took its course, destroying the allotments and much else. By June 2008 allotment holders were struggling to grow crops on a new site on common land at Leyton. The move was expensive and the contractors used to prepare the site had ruined it by sterilising and compacting soil with heavy equipment and much of the site was waterlogged, with the only healthy crops being grown in grow-bags.

The allotment holders had been promised they would be able to return to their old home after the Olympics, but this promise was not kept. Eventually in 2017 some were able to go to a much smaller new site at Pudding Mill Lane. It’s future came under threat in 2022 by plans for extensive development around its edges which will overshadow it restricting cultivation on much of the site.

Many more pictures of the allotments, some of the surrounding areas and of the New Year Feast on My London Diary.

Flickr – Facebook – My London Diary – Hull Photos – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photos

All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
Contact me to buy prints or licence to reproduce.

Arbaeen Procession in London – 2012

Arbaeen Procession in London: On Sunday 15 January 2012 around 5000 Shi’ite Muslims gathered at Marble Arch for London’s 31st annual Arbaeen procession.

Organised by the Hussaini Islamic Trust UK, the process with its colourful flags, large gold and silver replica shrines and men and women beating their breasts in a symbol of mourning for Imam Husain went along Park Avenue.

Imam Husain, the grandson of Mohammed, was killed with his family and companions at Kerbala in 680AD. Shi’ites celebrate his martydom with 40 days of mourning each year, beginning with Ashura and ending with Arbaeen.

Husain is seen by Shia Muslims as making a great stand against the oppression of a tyrant and representing the forces of good against evil. Although hugely outnumbered he and his companions chose to fight on to death rather than compromise their beliefs.

Their stand remains a symbol of freedom and dignity, and an aspiration to people and nations to strive for freedom, justice and equality. Among many who have admired Husain are Ghandi, Charles Dickens and historians Edward Gibbon and Thomas Carlyle.

Arbaeen also celebrates the return of the wives and families of the martyrs to Kerbala the following year from Damascus where the had been marched as captives.

Millions now attend the annual Arbaeen event in Kerbala although it was banned when Saddam Hussein was in power.

The London procession was first held in 1982 and is the oldest Arbaeen/Chelum Procession of Imam Husain in the west. It was the first annual Muslim procession to take place in Central London and is still one of the larger annual Muslim processions in the UK, attracting Muslims from across the UK.

I arrived at Marble Arch in time for the prayers, recitation, speeches and chanting at the start of the event and to admire the three large gold and silver replicas of the shrines of Karbala; known as Shabbih, over 10 feet high and the largest in Europe,the decorated and blood-stained white horse Zuljana, the cradle remembering his 6 month old child Hazrat Ali Asghar and a ceremonial coffin before the procession began.

Both men and women on the procession beat their breasts – the men with great energy and the women much more decorously as they moved slowly down Park Lane.

The event was continuing when I left hours later.

You can read more about the procession and follow it in my pictures on My London Diary at Arbaeen Procession in London.

Flickr – Facebook – My London Diary – Hull Photos – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photos

All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
Contact me to buy prints or licence to reproduce.

EDL March in Barking – 2012

EDL March in Barking: On Saturday 14 January 2012 around 200 EDL supporters gathered outside the ‘The Barking Dog’ Wetherspoons and marched from Barking Station to a rally outside the town hall, calling for an end to Islamic influence in England. Their protest was opposed by a smaller group of Unite Against Fascism supporters.

This pub had remained open while another nearby pub had closed, refusing to serve them. There was a large police presence watching them as well as journalists and photographers coming to record the EDL’s first march of 2012, organised by the Essex and Dagenham Divisions of the English Defence League.

Most of the marchers were keen to be photographed and posed for photographers, including one man who later pulled down his trousers to show the tattoos on his rear, while others joked and played up to the cameras.

The march organisers had been clear to stress that this was to be an entirely peaceful protest, and they made some attempts to curb the activities of their supporters, with stewards and others quickly stopping a small group who began an offensive chant about Allah. But there were plenty of other chants many of us find offensive.

Among those taking part were some who I recognised from earlier protests by racist organisations such as the National Front or BNP. Although the EDL claimed not to be racist it was hard to fine their claims in the slightest credible.

Police kept the marchers apart from a smaller group of counter-protesters, mainly from the local area, organised at short notice by UAF (Unite Against Fascism) who had only become aware of the EDL march two days earlier. They describe the EDL as “an organisation of racist and fascist thugs, who particularly target Muslims” and described the march through Barking as “as part of its attempts to stir up racism and division in the area.“

The EDL marched to a pen outside Barking Town Hall with another pen for the counter-protest some distance away, though the two groups were within shouting distance – and kept that up for most of the next hour and a half, with the UAF waving placards and the EDL making V signs and other gestures towards them.

A large crowd of perhaps a hundred police ensured that the two groups were kept apart. Police led away a couple of EDL supporters who made their way close to the UAF pen.

EDL leader Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (aka Tommy Robinson) was present but it was announced that he was not sufficiently recovered from the attack by “islamofascist thugs” to speak at the rally. The attackers were actually widely thought to be Luton Town football hooligans with whom he is associated. He talked with police for some minutes and then apparently asked them to escort him to his car.

At the end of the rally police escorted the remaining EDL supporters back to Barking station. Reports said that a group of them went on to Whitechapel where they had to be escorted out of the area by police for their own safety.

More about the event and many more pictures on My London Diary at EDL March in Barking.

Flickr – Facebook – My London Diary – Hull Photos – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photos

Palestine & Syria – 2018

Palestine & Syria: On Saturday 13th January 2018 I photographed a protest at the London US Embassy in Grosvenor Square against the continuing imprisonment of children in Palestine and another opposite the Russian Consulate over their continuing support for the Assad regime in Syria including the bombing of civilians.

Free Ahed Tamimi & All Child Prisoners

Teenager Ahed Tamimi was in prison in Israel for slapping an Israeli soldier who came into her family’s garden shortly after she had learnt that a relative had been shot by Israeli forces.

Her detention made the news and prompted this protest, but she was only one of the thousands of Palestinian children have been detained by Israel since 2000 in a systematic policy which the UN has said includes abuse and ill-treatment. Many Palestinian children have been kept for many days in solitary confinement in small underground cells in Israeli jails.

Israel is an apartheid state, with very different laws and police treatment for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank who are subject to Israeli military law and dealt with in military courts which offer little or no chance of justice. Many are held without any real trials in ‘administrative detention‘ which can be essentially indefinite, with prisoners being released at the end of one sentence and immediately re-arrested for another period of detention.

A number of those taking part were relatives or friends of Tamimi’s family, including her father’s cousin Nana Hourriyah, or of other prisoners in Israeli jails. One man who spoke had recently spent 3 months in Palestine and had stayed with the family of another child prisoner. He had then been deported for taking part in a peaceful protest.

During the hour I stayed at the protest a single Zionist protester in a pen at the end of the street waved an Israeli flag, shouting insults at the protesters and accusing them of supporting Hamas, which they firmly denied.

More at Free Ahed Tamimi.

Stop the Massacres in Syria

Protesters lined the street opposite the Russian Consulate calling for an end to the massacres taking place in Syria. Protests are not allowed in the private road a few yards away outside the Embassy.

Russia and Assad’s forces were bombing civilians in Idlib, Hama and Eastern Ghouta, specifically targeting medical workers and facilities, with 8 hospitals in Idlib bombed since the start of December.

Many of those still living in Idlib had fled there from other towns and cities previously bombed by Assad and his Russian allies who were attempting to complete the destruction of all groups opposed to the Assad regime and bomb or starve to death the civilian population in areas held by opposition forces.

Only now after the fall of the Assad regime has the full scale of their human rights abuses become widely known with over 150,000 people thought to have been tortured and killed in his infamous prisons. As many as 620,000 were killed in the 14 years of civil war – around 1 in 35 of its prewar population, with around half these being civilians.

More than 14 million – almost two thirds of the Syrian population – were forced to leave their homes in the civil war. Half remained elsewhere in Syria, around 5.5 million in surrounding countries. Around a fifth of the countries pre-war population made their way to Europe, with the majority of these going to Germany. The UK set up a scheme to take Syrians but the numbers here remain relatively small at around 40,000.

Stop the Massacres in Syria

Flickr – Facebook – My London Diary – Hull Photos – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photos

Crouch End & Upper Holloway – 1989

The final post on my walk on Sunday 19th November 1989 which had begun in Highgate. You can read the previous part at A Reservoir, Flats, a Cockerel and a Café.

Gateway, Albert Mansions, Crouch Hill, Crouch End, Islington, Haringey, 1989 89-11i-61 — *Gateway, Albert Mansions, Crouch Hill, Crouch End, Haringey, 1989 89-11i-61*

I walked down Haslemere Road and then turned down Vicarage Path, following this to Crouch Hill.

Albert Mansions, described by various estate agents as “a hidden gem in Crouch Hill” dates from 1903. Although the driveway is clearly marked ‘PRIVATE residents only‘, Vicarage Path goes past the building and emerges at the side of the left gatepost in my photograph. I clearly found this gateway more interesting than the actual mansion building where three and four bedroom leashold flats now sell for approaching a million.

House, Heathville Rd, Highcroft Rd, Crouch End, Islington, 1989 89-11i-64 — *House, Heathville Rd, 6, Highcroft Rd, Crouch End, Islington, 1989 89-11i-64*

I walked down Crouch Hill and turned west down Ashley Rd. When I reached Highcroft Road I saw an interesting roof a short distance down and walked up to take this picture. Taken from just across the street it rather fails to show clearly the pyramidal cap to the roof, which is more evident in the previous frame (not on-line) taken of the row along this side of the street. But does give a good idea of the architectural detailing, including a fancily written date which I can’t quite read but is perhaps 1897 or 9 and a rather striking head – I wondered who was the model for this intense face. I’m rather suprised that this building does not appear to be locally listed

*House, Highcroft Rd, Crouch End, Islington, 1989 89-11i-65*

This locally listed house at 3 Highcroft Road was built in 1875 as the vicarage to St Mary’s Church opposite, and has rather fine porch with a somewhat ecclesiastical look. Like many of the large vicarages provided for Victorian clerics who were expected to have large families and servants I imagine it was sold off some years before I made the picture.

*Houses, Hornsey Rise, Upper Holloway, Islington, 1989 89-11i-66*

I returned to Ashley Road, walking past St Mary’s church without photographing it. Most of our Anglican churches seem to have been photographed time after time from the Victorian period on, not least because many vicars with time on their hands took up photography as a hobby. I seldom chose to add to the multitude.

There is a line of similar fine houses between Ashley Road and Shaftestbury Road, at 2-20 facing Elthorne Park, but I chose to photograph these because of the wall with its sculptures and irorwork in front of what I think was 6 Hornsey Rise. The wall and ironwork are still there but the figures next to the pavement have long gone. At the right of the picture you can see the Shaftesbury Tavern.

*House, Hornsey Rise, Upper Holloway, Islington, 1989 89-11i-53*

Hornsey Rise was developed from 1848, although it only got the name almost 40 years later replaceing the different names of various short lengths such as this. This picture gives a closer view of one of the two ornamental gates and the house , with the doorway to number 4 at the right of the image.

*The Shaftesbury Tavern, Shaftesbury Rd, Hornsey Rise, Upper Holloway, Islington, 1989 89-11i-54*

This pub at 534 is the last building on Hornsey Road, which becomes Hornsey Rise beyond Shaftesbury Rd. According to its local listing it “was built in 1858, by speculative builder Thomas Beall, as the area around it began to be developed. It is a handsome well-preserved building with contrasting brickwork in red and London stock, and pilasters and arches at the upper storey level. “

I choose to photograph not the main pub building but its “1897 addition” on Shaftesbury Rd. However CAMRA states that the pub itself was built “in 1897 with rich wood and glasswork, so typical of the golden age of pub-building.” Looking at the pub exterior I am inclined to believe them and the current building probably replaced or significantly altered Beall’s. As they also state, “The pub was restored in 2014 from a ‘very tired’ state by the small pub chain Remarkable Restaurants Ltd“.

*Shops, Fairbridge Rd, Hornsey Rd, Upper Holloway, Islington, 1989 89-11i-55*

I continued walking down Hornsey Road I photographed this handsome late Victorian building at 471 Hornsey Rd on the corner with Fairbridge Road. Then it was a timber merchant with T C TIMBER on the first floor corner blind window and a rather jaunty-looking painted figure of a town crier in ancient dress looking like a poor piece of advertising clip-art in that above it on the second floor. The shop is now Hornsey Carpets and that figure now looks very washed out and on the first floor is some strange image I make no sense of.

*Kokayi, Supplementary School, Hanley Rd, Upper Holloway, Islington, 1989 89-11i-56*

Further down Hornsey Road I went down Hanley Road where I photographed the doorway of the Kokayi Supplementary School. A charity of this name was later registered in 1997 “To advance the education of children and young people particularly children and young people of African and Afro-Caribbean descent by the provision of a supplementary school: By the provision of advice and guidance in matters concerning their education and career development; And by such other charitable ways as the charity through its trustees may from time to time decide.” The charity was removed in 2014 as it had ceased to function.

I was at the end of my walk and made my way to Finsbury Park Station. It was several weeks before I was able to go out and take photographs again.

Flickr – Facebook – My London Diary – Hull Photos – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photos

Guantanamo Day – 11th January

Guantanamo Day – 11th January: Today is the 23rd anniversary of the setting up by U.S. President George W. Bush of the illegal prison camp at Guantanamo Bay inside the US Naval base on Cuba.

Bush had issued a military order in November 2001 “for the indefinite detention of foreign nationals without charge and preventing them from legally challenging their detention” and to their shame the US Department of Justice claimed that the principle of ‘habeas corpus‘ did not apply to the camp as it was not on US territory.

At first a temporary camp called ‘Camp X-Ray’ was set up at Guantanamo and the first twenty detainees arrived there on 11 January 2002. Later they were moved to a more permanent Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

The US administration argued that the site was not US territory as it was only held under a lease from Cuba last updated in 1934 “under which Cuba retains ultimate sovereignty but the U.S. exercises sole jurisdiction.” Cuba since the 1959 revolution has argued that the US presence there is illegal and has called repeatedly for them to leave and return the territory to Cuba.

The USA also argued that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to ‘unlawful enemy combatants’, and went ahead holding prisoners there in cruel, inhumane and degrading conditions and torturing them. The Wikipedia article gives some details of the condemnations by the Red Cross and human rights organisations as well as the testimonies of released prisoners.

There was little if any evidence against great majority of the at least 780 men who were held in Guantanamo and most were finally released without charge, although today 15 detainees remain at Guantanamo Bay. Nine died while being held there. Only 16 detainees have ever been charged by the U.S. with criminal offences. Most were just foreigners who were in Afghanistan for various reasons and were captured and sold to the US forces by bounty hunters.

The last detainee with a British connection to be released was Shaker Aamer, born in Saudi Arabia but with British Resident status and a wife and family in Battersea, London who had gone to Afghanistan as a charity worker. He was captured by bandits and sold to the US in December 2001 and transferred to Guantanamo on 14 February 2002 after having been interrogated and tortured in the prison at the US Bagram air base. He was eventually released in October 2015 having been held for over thirteen years.

Some large protests against Guantanamo took place in London over the years, as well as smaller regular vigils at the US Embassy and in front of Parliament. I photographed many of these over the years, putting accounts and pictures on My London Diary as well as sending them to agencies. The pictures here come from my post about a small protest by active campaigners against the camp at the US Embassy on Monday 11th January 2010, Guantanamo Bay – 8 Shameful Years.

Flickr – Facebook – My London Diary – Hull Photos – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photos