>Re:PHOTO Peter Marshall - Thoughts on Photography

Crag Fell – Ennerdale – 2018

Crag Fell – Ennerdale: In 2018 we spent a week with friends in a cottage at Ennerdale Bridge on the western edge of England’s Lake District. You can read more about this holiday and some of the other things we did on the September 2018 page of My London Diary, but this post is about our last full day, Thursday 6th September 2018, when we decided we would walk up the fell which overlooked the cottage where we were staying, Grike.

Ennerdale Water is the most westerly lake in the Lake District National Park and is probably the least visited, despite its great beauty. It is the most remote of the lakes and there is no public road up Ennerdale Valley, though it is on Wainright’s Coast-to-Coast walk which became an official National Trail in 2012. Britain’s most remote Youth Hostel is in the valley, YHA Black Sail, only accessible on bicycle or on foot – though it does have a car park 6 miles away.

In 2018 when we were there, Ennerdale was still a reservoir for drinking water for customers in West Cumbria, but that ended in 2022. The lake is surrounded by some of the best-known fells in Cumbria which go up to around 900 metres, almost 800 metres above the lake and valley floor.

Our walk was a little less ambitious, climbing up to Crag Fell (523m and 522m) and then on to Grike, a little lower at 488m. Mostly it was fairly easy walking though rather definitely uphill in parts, stressing muscles I normally use little, living on the flat plain of south-west Middlesex.

Our path took us up beside a small stream, Ben Gill and then through rough grass up to the summit. Altogether we had to climb around 420m to climb, though of course there were times when the path went down a little just to give us more work to do. As I noted in 2018, calling it 1400 feet sounds more impressive.

As we got higher I needed to stop more and more and my camera gave me a good excuse, so I took a great many photographs on this part of the walk. But the view does change, sometimes dramatically, and at times I was well ahead of the other six and a dog.

From the twin summits of Crag Fell and from Grike where ee stopped to eat our sandwiches in the shelter of a large cairn we could see to the head of the valley and also to the windfarms on the coast and in the Solway Firth and beyond them the coast of Scotland and the distant hills.

From our path down from Grike we also got a view of Cumbria’s most notorious site, Sellafield, over a ridge in the distance. It is a major employer in the area but perhaps also something which puts off visitors to this interesting stretch of coastline, one where one of my photographic mentors, the now greatly overlooked Raymond Moore, spent his final years a little further north.

We were disappointed by the ‘Great Stone of Blakely’, which turned out to be only the fairly large rock of Blakely. Sam and I both climbed up on it and stood to have our pictures taken. Something about Sam’s pose reminded me of Ray.

Blakeley Raise Stone Circle, also known as Kinniside Stone Circlele was a little more impressive. People say that the stones had all been taken away for use as gateposts by a local farmer and were only brought back and ‘restored’ in 1925 by a Doctor Quine of Frizington.

Finally we came back to Ennerdale Bridge. While most of the group went for afternoon tea at ‘The Gather’ community café, I sat down in the Fox and Hounds with a pint of Wainwright’s Golden Beer which seemed more appropriate.

Many more pictures on My London Diary at Crag Fell.

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Climate Rush in Hayes & Sipson – 2009

Climate Rush in Hayes & Sipson: On Saturday 5th September 2009 I went to Hayes to join a small group of Climate Rushers at a service at the start of a walk by the London Churches Environmental Network. We joined the marchers for the first part of their walk to the Sipson Airplot, set up to oppose plans for a third runway at Heathrow, rushing back there to prepare for the Celebration of Community Resistance which took place in the afternoon.

Climate Rush on the Run – Hayes & Sipson

On My London Diary you can read more about the Climate Rush, a group of women who had come together to celebrate the centenary of the 1908 ‘Suffragette Rush‘. In 1908 more than 40 women were arrested in an attempt to rush into the Houses of Parliament, and on 13 Oct, 2008, at the end of a rally in Parliament Square Climate Rush again tried to rush in.

Their protest in 2008 called for “men and women alike” to stand together and support three key demands:

* No airport expansion.
* No new coal-fired power stations.
* The creation of policy in line with the most recent climate science and research.

Since then Climate Rush had organised and taken part in various other climate protests and in September 2009 were taking part in “a rollicking tour of South West England“, staging events, supporting campaigns and “entertaining the towns, villages and hamlets” on their route with “16 Climate Suffragettes, 3 horses and 2 glorious caravans“. The Airplot at Sipson was their starting point and I’d photographed their procession to Heathrow the previous day, and later photographed them at a Green Fayre in Aylesbury.

After a service at St Anselm’s Church, Hayes attended by several Climate Rushers we set off with the the London Churches Environmental Network to walk back to Sipson. We left the marchers at Cranford Park to take a shorter route to get back to the Airplot to prepare for the Celebration of Community Resistance taking place there in the afternoon.

Much more on My London Diary at Climate Rush On the Run!

Climate Rush: Celebration of Community Resistance – Sipson

Greenpeace had the idea of setting up the Airplot, an orchard in the centre of the village of Sipson, one of those under threat from Heathrow’s plans for expansion. They bought the site and created one metre square plots of land there and invited the public to become “beneficial owners“, I think paying one pound for the privilege and receiving a certificate of ownership. Somewhere I may still have mine, but here is one on Wikimedia.

It had seemed a good idea which would make the development more complex, though I suspect would have had little or no effect in practice, but it was never put to the test as plans for the third runway were scrapped by the government in 2010 on environmental grounds – though they have since been revived.

The Airplot was the first stop on the Climate Rush tour and for the Celebration of Community Resistance they had invited activists from around the country to come and give short presentations on their campaigns.

The first example of community resistance we heard about was Radley Lakes at Didcot which npower wanted to fill in with pulverised fuel ash. Although some lakes had been filled, the campaign managed to save three of them. You can see more about them on the Radley Lakes Trust web site.

Next we heard about the scandal of opencast mining at Ffos-y-Fran, common land at Merthyr Tydfil. I photographed a Campaign Against Climate Change demonstration against this mine at the London offices of Argent Group plc in April 2008.

“Argent form half of Miller-Argent who run the UK’s largest opencast coal mine, Ffos-y-Fran in Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales. Just 36 metres from the nearest houses, extraction will continue for more than 15 years (perhaps as along as 40 years), producing coal that will add at least 30 million tons of CO2 to to our atmosphere. Scottish safety standards demand a minimum gap of 500 metres from housing, but the implementation of a 350 metres limit by the Welsh office has been delayed – allegedly to allow the Merthyr working to go ahead.”

Coal mining continued here until November 2023, and local residents say that the plans for the future of the site represent the “ultimate betrayal“.

Protesters had come earlier in the year from County Mayo in Ireland for a St Patrick’s Day protest at the Shell building against the Corrib Gas Project. We heard how the Rossport Solidarity Camp and the Shell to Sea campaign were fighting this against a corrupt government and thugs who protect the oil companies interest by illegal methods. While the protests failed to stop the project, the environmental groups involved continue to highlight related issues.

Cathy McCormack, a community activist in Glasgow Easterhouse was unable to attend but a colleague came to read her views on poverty and the financial crisis, and in particular the part played by the World Bank and the IMF.

Next we heard from two former Vestas workers who sat in their factory in Newport on the Isle of White when the company proposed the closure of what was then the UK’s only major wind turbine production site. Unfortunately they failed to prevent the closure.

The last group to talk were the No Third Runway Action Group (NoTRAG), and Geraldine described how they had opposed the BAA plans for airport expansion.

In the audience watching the presentation were local MP John McDonnell and airport campaigner John Stewart of HACAN. The campaigners won that round against Heathrow’s plans – and we celebrated in 2010, but today there are new plans – and a government which only plays lip-service to the coming environmental diaster seems sure to back either Heathrow’s own proposals or that from the Arora group, and the fight is on again.

Many more pictures on My London Diary at Celebration of Community Resistance.

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The Iraq War Fat Cat Tour – 2004

The Iraq War Fat Cat Tour: On Saturday 4th September 2004 I met campaigners from organisations including Voices in the Wilderness UK, a group opposed to the sanctions on Iraq and the war in Iraq, which between March 1996 and May 2003 had sent over 70 sanction-breaking delegations to Iraq.

I had photographed many of the protests leading up to the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003 – and there are pictures and accounts from some of these on My London Diary, and of the protests after the invasion, particularly when it became clear that Tony Blair had deliberately misled Parliament and the facts about the “dodgy dossier” became clear. Many called for Blair to be indicted as a war criminal.

Despite the huge protests and determined opposition of a huge proportion of the British people to the war, we failed to stop our army supporting the US, and many thought the protest movement had deliberately failed to press home its position – as Tony Benn and others had urged – thanks to the domination of its leadership by members of the SWP. Let’s hope that “Your Party” does not get sunk by the same hands – or by the efforts of those close advisers to Jeremy Corbyn when he was Labour leader.

If anyone needs reminding about what happened in Iraq you can see a brief time-line “What happened when Iraq was invaded 20 years ago?” on Al Jazeera.

I only wrote a short piece about the protest back in 2004, now rather hard to find on that web site, so here it is, with a few of the pictures from it in this post and there are more here on My London Diary.

After the initial military victory in Iraq, the American government were determined that their friends would profit from the situation. Lucrative contracts went largely to US companies that just happened to have friends and beneficiaries in the top level in the USA. Capitalism is always a winner from wars, with arms suppliers laughing all the way to the bank, but this extended the gravy train rather more widely and rather too obviously. Bush’s cronies sell the arms that knock the infrastructure to pieces, then get high margin contracts to rebuild.

The Iraq War Fat Cat Tour of London aimed to visit some key sites to point out the profiteering from the occupation of Iraq. it started at the Shell Centre (Western oil companies look set to make $2.5 trillion from Iraqi oil over the next 50 years), then made its way across the new Hungerford Bridge to the Cavell statue at the north east of Trafalgar Square (where I left it) and continuing to some other key sites.

*More street theatre in front of the Cavell memorial*

There was singing from the Strawberry Theives Socialist Choir (the name a reference to a William Morris wallpaper design), who thoughtfully provided the words for the Internationale in case any of us had momentarily forgotten them, (Arise! ye starvelings from your slumbers, Arise! ye criminals of want… ), samba playing from Rhythms Of Resistance, and a couple of street theatre groups.

A few more pictures

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Isle of Dogs and Poor Doors – 2014

Isle of Dogs and Poor Doors: On Wednesday 3rd September 2014 the weather was fine with blue skies and clouds and I decided to spend the afternoon photographing in the Isle of Dogs before meeting with Class War for one of their ongoing series of protests against separate entrances for the wealthy and social housing residents of a tower block in Aldgate.

Isle of Dogs Panoramas – Island Gardens to South Quay

The main purpose of my visit to the Isle of Dogs was to make panoramas of scenes which I had photographed more conventionally over the years, including the black and white images that I included in my book ‘City to Blackwall‘ and more of them are now in my albums on Flickr.

I had gone back so make some panoramas in the area in the 1990s and early 2000s, using various panoramic film cameras, but the switch to digital had made creating panoramic images much simpler for me.

Perhaps the most important change was in accurate viewfinding – with my first panoramic film camera the most accurate way to see the extent of my pictures was by viewing along two arrows on the top of the body – much more reliable than its viewfinder. But of course digital also gave a wider range of shutter speeds and ISO.

And to do this, the camera needed to be firmly mounted on a tripod – and I carried a rather heavy Manfrotto around with me. This also enabled me – with the aid of a spirit level – to ensure that the camera was level. The Nikon I used for these panoramas had level indicators in the viewfinder and was easy to use handheld.

However to make these on digital I needed to use a fisheye lens – the 16mm Nikon fisheye. Not the kind that gives a circular image, but a full-frame fisheye where the image circle goes through the corners of the frame. This gives a 180 degree image across the frame diagonal, but rather less horizontally and vertical, with considerable curvature of straight lines.

Software – I then used PTGUi for these – than comes to the rescue, converting the spherical perspective into a cylindrical one which rendered verticals upright (there are several ways this can be done with slightly different results.) Later I moved to simpler software.

With the 36Mp Nikon D800E there were far more pixels than necessary even after this stretching and this was no longer a problem. I could work with single exposures rather than stitching together several images as I had done earlier with digital cameras.

Many more pictures at Isle of Dogs Panoramas.

Isle of Dogs – Wideangle Images

Although I had mainly gone to make panoramas I also took a Nikon D700 body and made pictures with a 16-35mm Nikon zoom. Not everything is best suited by the panoramic treatment.

Again there are many more pictures at Isle of Dogs.

Class War ‘Poor Doors’ picket Week 6 – Aldgate

*A police officer watches as people walk down the alley leading to the ‘poor door’ of the luxury development*

Class War and friends held their sixth weekly protest outside 1 Commercial St in Aldgate and it was a relatively uneventful one.

As the protesters arrived, two police officers came out from the building and talked with the protesters making clear that they expected the protesters not to block the doorway for people entering or leaving the building. More officers soon arrived to police the event.

There were a few heated arguments between protesters and police but nothing of any consequence. The protesters held their banner well in front of the door.

They talked and handed out leaflets to people leaving and entering the ‘rich door’ as well as to people walking past – and to at least one cyclist stopped at the traffic lights.

After keeping up the picket for an hour as intended, Class War packed up and left – until the next week.

More pictures – Class War ‘Poor Doors’ picket Week 6.

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Kingston Carnival 2007

Kingston Carnival: On Sunday 2 September 2007 I went to Kingston to photograph the carnival.

Kingston is a town I’ve visited fairly often over the years, though mainly just going through it or changing buses to meet friends or go to meetings elsewhere, but I’ve never really got to know. Its an ancient town, where Saxon Kings were crowned and the street layout in its central pedestrianised areas still follows much of its complex medieval pattern. It includes several pubs worth a visit.

Kingston (officially Kingston-upon-Thames) also has a fine museum where I was pleased to be a part of a show, Another London, in January 2007 along with Mike Seaborne and Paul Baldesare – which you can still see online. Among my 26 pictures which featured in it were three made in Kingston including two from the 2006 Kingston Carnival, as well as two from adjoining Surbiton.

The museum also has a permanent exhibition of Kingston’s most famous son, photographer Eadweard Muybridge, (1830-1904) best known for his pioneering studies of animal movement beginning with pictures of the racehorse Occident owned by the former governor of California, Leland Stanford made in 1878 using a line of 12 cameras triggered by strings the horse ran through.

His work had been interrupted earlier in 1875 when he was on trial for murder after having shot his wife’s lover. His lawyer pleaded insanity presenting evidence that he had bouts of unstable behaviour caused by a severe head injury in a stagecoach accident in 1860 and the jury acquitted him recording a verdict of justifiable homicide.

The centenary of Muybridge’s death in 2004 was celebrated in Kingston including by my late friend photographer Terry King whose re-enactment of Muybridge’s work using twelve 10×8 cameras at Ham Polo Club. Modern ponies apparently refuse to run through strings thinking they are an electric fence and a different method had to be found to trigger the special shutters attached to the cameras.

Kingston’s 25th Carnival takes place on Sunday 7th September 2025, and I might just go along again, though I don’t think I’ve been to it since 2007.

I didn’t write a great deal about it in 2007, but here it is:

“This year’s Kingston Carnival was a much more exciting event than last year’s but there was still a large rent-a-carnival aspect to it. Kingston is an ethnically rich borough, and although there was plenty of home-grown talent on display, particularly in the performances by youth from the borough, the procession was still dominated by out of town talent.

“It’s great to encourage diversity, but I think a borough carnival has a duty to promote its local expression rather more, even if it might mean – at least until it built up more – a rather less flashy display.

“Of course it was good to see a greater diversity among the ‘foreign’ talent that paraded past the rather dazed looking shoppers along Kingston’s pedestrian streets, including even some clog dancers from Croydon, along with Caribbean groups.

“Beeraahaar Sweet Combination, based in Stamford Hill enlivened the main parade, and the elaborate larger costumes from Paddington Arts arrived later to play their part.”

Many more pictures start here on My London Diary.

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The Battle of Walthamstow – 2012

The Battle of Walthamstow: On Saturday 1st of September the extreme right English Defence League attempted to march into Walthamstow and hold a rally outside the Waltham Forest Civic Centre on Forest Road. Several thousand people from all of Walthamstow’s communities came together as ‘We are Waltham Forest’ determined to oppose them.

From a long rally in Walthamstow’s main square with speeches by many community leaders and performances by local drummers and singers, the people of Walthamstow marched to Forest Road, arriving an hour or so before the EDL march was due.

As they made their way along Hoe Street there was no doubt of their wide support from the community, with people coming out from virtually every shop and building, many waving and cheering in support.

When the march reached Forest Road many of the marchers sat down on the road at the key junction on the EDL march route. I left them there and walked back towards where the EDL march was to start.

When I saw the EDL march coming towards me, it looked more like a police march as the EDL were probably surrounded by more officers than there were supporters on the march. None of the main EDL leaders was on the march as they had gone separately to where they intended to hold a rally and were setting up the PA system.

It was hard to get a clear view of the marchers through the lines of police around them, and I only had a short telephoto when a much longer lens would have been useful.

But I managed to take some pictures of the marchers and many of them saw me and shouted abuse or made offensive gestures. Others tried to hold up hands in front of their faces – in one case making a woman look as if she was giving a Nazi salute. One man even rushed through a gap between police officers and put his hand over my lens before police dragged him back into the march. Although they got in my way I was rather glad the police were there.

A few people had come out onto the side of the streets to watch the marchers. Most did so in silence, but some held posters against the marchers or shouted at them. I saw only one supporter, an elderly man who came out of his house to greet them and was greeted with cheers from the marchers. As I commented, “Clearly here the silent majority they claim to represent was overwhelmingly against them.”

As the crucial road junction was blocked, police diverted the march down a side road shortly before it. Some of the EDL were angry at leaving the route and wanted to get at those blocking the road and there were some minor scuffles between the EDL stewards and police.

I went to the junction where the EDL march was led across the Chingford Rd and joined other photographers who were photographing the march and residents who had come to oppose them. Here EDL stewards dragged back marchers who tried to attack us and police and managed to keep their march more or less in order.

Police halted the march in Farnan Avenue at the side of the Civic Centre, but it was now clearly impossible for them to continue to the planned rally location because of the mass of protesters opposed to the EDL who were mainly held by police behind barriers on the opposite side of the road.

I went to where Tommy Robinson and Kevin Carroll had come with a few others to set up for the rally and took a few pictures before I was stopped by an EDL steward who insisted I was a Unite Against Fascism photographer and called over a police officer. I showed the officer my press card, but he still insisted I leave the area. I unhitched a barrier and went across to the other side of the road.

*Facing them were hundreds of people from Waltham Forest with the message ‘EDL not welcome’*

‘We Are Waltham Forest’ organisers had asked that the protest remain a peaceful one, but some had other ideas and a few sticks and other objects were begining to be thrown towards the EDL. A small brick landed a few yards from Robinson, and was picked up by him and handed to a police officer as evidence.

I moved to one side to avoid being hit as more objects began to be thrown – unlike many other photographers I wear no protective headgear. The situation appeared to be a stalemate, and although many of the counter-protesters had left it seemed unlikely that the EDL rally would be possible. When I left the EDL marchers were still surrounded by police in the side road.

Police later told the EDL that the rally could not go ahead, and the EDL leaders left. Police then kept the marchers surrounded for several hours for their own protection and after RMT members told police they would not allow hooligans to endanger the public by boarding trains, police decide to arrest them all and take them in vans to various police stations. They were apparently de-arrested and released in the early hours of Sunday morning.

This defeat was important in the demise of the EDL and you can see many more pictures at Waltham Forest Defeats the EDL.

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Westcombe Park and Blackheath 1990

Westcombe Park and Blackheath: On Saturday 20th July I got off a train at Westcombe Park station to begin another walk. Westcombe Park is in the London Borough of Greenwich and is at the east of Greenwich and north of Blackheath. Twelve years after I made this walk the Westcombe Park Conservation Area was designated in 2002.

*House, 146, Humber Rd, Westcombe Park, Greenwich, 1990, 90-1h-21*

Banker John Julius Angerstein (1735-1823) bought a large part of what had been parkland around a large country house to build his own house, Woodlands, now a Steiner School and the only listed building (Grade II*) in the area.

It was only when a large area of land was sold in 1876 that residential development of the area was begun – after a false start the Westcombe Park Estate Company was formed in 1878. They laid out roads, drains and sewers and offered freehold and leasehold plots for sale with only fairly loose guidelines over what could be built.

The Woodlands, Mycenae Rd, Westcombe Park, Greenwich, 1990, 1990, 90-1h-23 — *The Woodlands, 90, Mycenae Rd, Westcombe Park, Greenwich, 1990, 1990, 90-1h-23*

The development from then on was piecemeal and sporadic and by 1900 much was still undeveloped – and the estate company went into liquidation and the remaining land was sold off cheaply. There are a few properties from the 1880s, rather more from the 1890s particularly in the roads close to the station from which city clerks could travel into work. Although Woodlands is the only nationally listed building in the area, there are many locally listed buildings.

*The Woodlands, Mycenae Rd, Westcombe Park, Greenwich, 1990, 90-1h-24*

*Houses, Beaconsfield Rd, Vanburgh Park, Greenwich, 1990, 90-1h-12*

These houses are in the Blackheath Conservation Area and are on the north side of Vanburgh Park, so their frontages facing south with views across the common. The road at right angles in the picture is Beaconsfield Rd. These 3 storey locally listed Victorian villas date from 1860-1866 and were designed by architect Henry William Spratt.

*Tree, Bower Avenue, Greenwich Park, Greenwich, 1990, 90-1i-62*

From Vanburgh Park I walked across into Greenwich Park and then went down Bower Avenue where I found this massive tree trunk.

Vanbrugh Terrace, Greenwich, 1990, 90-1i-32 — *Vanbrugh Terrace, Blackheath, Greenwich, 1990, 90-1i-32*

The Grade II listed buildings of Vanburgh Terrace date from around 1840. I think this view is from somewhere near Charlton Way or Maze Hill. The terrace faces west across the parkland.

My walk will continue in a later post.

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A Puzzle and More North London -1994

A Puzzle and More North London: My post today from my colour work in May 1994 begins with a plea for help. I’ve spent ages trying to find the location of this first picture and hope someone will recognise it and let me know.

As you can see it shows a street with some impressive houses beside a pond. Unfortunately the only information I recorded back in 1994 was on the back of the contact sheet containing this and a dozen other images:

Bounds Green / New Southgate
Hendon
Barnet
Vauxhall : 28 May 1994

On the film this frame comes between one which I think is from Barnet and some which are clearly at Vauxhall suggesting that this may also be in or around Barnet. But I don’t know Barnet at all well and other pictures taken there at the same time do not include a duck pond like this or any of the houses here.

Although my black and white work was fairly well organised at the time – and I was selling some and putting work into libraries, colour was then simply personal projects. At the time I was also working in south London, and this picture could possibly have been taken there. I’d like to know.

*Hobart Corner, New Southgate, Enfield, 1994, 94-53-62*

Henlys were a major car dealer in the UK mainly for British Leyland, but here they were selling Vauxhall. The New Southgate Gas Works were first built in 1859 and closed in 1972 and this gasholder was a landmark on the North Circular Road until it was demolished in 2014. It was the largest of three on the site and had been built in 1912. It was still in use in 1994 and was only decommissioned in 2001.

Planning permission was given in 2021 for tower blocks with 182 homes on the site but the developer has now dropped these and it is expected to remain empty for several more years.

*Chinese Restaurant, Edgware, 1994, 94-54-62*

Chinese Restaurant, Edgware, 1994, 94-54-64 — *Chinese Restaurant, Station Road, Edgware, 1994, 94-54-64*

I made several pictures of this Chinese Restaurant in the centre of Edgware. The reflection in the window shows the building on the corner of Manor Park Road and Station Road.

*Northway House, High Road, Whetstone, Barnet, 1994, 94-54-66*

Northway House was built in 1968-70 and was a landmark office tower development on the High Road in suburban Whetstone. Back in 1994 it still appeared well-used and in good condition but by 2015 much of it had become empty and dilapidated.

Planning permission was granted to a developer working closely with Barnet Council on a “mixed use residential led mixed use development” which retained and renovated the original building and was completed in August 2025.

Goldies, pub, 58, Regents Park Road Finchley, 1994, 94-54-51 — *Goldies, pub, 58, Regents Park Road, Finchley, 1994, 94-54-51*

Formerly known as the Golden Eagle, this pub was demolished in 2002. In its place, just north of the North Circular Road is now Holiday Inn Express London – Golders Green.

There was a pub on this site in the 1930s, built by Charringtons but I think this building dated from the 1950s or 1960s. Possibly it was rebuilt following war damage or because of the conversion of the road to a much wider double carriageway

Disabled Protest Remploy Closures and Atos Deaths – 2012

Disabled Protest Remploy Closures and Atos Deaths: On a wet Wednesday 29th August 2012, the opening day of the London 2012 Paralympic Games, I photographed two protests by disabled people. At Stratford, close to the Olympic site, Remploy workers and supporters protested at the closure the previous week of 27 Remploy factories which had employed disabled workers, and in Central London DPAC and other disabled activists took a coffin to the offices of Paralympic sponsor Atos, responsible for carrying out fitness to work tests which have driven many disabled people to suicide.

Remploy Protest at Stratford Station

Disabled Protest Remploy Closures and Atos Deaths - 2012

Remploy, then the Disabled Person’s Employment Corporation, opened its first factory in 1946 to provide jobs for men and women who had been injured fighting for their country in the Second World War – just the kind of ex-servicemen who now make up a significant proportion of our Paralympic Team GB.

Remploy made it possible for disabled people to do useful and productive work including producing printed circuit boards and electrical assemblies, recycling used computers and much more. They gave disabled workers and those with special health conditions who would otherwise be unemployed useful jobs, a decent income and the satisfaction of working with others rather than being isolated in their homes.

The leaflets being handed out had an Olympic theme, with the message ‘We are NOT going for Gold, We are Condemned to Dole’ and the five Olympic rings were labelled ‘Unemployment, Discrimination, Poverty, Ill Health and Death.’

All Remploy factories were closed by the end of 2013, with Remploy continuing only to provide employment placement services for disabled people. In 2015 it was privatised and became owned by US service provider Maximus. They continue to use the Remploy name in Scotland.

Remploy Protest at Stratford

Disabled Pay Respect to Atos Victims – Triton Sq

Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) were holding a national week of protests around the country against Paralympics sponsor Atos, whose computer based ‘fitness for work’ tests have led to stress, hardship deaths and suicides among the disabled.

I photographed their Opening Ceremony for the Atos Games on Monday and also the closing of the week on Friday when they again came to the Atos offices in Triton Square for a closing ceremony and then went on to occupy the foyer at the Work & Pensions ministry.

On the Wednesday 29th August I met the protesters in a café on Triton Square on Euston Road where they were meeting in preparation for a vigil to remember those who have died as a result of the deliberately unfair Work Capability Assessments carried out by Paralympic sponsor Atos, and to deliver a coffin on to them on the day the Paralympic Games was opening.

As we were told, Atos was delivering “a relentless health and disability assessment regime which has been used to slash vital benefits from hundred of thousands of sick and disabled people” with assessors told they have to reach strict targets in failing the great majority of claimants, which led them to often deliberately misinterpret the claimants responses and misrepresent their medical conditions.

“The was a solemn and moving reminder of the scandal of the work capability assessments and the terrible effect they are having on the disabled. Many are losing the allowances that enable them to travel to work, others housing benefits, and are being told they are fit to work when patently they are unable to do so.”

And as I commented in 2012: “It really is a cruel paradox that at a time when the nation is celebrating the great achievements of disabled people in the sporting world, our government is trying to reverse the moves toward equality of treatment of disabled people, and that the company that is trying to take the credit for sponsoring the Paralympics is profiting from contracts to dishonestly deny benefits to the disabled who need them.”

More at Disabled Pay Respect to Atos Victims.

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North and South – London, May 1994

North and South – London: In May 1994 I was mainly photographing around Enfield, the most northerly of London Boroughs, but in the middle of one film there are a few pictures from Morden, the southern end of the Northern Line. I can’t remember why I made the trip there, possibly on a visit to a friends or perhaps on a family outing to Morden Park on the River Wandle.

*Chimes, pub, 510, Hertford Road, Enfield Wash, Enfield, 1994, 94-05-1-26*

This pub or club seems to have had an unusually large number of changes over the years and was also at various times Club X Zone’, Bar FM’, ‘Bell’, ‘Hotshots’, ‘Texas Cantina’, and more. Now a restaurant.

*Shop Window, Bush Hill Park, Enfield, 1994, 94-52-61*

A strange assortment of clothing on some rather odd two dimensional figures of women with holds in their heads and a line of children’s toys at the bottom of the window.

*The Flower Box, Bush Hill Park, Enfield, 1994, 94-52-62*

A colourful building though I was sad that parts of the mural below the windows was was obscured by almost empty display stands, one made from milk crates.

*The Flower Box, Bush Hill Park, Enfield, 1994, 94-52-65*

A small section of the mural from the previous picture shows a wedding couple striding across the fields.

*Shops, London Rd, Morden, Merton, 1994, 94-52-44*

A fairly typical suburban shopping street with a Boots, Abbey National, Holland & Barrett and at right ‘A NEW FORCE ON THE HIGH STREET’ which I’ve never heard of. The sun is clearly shining but there are ominous clouds above.

*Merton Civic Centre, London Rd, Morden, Merton, 1994, 94-52-46*

These buildings are still there on the corner of London Road and Crown Lane close to Morden Underground Station and are still Merton’s Civic Centre.

*Shops, Merton Civic Centre, Crown Rd, Crown Lane, Morden, Merton, 1994, 94-52-32*

The Civic centre is in a triangle of land surrounded by busy roads. This view seems now largely unchanged except for the names of the shops.

*Morden Court Parade, London Rd, Morden, Merton, 1994, 94-52-34*

Morden Court Parade is still there a little to the south on London Road from the Civic Centre and looks in rather better condition now. But sadly those 1930s windows have been replaced by fatter plastic double glazing which although greatly more comfortable for the residents both for keeping warm and reducing traffic noise from busy A24 dual carriageway rather spoil the appearance of the building. There are also some new balconies which fit in fairly well with the building and although it has lost than ‘MORDEN COURT PARADE’ from the frontage it has been replaced rather larger on the roof.

Back to North London in my next post from 1994.

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