>Re:PHOTO Peter Marshall - Thoughts on Photography

Climate Rush – Deeds Not Words 2008

Climate Rush – Deeds Not Words: In 1903 Emmeline Pankhurst and other women who believed that more direct action was needed to get votes for women founded the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) with the motto ‘Deeds not words‘.

In September 1908 together with Christabel Pankhurst and Flora Drummond, Emmeline Pankhurst issued a leaflet with the message:

Men and Women,
Help the Suffragettes to Rush the House of Commons,
on
Tuesday Evening, October 13th, at 7.30.

The three women were charged for this with inciting the public to undertake an illegal act. After speaking at a public meeting on 11th October they were instructed to attend Bow Street police station but defied this and a second request to report to police. They were arrested at 6pm on the 13th and so were unable to attend the Suffragette Rush they had called.

But despite this, 60,000 people came to Parliament Square and some attempts were made to rush through the 5,000 police cordon but failed. “Thirty-seven arrests were made, ten people were taken to hospital and seven police officers were placed on the sick list as a result of their injuries.”

One woman, MP Keir Hardie’s secretary, was working inside the building and ran into the chamber where MPs were debating, shouting ‘leave off discussing the children’s question and give votes to women first’ before being forcibly evicted.

The three leaders were tried and fined for conduct likely to provoke a breach of the peace and sent to Holloway when they refused to pay their fines.

On 13th October 2008, the 100th anniversary of this Suffragette Rush, as I wrote, ‘women concerned with the lack of political action to tackle climate change organised and led a rally in Parliament Square, again calling for “men and women alike” to stand together.’

They were making three key demands – “no airport expansion“, “no new coal-fired power stations” and “The creation of policy in line with the most recent climate science and research.”

So far the repeated demands by Heathrow to expand have been resisted, but only by continued protests and helped by financial problems. But expansion remained Tory policy and having ruled it out set up a biased inquiry to reinstate it. The new Labour government has already shown support for expansion at London City Airport and seems likely to support new proposals at Heathrow.

Although the last coal-fired power station closed a few weeks ago, we now have an even more polluting and environmentally damaging wood-fired power station at Drax, which ridiculously receives green subsidies which in 2020 amounted to £832 million as well as “exemptions for taxes on carbon emissions, estimated at savings of £358 million“.

And although successive governments had paid lip-service to “the most recent climate science and research“, their actions and actual policies continue to show any of the urgency that this requires.

On 13th October 2008, the event began with a rally in Parliament Square with rather fewer attending than in 1908, around a thousand including many wearing white and dressing in the styles of a century earlier.

As the final speech by Green Party MEP and leader Caroline Lucas ended, “most of the crowd, led by Tamsin Omond and friends, walked and ran across the road towards the main door into Parliament, chanting the Suffragette slogan ‘Deeds Not Words’. Police “made only a token attempt to stop them on their way, falling back to protect the door itself with several lines of police, and preventing any protesters entering the building.“

“There was a long melee outside the door, with police picking up demonstrators and throwing them back. I saw no violence by demonstrators towards the police.” Eventually the whole area in front of the door was crowded with protesters and police held them to a standstill.

By the time I left around half an hour later a few people were also beginning to drift away. “Later I heard that around half a dozen people had been arrested, including Tamsin Omond, who was in breach of her bail conditions following the ‘Plane Stupid’ roof-top protest at the Houses of Parliament in February.”

You can read more about the protest in my account on My London Diary, which also has many more pictures: Climate Rush – Deeds Not Words.

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Barging on Bow Creek – 2011

Barging on Bow Creek: On Wednesday 12 October 2011 I was pleased to get paid to go back to Bow Creek and take photographs of a working barge on Bow Creek in Poplar.

Bow Creek is the lower part of the River Lea, between Bow Locks and the River Thames. Bow Locks mark the southern end of the Lea Navigation and since London’s oldest canal, the Limehouse Cut opened in 1770, most canal traffic took advantage of this to take a more direct route to the Thames and avoid the dangerous and meandering tidal Bow Creek.

The River Lea remains tidal some miles above Bow Lock, but this tidal section is separate from the navigation, although there are various channels and locks such as City Mill Lock and Carpenters Lock on the Olympic site which link the two.

Bow Creek continued to be used for navigation, including for bring coal to West Ham Power Station and the huge Imperial Gas Light & Coke Company gas works at Bromley-by-Bow.

But the gas works closed in 1976 although its gasholders remain – they were still in use for gas storage until 2010. (I went inside the site to photograph them in 2022.) Planning permission has now been granted for 2,200 new homes on the site, retaining the seven gasholders. The gas works dock is now Cody Dock, a creative and community hub with moorings and a short walk from the DLR at Star Lane, hosting many intersting events.

West Ham Power Station ended production in 1983 and was then demolished to build a business park. In the lower sections of Bow Creek there were still a number of timber yards and a ship repair business still using the creek at least in the 1980s, but I think all all commercial traffic has now ended.

Much was made during the construction of the Olympic site of the use of barges to carry waste away from the area, and a new lock was built at great expense on the Prescott Channel at Three Mills Green, but I think barges were only used for PR photographs and the huge majority of waste was taken out by lorries.

So I was pleased to hear that “the people cleaning up the gas works site at Poplar … were using barges to carry out the highly toxic soil from the site* and “… “was delighted to be given a commission to go and photograph the barging.”

*This is what a rubbish recycling plant looks like*

On My London Diary I write more about my relationship with the River Lea which had begun in 1981 when “I heard a story on the radio that commercial barge traffic was about to come to an end on the Lea Navigation, and decided to travel across London to record its last days.” From then I carried out a major project on the river, but was disappointed to have a funding application turned down.

I returned to the River around ten years later and again in the early 2000s, with more frequent visits after the Olympic bid was successful – although access to the main site was soon impossible. In 2010 I published Before the Olympics, ISBN: 978-1-909363-00-7 with over 200 pictures from the source to the Thames.

The My London Diary post also describes my experience on the visit – how I had to dress up to take the pictures – and that although I’d been promised I would have half an hour to take photographs it actually ended up as 11 minutes.

After taking the pictures – both for the project PR and myself – I had the rest of the day to take a walk along Bow Creek again and made my way to the Thames on the Greenwich meridian, where I found “a new marker installed in the Virginia Quay estate next to West India Docks station, built since I carried out my ‘Meridian Project‘ in the 1990s and made an unsuccessful bid to create a’Meridian Walk’ to mark the new millennium.” Now there is a sculpture trail, The Line, which in part follows Bow Creek – and includes work at Cody Dock.

All pictures in this post are from Wednesday 12 October 2011. There are many more pictures from my walk as well as the barging at Barging on Bow Creek

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Liverpool Road, Highbury Corner & Caledonian Rd – 1989

Liverpool Road, Highbury Corner & Caledonian Rd continues my walk in Islington on Sunday 15th October 1989 which began with the post Memorials, Eros and More. The previous post was Shops, a Poly, Electricity, Church & Library.

*Samuel Lewis buildings, Samuel Lewis Housing Trust, Liverpool Rd, Islington, 1989 89-10h-63*

Samuel Lewis was born in Birmingham in 1837, started work at 13 selling steel pens, then opened a jewellers shop before becoming the most fashionable money-lender of his day. When he died in 1901 he left £2.6 million to his wife, with over £1 million going to charity on her death.

£670,000 of this – equivalent to around £30 million today – went to a charitable trust to provide housing for the poor, and these flats are on the first of eight large estates they built.

This estate was built in 1909-10 for the Samuel Lewis Trust, architects Charles Sampson Joseph, (1872-1948), Charles James Smithem and Ernest Martin Joseph (1877-1960) who worked as Joseph & Smithem until 1916. The two Joseph brothers were sons of Nathan Solomon Joseph (1834-1909) who as well as building many synagogues was the leading designer of social housing as architect for the Guiness Trust and the Four per Cent Industrial Dwellings Company and worked also for the LCC and other London councils and he may also have contributed to the designs for these buildings.

*Hampton Court, Upper St, Islington, 1989 89-10h-41*

I was amused by the contrast between this street and its namesake palace on the River Thames. This Hampton Court is a short street leading west from Upper Street at Highbury Corner, leading to Swan Yard, which is at the end of the street in my picture.

On the left wall is a sign for J Barrett & Sons, but I can’t make out what their business was at 250 Upper St, now a Starbucks. The posters on the wall at right are for a Socialist Party Public Meeting and I think we have four pictures of Maggie Thatcher; I can’t quite read the text but I’m sure it wasn’t complimentary.

The tall building on the right at the end of the street is now a printers and I think probably was when I made this picture. Those to the right of it have been replaced and I think those on the left considerably refurbished. Those in Swan Yard at the end of the street are still there but have lost their white paint.

I think Highbury Studios, at 15 Swan Yard and most other workshops on the street have been converted to residential or office use and there is now a new building at the southern end of the street, recently converted into coworking office space with a communal roof terrace overlooking Laycock Green, an urban green open space.

Swan Yard and the southern side of Hampton Court are included in the Upper Street (North) conservation area.

*Mallett, Porter & Dowd, North London Engineering Works, 465, Caledonian Rd, Lower Holloway, Islington, 1989 89-10h-33*

This warehouse and works was built in 1874. Its conversion to student housing for University College London was awarded the Carbuncle Cup for the ugliest building of 2013 from Building Design magazine. The red brick building was demolished with its frontage retained a short distance in front of a a new multicoloured building. The judges commented “The original frontage has been retained in a cynical gesture towards preservation. But its failings go deeper,” and said “This is a building that the jury struggled to see as remotely fit for human occupation.” The rooms lack adequate daylight, give little privacy and those behind the facade have no view outside. Islington council had refused planning permission for the treatment of this locally listed building but were overruled.

*Hubbards for Cupboards, 453, Caledonian Rd, Lower Holloway, Islington, 1989 89-10h-35*

Those musical among you can sing “We’re Hub-bords Cup-boards, We’re Hub-bords Cup-boards, We’re go-ing to fight, fight, fight – to get your of-fice right” to the tune shown on this shop, Hubbards for Cupboards Tables & Chairs, at Hubbards Corner on Caledonian Rd. 453 Caledonian Rd on the north corner with Market Road is now a large block of flats with a natural food shop at ground level.

*Caledonian Road Methodist Church, Caledonian Rd, Market Rd, Lower Holloway, Islington, 1989 89-10h-36*

Built in an Italianate style in 1870 as a Primitive Methodist Chapel, architects T & W Stone, it became Caledonian Road Methodist church in 1932 and is still in use. It was restored in 1953 and the exterior cleaned in 1980. Grade II listed.

*Market Rd, Lower Holloway, Islington, 1989 89-10h-24*

This building, at 18 Market Road opposite the bus stop at Market Road Gardens and the adventure playground was demolished between 2008 and 2012. Peter Darley in The Journal of the Islington Archaeology & History Society says it was a tripe factory when Czech refugge Otto Fischel bought it in the 1950s and made it Otaco Ltd, plastic injection moulders. His wife, artist Käthe Strenitz was fascinated with industrial London and produced many fine pictures.

You can read more in Jane’s London about J. L. Henson tripe dealer whose name was originally on the panel where E.Zee is in my picture. But the elephants and E. Zee remain unaccounted for, but were perhaps linked in some way with the playground opposite. Though I have a nagging feeling that somewhere in the past I have written more about them.

A private limited company EZEE Ltd, Company number 02564140, was incorporated in 1990, had its registered office for a year in 1992-3 at 14-18 Market Rd. Its business was given as Artistic & literary creation etc. It last filed annual returns in 1991 and was finally dissolved in 2015.

My walk continued and there will be another post shortly.

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March on the City 2008

March on the City: On Friday 10 October 2008 several hundred anti-capitalist protesters, mainly students, took to the streets of the City of London to say “We Won’t Bail Out the Bankers’.

The financial crisis had started in 2007, but reached a climax with the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers on September 15 2008 which precipitated an international banking crisis.

Wikipedia sets out the causes of the crisis in some detail, but essentially US banks had been allowed to make more risky loans by changes in US laws which loosened regulations and allowed banks to take part in high risk operations such as proprietary trading and investment banking.

In the US one result of this was the proliferation of mortgage loans to people on low incomes who could really not afford the repayments and eventually defaulted. The problems with ‘subprime mortgages‘ particularly given to many in minority communities in the USA came to a head as a boom in US house prices in the early 2000s was followed by a sharp drop in the value of properties which were the security for the loans.

As Wikipedia comments, “governments deployed massive bail-outs of financial institutions and other palliative monetary and fiscal policies to prevent a collapse of the global financial system.” This resulted in the widespread feeling that those who had created the crisis were being rewarded for their failures.

In the UK, the New Labour government under George Brown made a massive financial intervention, paying £137 billion to the banks in loans and new capital, some of which was later recouped, but leaving a cost of £33 billion. While some support was necessary to avoid a total breakdown of the financial system, many felt that the government should have taken a firmer line and that those responsible should have had to pay for their mistakes and not to seem to have kept their highly paid jobs.

Both Northern Rock – the first UK bank to fail in July 2007 and Bradford & Bingley were taken into public ownership, and RBS/Nat West into majority public ownership. But RBS still ended up costing us £35.5 billion – and the leading bankers still ended up getting huge salaries and big bonuses. The Royal Bank of Scotland seemed to be getting off scot free.

Part of the problems we still see in financial markets came from changes worldwide in the way that trading now takes place. In the UK Margaret Thatcher had brought in the ‘Big Bang’ which abolished traditional practices and introduced electronic trading, greatly increasing volatility.

On My London Diary I give a fairly full account of the actual protest which started at Bank where some protesters tried to storm into the Royal Exchange – long just a prestige shopping centre – and the Bank of England but were easily stopped by police.

There then followed a slow march around parts of the City, with police attempting to stop them at various points and the marchers pushing their way through police lines.

As my pictures show, there was some rather forceful policing at times and some of the press also suffered with the protesters. As I write, “I got a few bruises and my glasses were damaged when police rushed in as I was taking pictures in Lombard St.” But there was none of the confrontational use of trained riot squads that have led to extreme violence at some protests policed by the Met. Policing here was by the City of London Police – along with a guest appearance by one French cop.

Eventually there was a short rally with a few speeches on the corner of Bishopsgate and London Wall after which the demonstrators dispersed. Police seemed fairly relaxed at the end of the protest and I saw no arrests.

I don’t think the protest got much if any coverage in the mass media and most accounts I read on-line were confused, with many suggesting it went to the Stock Exchange. While that might have been a logical place to protest, the marchers actually went in the opposite direction.

March on the City.

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Sack Parliament 2006 and the End of Freedom

Sack Parliament on Monday 9 October 2006 was more a demonstration by police of their determination to protect the status quo following protests earlier in the year and the continuing saga of the Parliament Square peace protest which had led to their performance being criticised by politicians and our largely right-wing press than any real protest by the few who had come to protest against the increasing restrictions on our freedom to protest.

It was Brian Haw’s permanent peace protest in Parliament Square which led to the Labour Government including in the Serious and Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 severe restrictions on the right to protest in a large area around Parliament and giving police new powers to control protests.

Sack Parliament 2006 and the End of Freedom

Media frenzy about this protest was whipped up in the days before at least in part by police briefings, and the police clearly saw this as an opportunity to demonstrate that they could control events such as this. I wrote and published an unusually long piece on My London Diary about the event – reproduced here with some minor corrections.

Sack Parliament on Monday 9, and event to mark the return of MPs to Westminster, was of course only ever an amusing idea rather than a serious chance of a Ukrainian-style Orange Revolution. As the large press turnout showed, it was one that had caught the attention of the media (Mondays perhaps tend to be slack) but unfortunately not that of the demonstrating classes.

It got off to a bad start with the planned ‘Critical Mass’, which failed to gather more than a handful of cyclists. Heavily outnumbered by the police bike posse, they faded away, a couple cycling down the side of the National Theatre and the other 3 or 4 carrying their bikes up the steps to Waterloo Bridge.

At Parliament Square, things were little better. At the advertised start time, apart from the normal Parliament Square Permanent Protest there were perhaps 25 demonstrators and rather more press, along with what must have been around a thousand police, counting those sitting in vans around the area as well as the impressive number standing around.

Twenty minutes later the numbers had been more than doubled, mainly by the arrival of a group dressed largely in black. And soon after they made a charge at the police line into the road towards the Houses of Parliament.

From the start it seemed a pointless gesture. The line held, and pushed them back, and soon the two sides were standing a few feet apart and glaring at each other. After a few more attempts to push through the police, the demonstrators ran back onto the grassed area of the square where they were surrounded by a cordon of police.

One of the photographers, an NUJ member I’d been talking to a few minutes earlier, was apparently pushed by police as they rushed the demonstrators. He fell and received a neck injury which left him with no feeling from the waist down. Police medics were on hand to give him first aid and to call an ambulance. Later I was pleased to hear he had been allowed home from hospital, and the injuries were apparently less serious than we feared.

I was inside the cordon to start with, but the police made no attempt to stop me as I decided to walk out, not even asking to see my press card (they had checked it earlier.) Around the square, small teams of police were rounding up anyone looking vaguely like a punk or a hippy and dragging them inside the cordon. Some of those they picked on seemed genuinely to have no connection with the protest. Eventually there were perhaps around 150 in there, including quite a few press, along with a few who clearly had little idea what the whole thing was about.

Apparently others who looked like possible demonstrators were stopped and arrested in Whitehall, or turned back on other roads approaching the square.

Outside the cordon, the normal demonstrations in the square went on, with the occasional interruptions by the police, nit-picking about where the demonstrators are allowed to stand and being largely ignored or abused.

Occasionally there were scuffles inside the cordon as demonstrators made an attempt to breach the police line, or police teams moved in to grab individuals. There were also occasional arrests around the square, including some of those who protested loudly they were simply bystanders.

At 14.13, roughly 40 minutes after the protesters had been imprisoned in the cordon, Police Superintendent Peter Terry (responsible for the taking away and destruction of most of Brian Haw’s property from the square and alleged by demonstrators to have lied in court) read from a handwritten statement telling the protesters that they were being detained in the square because he believed that their continued presence in the area would lead to a serious breach of the peace!

Around 15.00, police began to distribute notices to those outside the cordon warning them “we believe that you may be, or are about to be, involved in a demonstration located within an area subject to the provisions of the Serious and Organised Crime and Police Act 2005” and moving press and spectators well back from the cordon. There seemed to be little chance of getting further photographs, so I went to get on with work elsewhere.

According to a press report later in the evening, there were 38 arrests made. Those caught in the cordon who were not arrested at the event were apparently required to provide evidence of identity and address before being allowed to leave. SOCPA continues to be a blot on human rights in this country, and this protest, despite its apparent pointlessness and lack of support has underlined this point.

I’m one of a generation who grew up believing in British justice and a sense of fair play. We were rightly appalled at those countries where protest was banned, and demonstrators could be arrested. It sickens me to see this happening in front of what used to be a powerful symbol of freedom, the Houses of Parliament.

In 2007 the Labour Government, then led by Gordon Brown began a consultation about managing protest around Parliament which looked at different ways of imposing restrictions and those in SOCPA were repealed in the coalition’s by the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011. But they were replaced by giving police new powers to control a wide range of activities in the area.

Even more draconian powers allowing police to restrict protests across the UK cane into force under the Tory Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 which seriously impact free expression, freedom of speech and the right to protest in the United Kingdom, and further powers and increased sentences for protesters were enacted by the Public Order Act 2023. We now have non-violent protesters serving lengthy jail sentences, with a Labour government which appears to be in no hurry to repeal these repressive police state laws.

More pictures on My London Dairy.

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Land Army, Charity Pull & Rosary Crusade – 2005

Land Army, Charity Pull & Rosary Crusade: Saturday 8th October 2005 was a day of considerable variety as well as some tricky travelling around London for me, beginning in Whitehall with the women of the Land Army, rushing to Lewisham for a charity event organised by the Mayor and then back to Westminster Cathedral for a religions procession.

Commemoration of the Women’s Land Army – Cenotaph, Whitehall

During the Second World War many women joined the Women’s Land Army. First set up in 1917 during World War One, it was reformed in June 1939 when World War Two seemed inevitable, before the war actually began at the start of September.

During WW2, over 200,000 Land Girls worked in the Women’s Land Army, playing a crucial role in feeding the nation at war – and it continued for some years after the war ended in 1945, finally ending in November 1950.

For many joining up was a healthy alternative to working in munitions or joining the other services, less regimented and offering a wide range of activities. Few had any previous experience in agriculture, but “they ploughed, grew produce, milked cows, caught rats, drove tractors – and much more.”

But the war had ended 50 years earlier and they were now in their 70s and 80s when I met them opposite the memorial to the Women Of The Second World War which had recently been unveiled near the Cenotaph.

Some I talked to had been at the unveiling of that memorial and were extremely scathing about it and had been and were disappointed that the Queen had not spoken at all at the event.

They were a sprightly and feisty group despite their age. A few had come in 1940s dress but most wore some of their uniform often with a number of medals. They marched to the Cenotaph where wreaths were laid and a bugler sounded ‘The Last Post’. After which I rushed away to Charing Cross to catch a train as the event had run late.

More pictures

Lewisham: Mayor’s Charity Vehicle Pull

Every year like most Mayors the Mayor of Lewisham has a charity appeal and for some years a Charity Vehicle Pull from Downham to Lewisham was organised as a way of raising money for this.

I’d got a later train than I’d hoped, so sat on the train trying to work out where the vehicle pull would be by the time the train arrived in the area. I left the train at Ladywell and rushed from the station to Lewisham High Street and fortunately found my guess had been correct.

“I took a few pictures – there isn’t a huge lot you can do with an event like this – and then got on the top floor of a bus which was travelling along the open lane inside the event, hoping to overtake them. It would have worked, but for an illegally parked vehicle that was blocking the lane.”

Rosary Crusade of Reparation – Westminster Cathedral

At Lewisham Station I’d missed the Victoria train, and had to run under the subway to jump on a Charing Cross service just as the doors were closing, changing at Waterloo East to Southwark Station on the Jubilee line, then at Green Park to the Victoria line to Victoria.

I hurried the short distance from Victoria Station to Westminster Cathedral arriving just at the right time for the start of the Rosary Crusade of Reparation.

The Rosary Cruade had started in Vienna in 1947, with a series of processions with the statue of ‘Our Lady of Fatima’.

The Virgin Mary appeared to Portuguese children at Fatima in 1917 and had asked for prayers and penance to avoid further wars and achieve world peace. This call was renewed in the Rosary Crusade by Father Petrus Pavlicek following a vision during his visit to a Marian shrine in 1946.

The processions became an annual event, held on or around 12th Sept, the Feast of The Name of Mary (which celebrated the defeat of Turkish armies surrounding Vienna in 1683), and soon spread to other countries.

When Russian troops left Austria in 1955, many Austrian catholics ascribed this to their prayers in the rosary crusade.

More pictures on My London Diary.

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Extinction Rebellion October Rebellion – 2019

Extinction Rebellion October Rebellion – London 7 Oct 2019

Five years ago today Extinction Rebellion began their day of October Rebellion in London by occupying eleven locations at government ministries, Downing St, The Mall, Westminster and Lambeth bridges, bringing traffic in the centre of London to a halt.

The action was billed as an International Rebellion and there were other actions taking place in New York, Sydney and possibly elsewhere and you can read much more about them on the XR web site.

XR demand the government tell the truth about the climate and ecological emergency, act to halt biodiversity loss, reduce emissions to net zero and create and be led by a Citizens Assembly.

I managed to get to some but not quite all of these 11 locations during the day and take pictures. Police hindered movement around the city to some extent, making me have to walk rather further than I wanted when they completely closed Lambeth Bridge to all pedestrians after XR had closed both ends to traffic.

Police made a few arrests here and there but it was hard to see any logic in their actions. Some people had locked themselves together but generally I think the police were simply overwhelmed by the large number of protesters.

As before XR’s ‘Red Brigade’ made a colourful splash and like most photographers I took too many pictures of them.

As a part of the protest two XR rebels Tamsin and Melissa were married on Westminster Bridge.

Everything was ready, the clergy had arrived, but only one of the two people being married – and she had gone to look for the other who was taking part in a protest at BEIS in Victoria St. So we had to wait – and the jazz band entertained us.

Eventually Tamsin comes and tells the band to stop playing as the couple are ready to start the wedding.

And the ceremony begins.

The couple kiss and make promises.

A young boy comes forward with a ring

Melissa gives Tamsin a ring and then Tamsin places a ring on Melissa’s finger

And they kiss again.

More pictures on My London Diary:
XR Rebels marry on Westminster Bridge
Extinction Rebellion occupy Westminster

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Saffron Revolution & Slave Trade Abolition – 2007

Saffron Revolution & Slave Trade Abolition: On Saturday 6th October 2007 I photographed a protest against the brutal repression of the Saffron Revolution protest in Myanmar (Burma) and a celebration of the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade,

Global Day of Action for Burma – Westminster

There was considerable support in the UK and UK media for the Burmese people who were taking part in non-violent protests against the military dictatorship there after it decided to remove subsidies on fuel, exacerbating a cost-of-living crisis in the country.

The protests were led by thousands of along with students and political activists and were often referred to as the Saffron Revolution.

The protests had begun in August 2007 and in late September after protests involving many thousands in various cities the government began a huge crackdown using military force to stop the protests and imposing curfews and prohibiting gatherings of more than five people.

Monasteries were raided, thousands of arrests were made and some protesters were killed. Wikipedia gives a great deal of detail, and on 1st October it was reported that around 4,000 monks were being detained at a disused race course, disrobed and shackled.

The official death toll over the period of the protests was 13, but the independent media organisation Democratic Voice of Burma based outside the country produced a list of 138 names of those killed.

The march began at Tate Britain on Millbank, proceeded over Lambeth Bridge and then returned to Westminster over Westminster Bridge. Many of the roughly 10,000 marchers wore red headbands and a small group of monks were allowed to tie strips of cloth onto the gates of Downing Street before the march continued to a rally in Trafalgar Square, where I left them.

More at London Burma March.

Slave Trade Abolition Bicentenary Walk

In 1787, Thomas Clarkson, Granville Sharp and ten other anti-slavery campaigners founded The Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. Nine of the twelve founders were Quakers, including the wealthy banker Samuel Hoare Jr which prevented their having much involvement in parliament.

Perhaps because of this the society became the first modern campaigning movement, working to educate the British public about the cruel abuses of the slave trade through publication of books, prints, posters and pamplets, organising lecture tours, including that by former slave and author Olaudah Equiano and by boycotting of goods produced by slaves.

The Quakers had organised petitions against slavery and presented these regularly to Parliament, and in 1787 William Wilberforce, MP for Hull was persuaded to join the movement, presenting the first Bill to abolish the slave trade in 1791 which was heavily defeated.

Further Bills followed on an almost annual basis, and finally in 1807 the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act was passed, with a majority of 283 votes to 16 on its second reading in the House of Commons. A similar act was passed by the USA in the same year taking effect at the start of 1808.

Despite this it took another thirty years for slavery in the British Empire (except those parts ruled by the East India Company) to be abolished in 1838. And when this was done the freed slaves received no compensation but massive amounts were paid to the former slave owners, a total of around £20 million, around 40% of the national budget and allowing for inflation around £2, 800 million today. Fact checking by USA Today confirms that the UK Government only just finished paying its debts to the slave owners in 2015.

The Slave Trade Abolition Walk organised by Yaa Asantewaa & Carnival Village was only one of a number of events commemorating the abolition of the slave trade taking place in 2007, but was I think the most colourful. Yaa Asantewaa was named after the famous Queen Mother of Ejisu in the Ashanti Empire who led the Ashanti Kings in the War of the Golden Stool against British colonial rule in 1900 and was exiled to the Seychelles where she died in 1921.

Among the costumes was one winner from Notting Hill, and a rather fine ‘Empire Windrush’ depicting the ship which brought the first large contingent of migrant workers from the Caribbean to England in 1948. They had been recruited to fill the gap in UK workers needed to restore the British economy after the war and came to a country where they met much racist discrimination, which more recently became government policy under the Windrush scandal, still continuing.

As of course is slavery. ‘Modern slavery’ is no less slavery than the slavery that was at the core of the British Empire and which provided the wealth that once made Britain ‘Great’.

Slave Trade Abolition Bicentenary Walk

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Shops, a Poly, Electricity, Church & Library – 1989

Shops, a Poly, Electricity, Church & Library: Continuing my walk in Islington on Sunday 15th October 1989 which began with the post Memorials, Eros and More.

*Dorset House, 217-9, Holloway Rd, Lower Holloway, Islington, 1989 89-10g-45*

I walked back from Hornsey Road to Holloway Road and took this picture of Dorset House on the corner of George’s Road, then the Unique Butchers at 217 and Wai Shang Chinese Take Away at 219. This building had changed little by 2022, though the butchers was then a closed cafe up for sale and the Chinese take-away was now Green Jade.

I’m surprised that this building does not appear to be locally listed, though it is a shame that it has lost the balustrade on its left side. On Drawing The Street where you can see a more recent drawing of the building @ronniecruwys points out that the detailing of the balustrade is identical to that of Southwark Bridge, but that dates from 1921, when Rennie’s earlier bridge was rebuilt. A comment on that post states “My 2 x great grandfather lived here in 1881. His name was Henry Appleby and his father in law who was the head of the house in 1881 (census) was a retired Policeman named Walter Tovey.”

My guess is that this house probably dates from the early 19th century, but like others I have failed to find out more about its history. George’s Road was originally George’s Place, built by George Pocock.

*Polytechnic of North London, Holloway Rd, Hornsey Rd, Lower Holloway, Islington, 1989 89-10g-33*

Wikipedia tells me the Polytechnic of North London was granted university status to become the University of North London. It existed under that name until 2002, when it merged with London Guildhall University to form London Metropolitan University. It had been formed from Northern Polytechnic, founded in 1896 and North-Western Polytechnic in 1971.

This building mirroring its surroundings is on the corner with Hornsey Road and was rather appropriately I think next to a mirror shop and factory at left of picture, which later in 1994 was redeveloped as the Learning Centre library.

*Pyracrest Ltd, 71 Hornsey Rd, Caedmon Rd, Lower Holloway, Islington, 1989 89-10g-22*

This shop remained in commercial use until recently, though not for joinery, display and general woodwork but most recently as a glass merchant. It was sold in 2012 and extended. The garage on the opposite corner, shown here only by a Michelin Man poster on the wall closed around 2009 and was replaced by a new residential development with a ground floor café.

Caedmon Road was earlier called Spencer Road, renamed in 1938. Developed in 1866 it was renamed after Caedmon the earliest known English poet, a Northumbrian cowherd working at Whitby Abbey whose only known surviving work is the nine lines of Cædmon’s Hymn. You can read this on Wikipedia and will find only a slight resemblance to modern English – though possibly more to Geordie or the other impenetrable dialects of the north-East.

The Vestry of St Mary Islington, Electric Light Station, Eden Grove, Lower Holloway, Islington, 1989 89-10g-26 — *The Vestry of St Mary Islington, Electric Lighting Station, Eden Grove, Lower Holloway, Islington, 1989 89-10g-26*

Conveniently the title of this locally listed building at 60 Eden Grove is shown on its exterior along with the date of 1896. As the Islington Society states, Islington was one of the earlier local authorities to distribute electricity. The vestry’s work was taken over by the Metropolitan Borough of Islington in 1900.

At first this power station was only for street lighting, but soon the wealthier inhabitants of the borough could get power for their homes and they say by 1936 it was supplying “40,000 customers through 106 miles of mains.“

*Former St James, church, Chillingworth Rd, Lower Holloway, Islington, 1989 89-10g-12*

This Grade II listed Neoclassical church was built as St James the Apostle Church in Victoria Road (later Chalfont Road, later Chillingworth Road) in 1839, architects Henry William Inwood and E N Clifton. The east end was extended in 1840 by Hambley and he added the tower in 1850. The top section of this was later removed, possibly after bomb damage, in 1944.

The parish was united with St. Mary Magdalen in 1953-4 and a parish hall built in the shell of the church. Converted to offices and recording studio in 1980-82 and renamed St Mark’s Studios. Probably then the concave entrance shown here was constructed and the original pilasters on the facade were replaced by pillars.

Islington Central Library, Fieldway Crescent, Holloway Rd, Lower Holloway, Islington, 1989 89-10g-15 — *Islington Central Library, Fieldway Crescent, Holloway Rd, Lower Holloway, Islington, 1989*

This frontage on Holloway Rd dates from 1906, architect Henry T Hare; the building was enlarged in 1973-6, and has recently undergone considerable refurbishment. It is Grade II listed.

The library was built for the Metropolitan Borough of Islington and received funding of £20,000 from Andrew Carnegie and was opened in October 1907 by Sir Arthur Rucker, principal of the University of London. The bust at the left is of Spenser and that at the right, cruelly cropped, of Bacon. It remains open as a public library.

More to come from this walk later.

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Unite The Kingdom & Rejoin Europe – 28 Sep 2024

Unite The Kingdom & Rejoin Europe: Although I’m not covering as many protests as I used to I haven’t entirely given up covering them. But my priority at the moment is in digitising as much as possible of the photographs which I took on film before I moved to digital around 20 years ago.

I think those images are a historical record of those times showing London in the latter years of the 20th century. You can see around 35,000 of them already on Flickr.

But also I’m feeling my age, and get tired much more quickly; after spending two or three hours covering events I’m ready to go home. But still most weeks I try to get out at least one day covering protests, usually on Saturdays.

Of course over the past year many of the protests I’ve photographed have been about the continuing events in Palestine. But last Saturday there were only a few small events related to this taking place – the next big protest comes this Saturday, 5th October, starting at 12 noon in Russell Square. Unfortunately I’ll miss that one as I’m away at a conference.

I covered two events on Saturday 28th September, both unfortunately starting at noon, but one in Trafalgar Square and the other on Park Lane, around 2 kilometers to the west. Fortunately the journey by tube between the two is fairly fast.

I began taking pictures in Trafalgar Square, where Stand Up To Racism had called on its supporters to come to oppose a threatened far right racist protest which was to take place there.

The far right group was calling itself “Unite the Kingdom”, inspired by that phrase used by ‘Tommy Robinson’ at his protest in Trafalgar Square in July. He and his followers incite hate against migrants and asylum seekers, and their racist and Islamophobic rants were what led to the extreextreme right, right-wing, me right riots in Stockport, Birmingham, Hull and elsewhere – which tried to burn down buildings housing migrants.

There were a few short speeches and by the time I left Trafalgar Square half an hour or so later there were perhaps a little under two hundred people who had come to oppose the extreme right, with banners from various parts of London and a few from various organisations including GiK-DER Refugee Workers Cultural Association, and more were still arriving. But there was no sign of the extreme right protest.

The third annual grassroots National Rejoin March was a rather larger event, with several thousand people crowding around the area close to the Hilton Hotel, and I had time to take some pictures and talk to a few of the protesters before the march set off.

There is now a fairly large proportion – almost 50% of us – in the country who realise that leaving Europe was a huge mistake, while support for staying out is under 35%, and opinion polls in 2023 showed a hugely different result – around 70% to 15% – if a referendum was held then.Despite this there now seems very little chance that we would return into membership of the EU in the foreseeable future.

*Singer Madeleina Kay, Young European Movement, with her guitar.*

In England & Wales the Green Party, Plaid Cymru, and the Liberal Democrats want to rejoin, but the two major parties and Reform are committed to stay out. It may well have contributed to the success enjoyed by the Lib-Dems in the recent general election, and there seemed to be a strong presence at the protest from some of their stronger areas.

One of the main themes in the protest was that the question of rejoining Europe is the ‘elephant in the room’ of current British politics. Both Labour and Tories seem to believe that if the came out in favour of it would give the other party a huge boost.

This march seemed smaller than the previous two annual marches and it took less than ten minutes for the whole body of marchers to pass me as I stood on the street corner before rushing back to the tube to return to Trafalgar Square.

When I arrived there around a dozen ‘Unite The Kingdom’ protesters had arrived. Police had formed two lines on the North Terrace perhaps 50 yards apart separating them from the Stand Up to Racism supporters. Most of these had left with their banners leaving only a small fraction – still considerably outnumbering the racists. But police now seriously outnumbered both groups.

I took a few pictures, but couldn’t really be bothered – and it shows. But I think we are likely to see much larger numbers at future extreme right-wing protests than this disorganised damp squib.

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