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Tamil Festival & Brentford Walk – 2010

Tamil Festival & Brentford Walk: On the morning of Sunday 8th August 2010 I photographed the annual Chariot Festival from the Tamil Hindu Temple in West Ealing and in the afternoon went for a walk in Brentford.

Tamil Chariot Festival in West Ealing

Tamil Festival & Brentford Walk - 2010 — *Men wait with coconuts outside the temple, ready to roll along the road*

The annual Chariot Festival from the Tamil Shri Kanagathurkkai Amman (Hindu) Temple at a former chapel in West Ealing comes close to the end of their Mahotsavam festival which lasts for around four weeks each year.

In it a represtentation of the Temple’s main goddess Amman (Tamil for Mother) and priests are dragged around the streets on a large chariot pulled by men and women on long ropes.

Behind them around 50 men naked from the waist up laid down on the street holding a coconut in front of them and rolled their bodies along the street for the half mile or so of the route. Men and women came and scattered Vibuthi (Holy Ash) on them. Following them were women who prostrated themselves to the ground every few steps.

From the Temple in Chapel Street the procession, led by a smaller chariot made its way along Uxbridge Road in the bus lane. People crowded around the chariot holding bowls of coconut and fruits (archanai thattu) as ritual offerings (puja) to be blessed by a temple priest.

To photograph the event I had – like those taking part – removed my shoes and my feet were soon soaked in coconut milk from the many cut open or smashed on the ground. Coconuts play an important role in many Hindu rituals and are a major product of the Tamil areas of India and Sri Lanka and many sacks of them were broken in the festival.

Further back in the procession were male dancers, some with elaborate tiered towers above their heads. Others had heavy wooden frames decorated with flowers and peacock feathers, representing the weight of the sins of the world that the gods have to carry; they had ropes attached to their backs by a handful of large hooks through their flesh. They turned and twisted violently as if to escape from the ropes, held by another man.

Women walked with flaming bowls of camphor which burns with a fairly cool flame and leaves no residue with others behind them carrying jugs on their heads.

The festival raises funds for various educational projects for children that the temple sponsors in northern Sri Lanka and other charitable projects in Sri Lanka devastated by the civil war and had sent more then £1.3 million in the previous ten years.

I left the festival, dried my feet as best I could, put on my socks and shoes and caught at bus to Brentford.

Many more pictures on My London Diary at Tamil Chariot Festival in Ealing.

Brentford

*Overflow from the canal takes the River Brent to the Thames*

When I was young and lived not far away Brentford was an important canal port, the junction of the Grand Union Canal (also here the River Brent) with the River Thames. The docks by the Thames were now a private housing estate and by 2010 almost all of the British Waterways sheds had gone, replaced by blocks of flats.

*Past the recent moorings were the last remaining loading sheds*

But the canal and the locks are still there, along with the small docks and some of the boat repair businesses. Little is visible from the High Street except where it goes over the canal, but despite extensive redevelopment in the 1990s – and more going on now – it remains an interesting area to walk around.

*From the footbridge over the Brentford gauging locks*

I’d photographed a little in the area back before much redevelopment took place, and more extensively in the 1990s. On line you can see some pictures from 2003 when some of the more recent development was starting. And I’ve returned a few times since this walk in 2010 and you can find more pictures if you search on My London Diary.

*Thames Lock, connecting the canal system to the River Thames*

As I noted in 2010, “Much of the walk that I took is now a part of the Thames Path, though it isn’t always well signposted, and some of the more interesting parts are a short detour away.”

More pictures from my short walk around Brentford on My London Diary.

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Broadwater Farm & Mark Duggan – 2017

Broadwater Farm & Mark Duggan: On Sunday 4th August 2017 I went to Tottenham to cover the march on the 6th anniversary of Mark Duggan being killed by police, and arriving early I took a walk around the Broadwater Farm Estate.

Broadwater Farm Estate – Tottenham

You can read the real story of the Broadwater Farm Estate on the excellent Municipal Dreams web site. In 1961 Haringey Council had a shortfall of 14,000 homes with many families living in squalid conditions in rented accommodation in overcrowded and run down Victorian back to back slums.

The estate was built on former allotments next to the Lordship Recreation Ground and above the River Moselle which was culverted. Its design was strongly influenced by the work of Le Corbusier and used ‘piloti’ to raise the homes above ground level both to combat the perceived flood risk from the river and to segregate pedestrians from traffic on walkways with the the ground level providing extensive parking for residents’ cars.

Construction began in 1967 and ended in the early 1970’s. The 1063 new homes were built to high standards, spacious and with all the ‘mod cons‘ expected in that era and with ‘constant hot water for heating and domestic use…supplied to all homes from the central oil-fired boiler’.

Things didn’t work out quite as expected, and although people were delighted at first, problems soon emerged. Flat roofs leaked, the heating system proved inefficient and noisy and there were cockroach infestations, lift breakdowns and fires of rubbish.

The huge parking spaces under the buildings were underlit and hidden from sight and “physically created a concrete ‘underworld’ for crime to thrive” and the many pedestrian walkways proved ‘impossible to police‘.” There were racial tensions too – the Tenants’ Association initially excluded black members and “its president was forced to resign in 1974 after a TV appearance speaking on behalf of the National Front.”

It became harder for the council to find tenants for the flats and the estate became a ‘dumping ground’ for difficult and disadvantaged tenants. In 1979 it became part of the government’s Priority Estates Project and Haringey council and the estate residents had mobilised to improve things. By 1984 homes were no longer hard to let and crime had been much lowered.

But policing was increasingly a problem, with many residents experiencing “heavy-handed and oppressive policing“. Things – as a second post on Muncipal Dreams details – came to a head after police raided the home of Cynthia Jarrett close to the estate looking for her son Floyd, a leading member of the Broadwater Farm Youth Association (BFYFA). She died of heart failure during the raid, and the following day, Sunday 6th August 1985, protesters set out from the estate to march for a peaceful protest outside Tottenham Police Station.

They were met and stopped by police in full riot gear, who sealed off all routes from the estate and a seven-hour riot began. As I wrote in 2017 “more and more police came into the estate with firefighters who put out a small fire. Faced by increasing attacks from residents the police withdrew, but two officers failed to escape. PC Richard Coombes was seriously injured and PC Keith Blakelock was beaten and hacked to death.”

*After the disturbances shops were moved down to Willan Rd*

Municipal Dreams continues: “A full-scale state of siege followed. Four hundred police officers occupied the Estate over the following weeks and some 270 police raids took place over the next six months. Some 159 arrests were made.” The inquiry into the disturbances at Broadwater Farm concluded that it “was essentially about policing – police activity and police attitudes.“

Work to improve the estate continued, helped in 1986 by a £33m grant from the Government’s Estate Action programme which enabled huge changes to the structures, eventually removing the walkways and bringing life to the ground level and with the BYFA leading improvements in the environment. By 2003 dit had become “a stable and safe community.”

The shooting of Mark Duggan, raised on the estate, by police on 4th August 2011 led to another march from Broadwater Farm to Tottenham Police Station three days later which sparked riots on Tottenham High Road and other areas of London and other towns and cities. Broadwater Farm was not the cause of these disturbances, which again were largely provoked by “a widespread resentment of police behaviour.“

Improvements to the estate continued after this but it is now under threat from further so-called regeneration which would see it “as ‘improved’ by importing middle-class owner-occupiers and private renters.“

Broadwater Farm Estate

Tottenham remembers Mark Duggan

People met on Willan Road in the centre of the Broadwater Farm Estate for a peaceful march to a rally at Tottenham Police Station on the sixth anniversary of the shooting of Mark Duggan by police. The marchers included members of his family and the family of Jermaine Baker, shot dead by police on 11th December 2015 in Wood Green.

Baker was unarmed and although a public inquiry found there had been a failings in the police operation that his killing was lawful and no criminal charges would be brought against any police officers although one would face gross misconduct proceedings.

Mark Duggan’s shooting had been accompanied by various false reports from the police and officers gave contradictory evidence at the inquest, where finally after weeks of deliberation the jury in January 2014 returned an 8–2 majority verdict that his death was a lawful killing. Legal challenges to the verdict were later rejected but in 2019 Duggan’s family accepted a settlement of their civil claim from the Met.

*Mark Duggan’s mother Pamela Duggan (centre) with family and friends*

Speakers outside Tottenham Police station remembered the police killing of other members of the Tottenham community apart from Duggan and Baker – Cynthia Jarrett, Joy Gardner, Roger Sylvester, and the recent murders of Rashan Charles, Darren Cumberbatch and Edson Da Costa.

As well as a minute of silence, speakers from the two families and local activists including Stafford Scott there were also speeches from Becky Shah of the Hillsborough campaign and from the Justice for Grenfell campaign.

*The crowd spread out into the street with a large group of mainly young men on the opposite side of the street*

Many more pictures on My London Diary at Tottenham remembers Mark Duggan.

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Soho Pride – 2004

Soho Pride – 1st August 2004: Soho Pride was a festival celebrated in the streets around Old Compton Street from 2003-2008, a separate event from the annual London Pride parade which now takes over the whole area for after-parties on the day of the parade. You can read a little more about it # on the Historic England web site which has a “Self-Guided Virtual Heritage Walking Tour” 130 Years of Queer Soho (or thereabouts) which includes Soho Pride.

I paid the first Soho Pride a brief visit in 2003 on my way home from a busy 5th July after covering a protest calling for legal recognition of British Sign Language and the Somerstown Festival Of Cultures. There are just a few pictures of Soho and Soho Pride 2003 on My London Diary.

I spent rather longer at Soho Pride 2004, and here is what I wrote it on My London Diary – and all the pictures in this post come from the 2004 festival.

The first Soho Pride held last year was a great success, and this year's event followed the same pattern. Street closures, restaurant tables in the roadway, DJs and loud sounds, people out to eat, drink, dance and generally have a good time.

Even in mid-afternoon, the streets were beginning to get really packed, especially outside the more popular gay bars and around the club DJs.

Really it was one big party, and a party that catered for almost all tastes except in music, which was uniformly relentless club beats. Perhaps a pity that the Jazz On The Streets events had beat a retreat to Carnaby Street (surely forty years behind us with flower power.)

After a while I began to feel my age, and escaped to the Underground and home for a quiet and leisurely alfresco dinner with a few glasses of white wine.

More pictures on My London Diary from Soho Pride 2004.

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The Great West Road and a Missing Lion – Brentford 1990

The Great West Road and a Missing Lion – Brentford: Continuing my walk on Sunday 7th January 1990 – the previous post was Chiswick Cottage and Lionel Road Brentford – 1990.

*Vantage London, Great West Rd, M4, Brentford, Hounslow, 1990, 90-1f-45*

Built around 1970 as the 12 storey headquarters of Beecham Pharmaceuticals it was no longer needed after they became part of Glaxo Smith Kline and was refurbished as as Vantage London with offices let to a number of companies. The building was again refurbished in 2016 and in 2019 was sold to a Luxembourg based company for £30 million.

In 2024 a planning application was made by Resolution Property for its conversion into 178 flats. It was approved following some modifications in April 2025.

The elevated section of the M4 runs on top of the Great West Road in front of the building. The strucvture in the foreground is I think a gritting bin.

*Great West Rd, M4, Brentford, Hounslow, 1990, 90-1f-35*

Taken under the elevated M4 where slip roads link the A4 Great West Road with the motorway. One project I was working on at the time was inspired by J G Ballard’s 1973 novel ‘Crash’, key scenes of which were set in this area – although the 1996 film of the book by Cronenberg was made in Canada. Ballard who lived not far away in Shepperton obviously knew the area well.

Crash centres around a car crash victim who finds himself aroused by car accidents but my project was more simply about the domination of our culture by the car and I felt threatened by the powerfully enclosed architecture here which is perhaps a modern equivalent of the Roman coliseums, and was rather choked by the fumes.

*Beechams, Clayponds Lane, Brentford, Hounslow, 1990, 90-1f-21*

On previous occasions I had photographed the iconic moderne 1930s buildings along the Great West Road, and this at right shows Beechams, which had this side entrance a few yards down Clayponds Lane. The factory building continues in a more utilitarian fashion but with a tall window, probably lighting a staircase which reflects the style.

*Flats, Carville Hall, Carville Hall Park, Brentford, Hounslow, 1990,90-1f-22*

The Carville Hall Estate was bought by Middlesex County Council in 1919 for the construction of the Great West Rd, and they sold the parts on both sides of the new road to Brentford UDC as a park, which opened in 1923. The house, orginally known as Clayponds, is now called Simmonds House. Originally built in the late 18th century, the front was re-modelled in the 19th century. It is locally listed.

The park is off Clayponds Lane and parts of it were once dug for clay, leaving ponds, marked as ‘Fishponds’ on the 1871 OS Map.

*Lion, flats, Carville Hall Park, Brentford, Hounslow, 1990, 90-1f-23*

Beyond the lion and the park are the tall blocks of the Brentford Towers Estate built for Hounslow Council in 1968-72.

The house here had extensive grounds and there is now a park on both sides of the A4/M4. The park to the north of the roads is larger than this but of little interest.

The house is thought to have been built for the “wealthy distiller and brewer David Roberts (c1733-97)” and was later home to “coal and horse racing magnate William Lancalot Redhead (c1853-1909) and his daughter“. It was later converted into flats.

*Lion, Carville Hall, Carville Hall Park, Brentford, Hounslow, 1990, 90-1f-24*

The fate of the lion appears to be a mystery. I was surprised on a later visit to find it no longer there and I’ve not been able to find what happened to it. The most I’ve come across is a suggestion that it was stolen.

I thought that it was probably a Victorian garden ornament made from artificial stone – Coade or Portland Stone etc – and would have been fairly heavy, so the thief would have needed a lorry with appropriate lifting gear.

Ponders End, Brimsdown, Enfield Wash & Waltham Cross – 1994

In March 1994 I spent some time photographing in the London Borough of Enfield, and going a little beyond its borders into Waltham Cross. Mostly I was taking black and white pictures – some of which you can see on Flickr in the album 1994 London Photos – but I did also take some in colour, including a few colour panormas.

*Builders Mate, Builders Merchants, The Arena, Mollison Avenue, Brimsdown, Enfield, 1994, 94-03-3-53*

Mollison Avenue in Brimsdown is a busy road running roughly parallel to and between a railway line and the Lea Navigation with the area between these crammed with industrial and commercial sites. Now much of it is occupied by delivery centres and I think there are rather more fences than in 1994.

This was a picture largely about shapes and as with many olds getting the colours to look natural is a problem – as you can see particulary in the foliage here.

Bridge, Pipe Bridge, Lea Navigation, Brimsdown, Enfield, 1994, 94-03-3-31 — *Bridge, Pipe Bridge, Lea Navigation,* Brimsdown, Enfield, 1994, 94-03-3-31

The colour is rather better in this image of a large pipe bridge, possibly carrying gas, over the navigation. The view here looks rather rural, but as usual there is a line of tall pilons.

Here I made use of the curvature from the swing-lens camera – as well as the obvious pipe there is a second interlocking curve with the bridge, the grass bank and the towpath.

Columbia Wharf, Ponders End, Enfield, 1994, 94-03-3-23

Columbia Wharf was now a wharf in name only, with lorries now delivering carpets. This is now a part of ‘Ponders End Waterfront’. I think this picture was taken from Wharf Road.

Launderette, Enfield Wash, Enfield, 1994, 94-03-1-63

Enfield Wash is close to Enfield Lock station which I used several times to walk around the area. I have a small suspicion that this launderette may really have been in an area that locals would call Enfield Lock, but I decided given the subject that Enfield Wash was more appropriate.

Launderette, Enfield Wash, Enfield, 1994, 94-03-1-64

I still can’t decide whether I preferred the landscape or portrait version of this launderette interior – taken through the window when it was closed.

Shops and Cross, Waltham Cross, Broxbourne, 1994, 94-03-1-61

From Enfield Lock Station a short walk took me to the Lee Navigation towpath which is also the Lea Valley Walk and a couple of kilometres north uder the M25 I was out of Greater London and in Waltham Cross. At right is the Eleanor Cross, one of twelve built to the orders of King Edward I to mark the overnight resting places of his wife Eleanor of Castile who died near Lincoln in 1290 as her body was en route to Westminster Abbey.

Much restored it now sits in the pedestrianised shopping centre, one of only 3 surviving Eleanor Crosses. The one in front of Charing Cross Station is a Victorian 1865 recreation.

Chiswick Cottage and Lionel Road Brentford – 1990

Chiswick Cottage and Lionel Road Brentford: The previous post from my walk on Sunday 7th January 1990 was BHS, Rolls-Royce, Pubs & Funerals, Hammersmith – 1990

St Alban's Cottage, 164, Duke Rd, Chiswick, Hounslow, 1990, 90-1e-43 — *St Alban’s Cottage, 164, Duke Rd, Chiswick, Hounslow, 1990, 90-1e-43*

I can’t now remember how I got to Duke Road from Hammersmith – either by walking through some of the back streets or by taking a bus to Hogarth Lane where a footpath, Devonshire Passage, leads to Duke Road by the side of St Alban’s Cottage, a detached house dating from 1871.

This is on the Glebe Estate, formerly an open filed providing an income to the vicar of St Nicholas Church, Chiswick and owned by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners and St Paul’s Cathedral who let it for building in 1869. As Gillian Clegg remarks, “That charming little enclave of Victorian cottages between Duke Road and Devonshire Road, Glebe Street and Fraser Street has become one of the most desirable, not to say expensive, places in which to live, which is somewhat ironic since the houses were built as homes for Chiswick’s less affluent.” And this is probably the most charming of the cottages in the area.

*RSR Fasteners, Station House, Lionel Rd, Kew Bridge, Brentford, Hounslow, 1990, 90-1e-45*

I went up Duke Road to the Chiswick High Road in Turnham Green and I think probably jumped on another bus to Kew Bridge.

Lionel Road South runs from beside Kew Bridge Station to the Great West Road and is now dominated by Brentford Football Club’s Gtech Community Stadium. RSR Fasterners in Station House was close to the corner with Kew Bridge Road. All of the land in this area had been railway land and was important for bringing passengers and coal from the north of England in the 1850s. In 1990 this building was still on the edge of the station’s freight yard as the sign directing deliveries indicates. The company RSR Fasteners was founded in 1948 and moved here the following year. The business is now based in Hayes.

*Signage, Lionel Rd, Kew Bridge, Brentford, Hounslow, 1990, 90-1e-31*

At the back of the signs here for Tunnel Cement, Brentford Commercials and others is a sign for the British Rail Freight Yard, although some sources say the goods yard closed in 1967. In the background you can see Kearney’s large shed and beyond it the Agfa building on the Great West Road.

*Rydal Engineering, Agfa, Lionel Rd, Kew Bridge, Brentford, Hounslow, 1990, 90-1e-35*

The Agfa building was extensively refurbished and became 27 West but the rest was swept away with the development of the new Brentford stadium. There are now further plans for the development of the area.

I’m not sure that the rather rusted vehicle here was a good advert for the servicing provided by the Tony Western Garage.

*Rydal Engineering, Agfa, Lionel Rd, Kew Bridge, Brentford, Hounslow, 1990, 90-1e-36*

Another view of Rydal Engineering and to the right of the Volvo lorry is Kearneys, with the Agfa building again in the background.

Agfa were one of the pioneers of colour negative film, introducing Agfacolor in 1932 and I’d occasionally used Agfa film, but they had failed to keep up with others and almost all of the colour I have put online was taken on Fujicolor – and when I made prints in the darkroom they were all on Fuji paper – except for the project ‘German Indications’ which I printed from transparencies on outdated Agfa reversal paper.

*Flats, Green Dragon Lane from Lionel Rd, Kew Bridge, Brentford, Hounslow, 1990, 90-1f-55*

Looking across Lionel Road was a parking yard protected by a tall fence, The railway line is lower down and out of sight beyond this, and the four tall blocks of flats are on Green Dragon Lane. Here is what I wrote about when they appeared in a picture from an earlier walk:

Six 23 storey blocks were built here as the Brentford Towers Estate in 1968 to 1972 by the London Borough of Hounslow.

Green Dragon Lane apparently got its name from a 17th century pub but there appears to be no record of where this was, though there are or were around 40 other pubs of that name elsewhere in the country. The name is usually thought either to have come from the Livery Badge worn by servants of the Herbert family, the Earl of Pembroke, which showed a bloody arm being eaten by a dragon or a reference to King Charles II’s Portuguese Catholic queen, Catherine of Braganza whose family badge was the Green Wyvern.

Italian Festival & Ritzy Strike – 2014

Italian Festival & Ritzy Strike: On Sunday 20th July 2014 I spent several hours at the Italian festival in Clerkenwell and photographed the procession around the local streets before rushing off to Brixton where striking cinema workers were holding a protest in front of the Ritzy cinema.

Festival of Our Lady of Mount Carmel – St Peter’s Church, Clerkenwell

I think I first photographed the procession of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in 1992 – you can see pictures from then and the following year in one of my Flickr albums, Procession in Honour of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.

In 1883 when the event began it was the first Roman Catholic event on English streets for 349 years and required special permission from Queen Victoria, but since then – with a few interruptions for war etc – has taken place every year on the third Sunday in July.

Since then I’ve frequently gone back to the event and taken more photographs, though in more resent years it has become more of a social event for me, meeting up with photographer friends – including one with Italian heritage – and sharing plastic cups of cheap Italian wine.

As well as the procession I’ve always photographed the people at these events and Sunday 20th Jul 2014 was no exception. As well as watching the procession many from the Italian community come from across this country to meet with old friends at the event and enjoy the food, wine, music and dancing in the Sagra in Warner Street.

This year (2025) it is also on 20th July and if you are in London and reading this on the day I post it, if you can get to St Peter;s Church in Clerkenwell (a short walk from Farringdon Station) by 3.30pm you can see what is I think London’s largest annual and certainly most colourful Christian processions.

It is still in my diary, but probably I won’t make it this year, partly because of being tired from photographing another protest calling for an end to the genocide taking place yesterday. But also because last time I went the wine had gone up in price and down in quality. More seriously because I’ve photographed it so many times it is hard to find anything new and not just repeat myself.

The event in 2014 was, as I noted, the first I’ve attended when there were no white doves released. So, although the other pictures are all from 2014, here is one from the last time I went to the festival in 2019. Pigeons are unpredictable and often look rather strange in flight and I was pleased to get one frame with them all visible.

London, UK. 20th July 2019. Three white doves are released from a basket in the historic procession in London’s Clerkenwell from St Peter’s Italian Church.

I usually stayed for an hour or two photographing the people celebrating, but in 2014 I rushed off after the procession to photograph another event.

Much more on My London Diary Festival of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.

Ritzy workers strike for Living Wage – Windrush Square, Brixton,

Despite some torrential rain “the Ritzy workers, some soaked to the skin, kept standing behind their long banner across the whole wide frontage of the cinema. Some had umbrellas, others did not, but it was the kind of rain that made umbrellas next to useless.”

*I sheltered under the tree and my umbrella but still got wet.*

For once I had my own umbrella up, holding it while taking pictures but still “enough came through to soak my clothes and my feet were squelching in my shoes.“

The Ritzy is the busiest and most successful art-house cinema in the the UK but was still paying its workers at only 82% of the London Living Wage – not enough to live on in London. Backed by their union, BECTU, they went on strike after negotiations with employers Cineworld failed. The workers say ‘Living Staff – Living Wage.

More at Ritzy workers strike for Living Wage.

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Battersea, Jesus, Bonkers & Peckham – 2008

Battersea, Jesus, Bonkers & Peckham: On Saturday 19 July 2008 I began my day at an open day at Battersea Power Station by developers proposing a comprehensive redevelopment before photographing the Jesus Army marching along Piccadilly and, going on to Camberwell Green for Bonkersfest and a brief visit to I Love Peckham.

Battersea Power Station

Battersea, Jesus, Bonkers & Peckham - 2008

Developers Real Estate Opportunities had bought the site for around £400 million and were showing the latest development of their plans for it to the public. These then involved re-building the chimneys and filling the space around with various buildings including an eco-dome and a 980ft eco-tower which dwarfed the power station – and which London Mayor Boris Johnson described as an “inverted toilet-roll holder”. You can see it in my photograph of their model on My London Diary, and to be fair I think it perhaps looks more like some high-tech lavatory brush.

This tower was soon dropped from the scheme which was approved in 2010 but building never started. The only aspect of the scheme which did eventually get built was the Northern Line extension from Kennington, partly because of a £100 million contribution from the sale of the site to a Malaysian consortium in 2012 – who ten years later opened the power station building to the public.

The central turbine hall had been open to the elements since the late 1980s when the roof was removed to lift out the machinery.

Local organisations had been formed in the 1980s to oppose unsuitable development and were then still active and asking questions about the proposals. They were concerned both about the loss of the power station as an iconic landmark and also the lack of affordable housing and facilities of any use to local people in the plans. The web site I linked to in 2008 is no longer active and the domain is for sale.

More on My London Diary at Battersea Power Station.

Jesus Army Marches on London – Piccadilly

The Jesus Army describes itself as “an evangelical Christian Church with a charismatic emphasis” while others have labelled it as a sect or a cult. There are certainly ex-members who talk openly about it, and particularly about leaving it as a traumatic experience, while others simply feel that they could not personally give the level of commitment it requires of them.

I found their march through London a dispiriting event, too uniform in many ways and I soon found it depressing to photograph. But as I told the woman who came out of the crowd passing by to hug me, “Jesus loves you too, sister” although I’m sure the guy I’ve read about in the gospels would have had no truck with this organisation. London Transport might have a problem with their logo [on some t-shirts] too!

Jesus Army Marches on London

Bonkersfest – Camberwell Green

Creative Routes, an interdisciplinary arts organisation run by and for those who have survived the mental health system and mental distress, organise the annual Bonkersfest as “a showcase of mad creativity.”

I wasn’t greatly impressed by what I saw happening this year, and left after taking a few pictures, including those of “some enterprising women were making the most of the occasion by organising a yard sale” in front of Brighton House on the edge of the green and a small memorial which had been unveiled in 2007 to the Wright family and four others killed by a direct bomb hit on the shelter here on the afternoon of 17th September 1940.

They had taken shelter while celebrating the wedding of Sidney and Patricia Wright. Bride and groom, Sidney’s parents and five sisters were among the 13 who were killed.

Bonkersfest

I Love Peckham – Peckham Square

There is an energy about Peckham that I really do like, and some of it was on display here, watched by a small crowd including the Mayor of Southwark, Councillor Eliza Mann – in pink.

There were a few things going on for me to photograph, and clearly there had been various other mainly art-related activities by local people, particularly children in the week of the festival, but it seemed to have attracted rather less interest than the previous year when I had photographer the march of the human rights jukebox.

Big Lunch Street Party – 2010

Big Lunch Street Party: The Eden project is a visitor attraction built in a disused clay pit near St Austell in Cornwall, its name coming from the Biblical garden and with a mission to celebrate plants and the natural world, reconnect people with them and to regenerate damaged landscapes and give the world a better future.

Big Lunch Street Party: Sunday 18th July 2010

The Eden project launched The Big Lunch in 2009 as “a little experiment: to see what the transformative effect of getting to know our neighbours might be.”

I was invited by a friend to be with him on Sunday 18 July 2010 as the official photographers at the Big Lunch Street Party in Wrayfield Road in North Cheam, part of a typical 1930s surburban development in what was then Surrey and is now a part of the London Borough of Sutton.

The party started with several tugs of war between teams from the odd and even sides of the street

You can find out more about Wrayfield Rd on Streetscan which reports that though in some respects it is close to an average UK postcode, though having rather more married couples than average in these family homes.

People here are healthier than the average and with higher household wealth than 89% of England and Wales with low unemployment and significantly higher levels of self-employment and entrepreneurship. There are low levels of deprivation and it is what I would describe as an affluent outer-London suburb.

*Some of those present could remember last street party for the 1977 Silver Jubilee street shown in the pictures on one garden wall*

And like many such streets, it is visually rather boring. It’s around a thousand feet long, lined mainly by solidly built semidetached houses, with a few detached properties – a little under 60 homes in all, developed by Warner and Watson Ltd, and completed in 1933/4. More details on the estate and the cost of homes back then on my post in My London Diary – now these houses cost around a thousand times as much. Had they just gone up by inflation they would be around £50,000 but in 2025 you are looking at around £750,000. At least one person who had moved in in 1933 was at the party 77 years later.

*Several couples had lived on the street for a very long time*

But the event was an interesting one and I’ve written more about it on My London Diary. Getting to know the people who live around you is a good idea and I’m sure things like this help.

*People look at he original newspaper advert for the houses in the street*

*There was plenty of eating and drinking taking place along the middle of the street*

The event received sponsorship from some local businesses and organisations – and the fire brigade brought a fire engine for kids to take the driving seat. Th local MP came and spoke, there was a fine singer and as I was leaving a local band came to play. The party was expected to keep going into the night.

Text and many more pictures on My London Diary at Big Lunch Street Party.

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Swan Upping on the Thames – 2006

Swan Upping on the Thames: On Monday July 17 2006 I again photographed the annual Swan Upping which takes place on the River Thames over five days, in the third week of July starting on Monday at Sunbury Dock and ending on the Friday of that week at Abingdon Bridge. Like many who live close to the river – a five minute walk for me – I’d heard about this for many years but is was only in 2001 that I first saw and photographed the event – before then I had always been teaching during that week.

It is a ceremony that began in the twelfth century where a part of their huge grab of the country the Norman invaders claimed ownership of mute swans on open water as well as all the land. Later they granted some rights over the swans to others including London Livery Companies the Worshipful Company of Vintners and the Worshipful Company of Dyers, who now share the rights to swans on the Thames equally with King Charles III.

You can find pictures and text from a number of years on My London Diary, up to 2013, when I had photographed it ten times and I then decided I was simply repeating myself. I might go again, perhaps just to watch the spectacle but not to try and cover it in any depth.

Some years I wrote at some length about the history and what actually takes place, but here I’ll post my first post about the event in 2001 and the post I made in 2006, the year in which all pictures here were taken.

2001

Swan upping is an annual event, counting swans along the Thames from Sunbury to Abingdon takes a week. The Crown decided it was a good thing to claim the swans around the 12th century, so they could gorge themselves on them at banquets, [later] they let some of their rich mates in the city have a share, but protected them from the people by severe penalties.

Swans are seldom eaten now, but upping continues to divide the Thames birds between the Crown, the Dyers and the Vintners.

2006

I’ve said rather a lot about swan upping in some previous years. It’s a fascinating and colourful event, which keeps a record of swans on the River Thames, as well as giving them a useful health check. The swans are handled very carefully and care is taken to avoid undue distress (though some of the press present this year could have been rather more careful.)

Swans are no longer normally eaten, but are admired for their decorative effect and looked after. Although anglers are now rather more responsible than in the past, the birds examined still often have signs of damage from discarded hooks and line. Many cygnets die in the first few months before the uppers come around, either from predators or other hazards.

I still feel an excitement watching the skill of the uppers as they surround a family of swans, gradually closing in on them, avoiding gaps and then grabbing them out of the water.

Great care is also taken when releasing the family back into the river, and usually only a few seconds later they are swimming serenely as ever.

*Eric who cycled along the towpath to try to lure the swans into suitable places for upping using crushed digestive biscuits*

One of the smaller mysteries to me is how there are so many swans on the river, but so few mating pairs – and many of these with very small broods. Of course there are many other lakes and rivers around, and swans can and do move around, although many of the adults in these pictures were ringed as cygnets in more or less the same locations.

*The swans get recorded – here the leg ring is being checked while the Swan Master looks at the bird’s beak.*

In 2006 I left the uppers at Runnemede, but in some years I went with them to Windsor where they stand to drink a Royal Toast in Romney Lock and then, on the way to the Eton Boathouses at Windsor, the Dyers and Vintners salute the Royal Uppers by standing in their boats with oars upraised.

More pictures from 2006 on My London Diary.

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