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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.

Shut Down Yarl’s Wood 14 – 2018

Shut Down Yarl’s Wood 14 – Yarl’s Wood immigration prison, near Bedford

The protest outside Yarl’s Wood Immigration Detention Centre on Saturday 14th July 2018 was the fourteenth on the remote site built on a wartime air base organised by Movement for Justice, although I had been covering protests in and around London calling for the closure of this and the other immigrant prisons for over 10 years.

I’d been at most of the previous thirteen at the site, although I had missed the first, largely because of transport problems – living outside London it wasn’t practical for me to travel on one of the coaches organised from London. In July 2018 I came with my bike on the train to Bedford and then cycled the 5 hilly miles to the event.

This protest was the smallest of them all I had attended there, with only a little over a hundred protesters. Many of those present had themselves been held for some time in this or other detention centres.

Yarl’s Wood was being used to hold women and a few families, and previous protests had been widely supported by other groups including many feminist groups, who on this occasion stayed away. Later some other groups organised protests but on a smaller scale than the previous protests.

*and through a gate into the field next to the detention centre*

A woman who had been part of Movement for Justice and active in earlier protests here had left the group, complaining bitterly about the way the group had treated her. She had received widespread support including from some other former members leading to many boycotting this protest. I knew both her and others in MfJ and commented: “However justified her personal complaint, it revealed little if anything about the group that was not already public knowledge, and MfJ has played a major role in protests against our racist immigration detention system, and still seems to be supported by the former detainees.”

You can read about that public knowlege of MfJ on Wikipedia and on the complaints on the “Speak The Plain Truth” blog. I was saddened by the dispute but more so at the effect it had in weakening this and related campaigns – and I had never had any illusions about the nature of the organisation which I had first met in the 1990s.

*A woman looks out at the protesters who were obviously welcomed*

The protest followed the usual pattern, meeting on the public highway and, after a rally there marching a mile or so along a public footpath to a field next to the prison and overlooking a part of the site across a 20 foot high metal fence.

*Others hold messages in the windows which only open a narrow slit*

The lower 10ft of the fence is solid metal sheeting but the upper 10ft is a thick metal gauze (out of focus in the picture above.) Standing back on a slope I could see women held inside greeting the protesters. Guards inside had apparently tried to keep them away from the windows – even enticing them to another part of the building with offers of free ice-cream!

They could hear the protest and know that there were people outside who supported them, and some inside were able to speak to us over a mobile phone link. Some of those who spoke outside were able to greet friends still inside – some are held for long periods, with one released a day under three years.

*Mabel had spent 3 years inside and knew many of those still held there*

Most asylum seekers are genuine and are eventually released, but the Home Office has long appeared to have a policy of putting as many hurdles as possible in their way, often demanding records that are impossible for the detainees to provide – a similar tactic to that used in the Windrush scandal. Many were deported under illegal “fast-track” procedures – and MfJ has also managed to take legal action along with others to stop some individuals being deported.

*Between speeches many banged on the fence to make a great deal of noise*

Most of our legal system is based on the principle that people are innocent until they are tried and proven guilty. But our asylum system works in the opposite way, assuming claims are fraudulent and demanding that asylum seekers prove they are genuine.

It was hot in the sun and I got tired. The protest was still continuing as I got on my bike to ride back to Bedford station.

More pictures from Saturday 14th July 2018 at Shut Down Yarl’s Wood 14.

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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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London Saturday 16th July 2005

London Saturday 16th July 2005: Another long series of posts from a day in London 20 years ago which I think is worth rescuing from the depths of My London Diary. Here, with the usual corrections and links to the many pictures on My London Diary is my day.

SWFest 05 – Pimlico

Back in London [from a visit to East Yorkshire], Saturday 16 July was a busy day. I started in Pimlico, with the ‘SWFest 05’ parade and festival In St Georges Square. It was a local event, with plenty of local people enjoying themselves.

more pictures

International Brigade Commemoration – Jubilee Gardens, South Bank

Getting from there to Jubilee Gardens for the annual commemoration of the International Brigade who fought fascism in Spain was made tricky with the obvious bus route being held up by a parade. I got a little exercise jogging there, but it was really too hot.

The weather was indeed rather Spanish, hot and breezeless, with a clear blue sky. There was no shade around the memorial to those 2,100 who fought 67 or more years ago for freedom. Many died in Spain, and there are now relatively few still living, though some were there, now in their 80s and 90s, and some clearly still going strong.

Sam Russell spoke movingly of the events in Spain and Jack Jones chaired the meeting. It fell to him to read out the names of the comrades who had died since last year’s event. Several came in their red berets, and with their badges

John Pilger had been invited to speak about the meaning of the Brigaders’ heroism today. [His account of the event and his speech I linked to on Truthout is no longer available, but is many other articles are worth reading, including Chomsky’s Remembering Fascism: Learning From the Past which begins with a mention of Spain.]

The commemoration ended with singing:
“So comrades, come rally and the last fight let us face – The Internationale unites the human race.”
Unfortunately there still seems to be an ever longer road before that happens.

more pictures

National Front demonstrate – Victoria

*A demonstrator hides face behind a union flag*

Fascism is still with us, and showed its face – if largely shamefacedly – in London later that afternoon, when around 50-60 National Front supporters gathered to march. It wasn’t quite clear what message they wanted to put across, there were few banners and less articulacy in a flood of union jacks.

Most of the marchers were men. I talked to quite a few, asking permission to take some of the pictures. No-one refused, some said yes, then turned away or moved behind their flags. At one point I was threatened with violence, but the guy’s mates came and pulled him away. One of the women demonstrators had a bunch of flowers. I asked her about them and was told the march would leave these at the Book of Condolence for the London Bombings.

The police let them walk to the corner of Victoria Street, where they could be seen by the public walking by. Many of those passing were clearly hostile to the Front, most showing it by their expressions, a few shouting at them.

I took a few more pictures and then left. Another photographer there was commissioned to cover the march, but I was free to do something more pleasant on this fine summer’s day. I went and sat in the park and ate my sandwiches and had a drink.

more pictures

Turkish Festival, Coin St – Bernie Spain Gardens

Meanwhile, at Bernie Spain Gardens, another of the programme of Coin Street events celebrating London’s diversity was taking place. I arrived just as a procession of Turkish singers and musicians was making its way to perform on the south bank walkway there.

Later I went to hear one of Turkey’s leading singers perform on the main stage, and she was followed in the limelight by a belly dancer. I’ve photographed several belly dancers over the years, and this one had rather less belly than some, but that made the performance none the less compelling. I can’t claim to understand the finer points of the genre, but it still has a certain attraction. It isn’t just me being mesmerised by the mobility of a female body, although that certainly doesn’t detract.

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Divided Cyprus – Greek Cypriots protest in Trafalgar Square

Dragging myself away from Turks and Turkish London and a rather pleasant Turkish beer – on sale here at over 5 times its price in Turkey – I walked past the skateboarders and over the bridge towards Trafalgar Square. Supposedly there was to be a march of Greek Cypriots protesting against the ‘foreign’ Turkish occupation of the north-east third of Cyprus, continuing since the 1974 invasion.

The march didn’t seem to be happening, but there was a rally in Trafalgar Square, and I photographed a number of people holding photographs of some of the 1476 people – soldiers and civilians – still missing since 1974.

Despite these outstanding problems, Greek and Turkish Cypriots live together peacefully in London, particularly along Green Lanes [in Harringay in North London.] The Cypriots (especially now Cyprus is in the European Union) claim to “long for a viable and durable settlement that would enable Greek and Turkish Cypriots to live amicably as they have for centuries in the past“.

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Barts NHS Cleaners march against Serco – 2017

Barts NHS Cleaners march against Serco: On Saturday 15th July 2017 a rally and march in Whitechapel follow five days of strike by cleaners and porters at the Royal London Hospital and the other East London hospitals in the Barts NHS Trust – Mile End Hospital, Newham University Hospital, St Bartholomew’s Hospital and Whipps Cross University Hospital.

Cleaning, portering, laundry, cleaning and security services were outsourced to Serco in 2017 and the workers involved immediately found their conditions being adversely affected. Serco’s first action was to write to them telling they were no longer allowed paid tea breaks; the workers sat in the canteen and refused to move before these were re-instated. But they accused Serco of increasing stress and workload with a climate of bullying, intimidation and fear and a failure to set up procedures for reporting problems with facilities and other issues.

When Serco refused a Unite claim for 30p per hour in line with inflation and cost of living increases in London the workers voted 99% in favour of strike action. Serco illegally brought in poorly trained agency workers to replace them and on the strike days conditions became unsanitary and many patients did not get hot meals.

Barts Trust had put these services out to tender to save money they needed to pay out £2.4million a week because of a disastrous PFI contract made under New Labour. Although It had provided a much-needed new hospital completed in 2016 but with two floors Barts didn’t have the money to fit out, it left them paying these huge sums long into the future. But Barts were attempting to save money at the expense of their workers and endangering patients.

The protest began on the busy street outside the old Royal London buildings but there were soon too many for the pavement here and we moved around to the side of the hospital for a rally, where speakers including Gail Cartmel of Unite, John McDonnell, then Shadow Chancellor and Unite pickets and other trade unionists including Victor Ramirez of United Voices of the World who spoke forcefully in Spanish – the first language of many of the cleaners – spoke from a balcony above the crowd – and I was able to take some pictures. Some brought greetings and support from other unions.

Serco employ mainly migrant workers in other public sector workplaces as well as running immigration prisons such as Yarl’s Wood where migrant women and families are daily repressed and subject to physical and sexual abuse and some had come to support the Barts workers and also to protest against their activities elsewhere.

Eventually the marchers formed up behind the banner and made there way along Mile End Road to another rally in a small park close to Mile End Hospital, where there were a few more speakers before we all dispersed.

Back in 2003 I’d spent time in several hospitals and had experienced a clear difference between the standards of cleaning and food between those with contracted out cleaners who were allowed insufficient time to clean the wards and one where the cleaners were still a part of the hospital team. It was the difference between dirt and used needles under my bed and a spotless shiny floor.

Protests continued at Barts and in 2023 Serco withdrew early from the contract. Both Unite and Unison claimed victory for the decision by Barts to directly employ the workers under the same conditions as other existing staff.

Labour in opposition were clearly opposed to outsourcing particularly in the public services and promising to outlaw it, but the Employment Rights Bill Implementation Roadmap published this month seems to have drawn back from the earlier promise and contains no explicit reference to outsourcing.

I was pleased with the photographs I had been able to make at the event and as well as the few here there are many more you can see on My London Diary at Barts NHS Cleaners march against Serco.

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John Bowden, Congo & Waterloo Carnival – 2007

John Bowden, Congo & Waterloo Carnival: I don’t think I wrote anything on My London Diary about the three events I covered on Friday 13th July other than some captions on the pictures. The case of John Bowden in particular is one that has considerable relevance now in the UK with increasing prison over-crowding and chaos, and the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo is ongoing now for over three decades, but there were dramatic developments earlier this year with now some negotiations between the warring parties.

International Day of Solidarity – John Bowden – Parole Board, Westminster

In an interview on Indymedia in 2007 John Bowden stated that he grew up experiencing anti-Irish “racism as well as extreme poverty very early on in life” and committed “serious anti-social acts” including burning “a factory to the ground when I was nine!” which led to him being “systematically brutalised and de-socialised to the extent where I became a complete outsider” by the ‘criminal justice system.

He stated that by his “early twenties I had already spent the bulk of my time locked away in various prison-type institutions and had accumulated a long criminal record, composed mostly of violent offences, which were becoming increasingly more violent.”

In 1980, aged 24, he was arrested along with others for the murder and grisly dismemberment of a man at a party in a flat in Camberwell and given a life sentence. In jail he took part in taking an assistant governor hostage after a prisoner had been murdered in the hospital wing – and this got him another 10 year sentence.

During his time in years of solitary confinement he writes “I actually began to discover my true humanity and experienced a process of deep politicisation which drew me closer to my fellow prisoners and oppressed people everywhere. From a brutalised and anti social criminal I metamorphasised into a totally committed revolutionary.”

In an interview in Novara Media in 2020 he states “I committed and devoted my life not just to the personal struggle against brutality but to a wider struggle against the prison system generally, and spent almost 40 years trying to organise and mobilise prisoners.” The views he expresses on prison in this interview should be taken to heart by those to reforming our criminal justice system to create a system that works with offenders to rehabilitate rather than further damage them and make re-offending virtually inevitable.

In 2016 the International Workers of the World founded the IWW Incarcerated Workers Organising Committee and he became a member.

You can see and hear Bowden in a series of short videos made for the Prisoner Solidarity Network on YouTube, Tour of the British prison estate.

While the others convicted with him were released over 20 years ago, Bowden was only granted parole in 2020, and only after taking the Parole Board to Judicial Review following their fourth rejection of his release.

It had become clear that his continued imprisonment was not because of any danger to the public “but because I was labelled an ‘anti-authoritarian’ prisoner with links to anarchist and communist groups on the outside, specifically Anarchist Black Cross and the Revolutionary Communist Group.”

International Day of Solidarity – John Bowden

No More Deportations to the Congo – Parliament Square

A group of UK residents from the Democratic Republic of Congo had come to demand an end to Britain’s racist laws and to end the harassment and detention of refugees and asylum seekers. They say all deportations to the DRC should stop as the country is unsafe.

There are just a few more pictures on My London Diary.

Waterloo Carnival – Lower Marsh, Waterloo

The first Waterloo Carnival took place in July 2002 as “a celebration of our community: our unity and diversity, history and future” and is backed by many locally based businesses and organisations including the Old Vic, Christian Aid and the local primary school where the procession formed up.

*Local residents pose with some of the marchers*

*From Lower Marsh the procession went through a council estate*

*It ended with a picnic and events on Waterloo Millennium Green.*

Many more pictures on My London Diary at Waterloo Carnival.

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Yorkshire Interlude – Hornsea – 2008

Yorkshire Interlude – Hornsea: On Saturday 12th July 2008 when we were staying for a few days in Hull with an old friend we took a bus to the Yorkshire coast at Hornsea for the day.

I’d first visited Hornsea, a small coastal resort, back in 1965 when I made my first visit to the Hull home of my future parents-in-law, but my wife’s memories of it go back further.

Until Beeching swung his axe there were trains from Hull to two seaside towns, Hornsea and Withernsea which stopped at her local station, Botanic Gardens, a quarter of an hour’s walk from her home. People would often go to them for an outing, for a day or even an evening, and many who lived in these towns would commute to work in Hull.

My wife’s family took their annual holiday most years with a week in Hornsea, staying in a cottage that one of her great-aunts had bought for £25 after it had been condemned for demolition in the near future. I think it was more than 25 years later that it actually came down – and the site is now just a small garden on the main street, a few minutes walk from the seafront.

Most times when we go to Hull now – not as often as we used to as most of those we knew there are now dead or have moved away – we take a bus to Hornsea. What used to be around 40 minutes on the train now takes around twice as long on the buses, though at least it is now free for those of us with bus passes. And the old railway line is now part of a long-distance footpath. Perhaps we will visit again this summer.

We’ve also stayed there, in a holiday cottage in the town centre and a couple of times for a few days at a hotel on the seafront there, where we’ve enjoyed some remarkable sunrises over the wide expanse of the North Sea – as well as some battering storms.

But in 2008 we were staying in one of the finest houses in Hull, West Garth, (more here) then owned by an old friend – an ‘Arts & Crafts’ house which gets a short mention in the guide to Hull’s architecture. It had been one of our friend’s childhood homes and after some years of retirement he bought the property. Various ‘improvements’ had been made which meant it had been denied listing and he spent considerable time and money in restoring it to its original state but sadly died before he completed the job.

The weather wasn’t too good, with some heavy showers, but this did mean that we had the town almost to ourselves, as most of those who would normally have come for a day out at the seaside in July stayed home.

We visited Hornsea Mere, a large freshwater lake at the centre of the town, and a shower gave us a good reason to go into its café before we walked down to the seafront. The sea looked cold and uninviting and for once Linda didn’t paddle.

Then along to another café at the Floral Hall where the sun came out briefly after we had taken shelter there and on the the large park, Hall Garth before it was time to get the bus back into Hull.

This time we took the slower route back via Beverley, getting off in Hull on Beverley Road where I took a picture of Bethnal Green, here just a short terrace of houses, before returning to our friends house to cook dinner.

Despite the weather we had enjoyed a good day.

But it wasn’t a good day to have afternoon tea on the south-facing loggia. You can see many more pictures and some captions from our day at Hornsea on My London Diary.

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