>Re:PHOTO Peter Marshall - Thoughts on Photography

Death Penalty, Social Housing, Iraqi Killing and a Pillow Fight

Death Penality, Social Housing, Iraqi Killing and a Pillow Fight: Ten years ago on Saturday 6th April 2013 I photographed a Sikh vigil against the death penalty in India, a protest against the unfair ‘Bedroom Tax’ and benefit caps and demanding more social housing, Iranians calling for an enquiry into Iraqi attacks on Camp Liberty and finally a pillow fight.

Vaisakhi “Save a Live” Vigil – Old Palace Yard, Westminster

Death Penalty, Social Housing, Iraqi Killing and a Pillow Fight

Thousands of protesters, mainly Sikh men, women and children came to Old Palace Yard opposite the Houses of Parliament to back the Kesri Lehar vigil against the death penalty in India.

The Kesri Lehar or ‘I Pledge Orange’ campaign, takes its name from the colour which stands for sacrifice in the Indian flag and is also the colour of the Sikh flag and the dress worn by baptised Sikhs which makes Vaisakhi such a colourful festival. It began as on-line campaign by US-based Sikhs for Justice. Most of those attending the protest wore orange turbans or scarves to show their support for the campaign.

There were then around 480 prisoners in Indian jails sentenced to death, and protesters feared that some were about to be hanged. These included Balwant Singh Rajoana, sentenced in 2007 for his part in a suicide bomb attack which had killed a former Chief Minister of Punjab, Beant Singh and 17 others in 1995. He remains in jail in 2023.

Death Penality, Social Housing, Iraqi Killing and a Pillow Fight

A large group from Derby had come in support of Professor Devender Pal Singh Bhullar who has been on death row in India for 18 years, for his alleged involvement in a car bomb in Delhi. His sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 2014.

Sikhs were poorly treated when India and Pakistan were granted independence in 1947, with their homeland area being split across the border and most of those in jail are activists for an independent Sikh state of Khalistan. The India government has carried out a determined policy to stamp out Sikh separatists and Beant Singh who was assassinated is held by Siks to have been responsible for the extra-judicial killing of over 25,000 Sikh civilians during his period of office.

More at Vaisakhi “Save a Live” Vigil.

No to Bedroom Tax & Benefit Caps – Downing St

The Counihan-Sanchez Family Housing Campaign from Kilburn organised a protest opposite Downing St against the unfair Bedroom tax and benefit caps which are effecting so many people and called for the GLA and London councils to build more social housing.

They and others spoke at the campaign about the problems in getting councils to provide proper housing, and the failures of our benefits system which leave many destitute and some desperate enough to kill themselves.

As I commented, “The huge housing problems in London come from the failure over the past thirty years to provide social housing for the many low paid workers that support the city and keep it running, with a housing benefit system that has simply acted as a subsidy for private landlords and driven up rents. The cap on benefit will do nothing to solve the problem, but just make life difficult or impossible for the poorest in our society. We need more social housing and an end to poverty pay and of course more jobs.“

Ten years on things are certainly no better. Further changes in benefits including the move to Universal Credit have increased problems for many, local authority budgets have been further cut and the cost of living crisis has hit many more people. We do have more food banks, but many of these are finding it hard to cope with demand.

More at No to Bedroom Tax & Benefit Caps.

PMOI Protest Iraqi killings – Downing St

Also protesting at Downing Street were the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI). They called for an enquiry into the Iraqi attacks on Camp Liberty in February and previous attacks which have killed and injured many of them.

The PMOI, also known as the Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) was founded in 1965 and took part in the 1979 Iranian revolution which deposed the Shah. Soon after they were in armed struggle with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards and had to take refuge in neighbouring Iraq, where Saddam Hussein gave it refuge.

During the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq they agreed a ceasefire with the US and gave up their arms – which included 19 Chieftain tanks – and became the majority in the Iranian parliament in exile, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), with its base in Paris.

In Iraq the roughly 5000 MEK fighters were confined in the refugee Camp Ashraf, guarded by the US military and declared by the US as protected persons under the Fourth Geneva Convention. The camp was transferred to Iraqi control at the start of 2009, and in 2012 those remaining were transferred to the former US military base Camp Liberty in Bagdhad, renamed Camp Hurriya.

There had been many attacks by Iraqis on these camps, with deaths, injuries and arrests. In the most recent on 9th Febuary 2013, Iraqi mortars and rockets killed at least seven MEK members. The MEK has appealed to the UN Secretary General and the US for help and was at Downing Street to ask the UK government for support.

PMOI Protest Iraqi killings

Feathers Fly in Trafalgar Square – Trafalgar Square

This had been designated World Pillow Fight day by the urban playground movement and this pillow fight was one of around 90 such events in cities around the world.

The urban playground movement aims to make cities into more public and social spaces by encouraging unique happenings like this pillow fight. It aims to help people move away from “passive, non-social, branded consumption experiences like watching television” and to consciously reject “the blight on our cities caused by the endless creep of advertising into public space.” They hope this will result in “a global community of participants, not consumers.“

Despite once company bringing a team of young women and handing out prominently branded free pillows, this remained large an unbranded event, and hundreds turned up with their own pillows and cushions to take part.

An earlier pillow fight had been planned for Hyde Park, but relatively few people had turned up and park police were able to prevent it taking place. But the numbers here – over 500 – made it impossible to stop. As well as the participants there were rather more who simply stood and watched. Which went against the spirit of the event, meant to be something to take part in rather than a spectacle.

It started on time and a great deal of fun was certainly being had, with some at least of those taking part adhering to the ‘rule’ not to attack photographers. At first the air was clear, but then pillows began to break up and more and more feathers filled the air. After half an hour there was a brief break and then the fight recommenced, but I left for a nearby pub where the air was clearer.

Feathers Fly in Trafalgar Square

At War With Iraq – 2003

20 years ago we were at war with Iran, despite the largest ever protests in this country. I’d missed the big protest on 15 February when 1.5 million people were on the streets of London – including the rest of my family, as I’d only come out of hospital the previous day and was still very weak following slight complications after a minor operation following a heart attack. But I’d covered all the main protests in London before that, as well as taking part in our local protests every Friday night.

Of course it hadn’t just been in London that there had been protests that weekend, and there were others in at least 600 major cities around the world – the largest of all in Rome – combining to make this “the largest protest event in human history” with the BBC estimating around 6-10 million taking part around the world. And in the two and a half months leading up to the invasion on March 20th there are thought to have been 3,000 protests involving 36 million people around the world – though I think even that number fails to include small local protests like our series on Staines Bridge.

Of course it had been clear for at least a year that the USA would go ahead with its invasion whatever and had been preparing its military for it. More at stake was whether other countries would join them, and for us whether Britain would. There seems to have been no sensible reason why we should, but Tony Blair had made a promise to George Bush and was prepared to lie and mislead the country and parliament to keep it.

The major pretext for the invasion was to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), but the UN inspection team led by Hans Blix had found no evidence that Iraq had any – and none were found following the invasion.

The USA also claimed it was to end Saddam Hussein’s support for terrorism, and US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had ordered the Pentagon to make plans for the invasion before the dust had settled on September 11th 2001 despite being told that the attack had been carried out by al-Qaeda with no cooperation from Iraq.

Finally the US had claimed they were “going in to free the Iraqi people“, but they appear to have done little or no planning as to what could replace Saddam Hussein to keep the country from descending into chaos, a process they accelerated after their victory by disbanding the Iraqi army and disbarring from public office all of the civil service, teachers and others in public sector jobs for whom membership of the Ba’ath Party had been obligatory.

The US Institute of Peace has a useful timeline of events in Iraq since the war which has an introduction which ends “Iraq suffered through a civil war, political turmoil, widespread corruption, sectarian tensions and an extremist insurgency that seized a third of the country. Iraq has evolved through four rocky phases.”

The coalition forces – three quarters from the USA, a quarter from the UK and a handful of military from Australia and Poland, with a little support from Iraqi Kurds were still busy fighting across Iraq on April 5th, capturing Baghdad on the 9th and the war ended on May 1st, though US forces remained in occupation until 2011. Saddam was only found and captured in December 2003 and was eventually tried, found guilty of crimes against humanity and executed on 30th December 2006.

Of course the Iraq War has also had a great influence on British politics. In particular it has led to a huge distrust for politicians and our political system because both of the fact that our prime minister and other leading politicians in both parties lied to us, but the failure of huge protests over serveral years to have any effect on policy showed a failure to take any notice of the views of the people. Politics needs to be a politics of consensus and the Iraq war showed it was one of disdain.

Here’s the short piece I wrote on My London Diary in April 2003 – with minor correcttions of capitalisation etc:

April started with the country at war, invading Iraq together with the USA.

In Saturday 5th I went to a march to protest against this and to call for proper reporting of the events in the media, especially the BBC.

I walked to the march past the Houses of Parliament and a small group of protesters in Whitehall who were pointing out the number of Iraqi civilians already killed by the allied forces.

The main thrust of the demonstration now was that the civilian population of Iraq should be respected. The use of weapons such as depleted uranium shells and cluster bombs will mean the deaths continue for generations after the end of the fighting.

The march started opposite the old BBC building in Portland Place and went to Grosvenor Square, close to the US Embassy. There were perhaps five thousand marchers, and several hundred police surrounding them most of the time. As the speakers pointed out, it was difficult not to see the war as a US takeover of the country when plans were already in place for Americans to run the country after the war.

The killing of Iraqis must stop, and rapid progress should be made to hand control of the country back to its people.

The Source of the Thames

The Source of the Thames: Ten years ago today we were engaged on a very different walk to those I’ve been writing about in recent posts on my wanderings in London in 1989. Together with my wife and elder son we were about to complete our walk along the length of the Thames Path which had begun a couple of years earlier.

Of course I’d walked along by parts of the Thames in and around London, out to Windsor and towards Reading and to the east all the way to rather remoter regions on the estuary beyond the end of the route over the years in piecemeal fashion, but around 2010 we’d bought a guide to the Thames Path and began walking and marking off sections in an organised way.

The National Trails site says the path is 185.2miles (298 km) from its source in the Cotswolds to Woolwich. The path was first proposed in 1947 but it was only 49 years later that it was officially opened in 1996, though I’d walked a few sections and made some minor suggestions after the Ramblers released a draft for consultation a few years earlier.

Some physical improvements needed to be put in place, with several footbridges needed to cross the river where ferries had long ceased operation, and there were also many negotiations with riverine land owners, angling groups and local authorities to allow access. Not all these were successful, and there are still lengths of the route which are less than optimal in the upper reaches of the river.

According again to the site, the trail is “Easy to reach by public transport”, but that is only partly true. Even below Oxford there are some sections a mile or two from the nearest station or bus stop which adds significantly at one or both ends of a day’s walk, and once you get much past Oxford things become more difficult or impossible, certainly for those of us coming from the London area.

The last reliable and reasonably frequent bus route from Oxford back in 2013 took us to Hinton Waldrist, a small village a mile or two from the path, and our day walks had ended there. For the final section my son had booked us into two nights accommodation on route between there and the source, at Buscot and Cricklade and we returned home at the end of our third day of walking from Kemble Station, a mile and a half from the source.

We had decided to make the walk in the week after Easter Sunday, which in 2013 was on March 31st and had begun on the Tuesday. On Thursday 4th April 2013 we left our hotel in Cricklade by 9am and after a short look around the town began the final day of our 3 day walk.

It was a cold day and there was still ice on some of the puddles. Our route guide – David Sharp’s ‘The Thames Path’ – told us we had 19.7km to walk to the source, but we had to do a little further as there was a diversion: “The Thames has changed course and is now flowing over the Trail, just inside Gloucestershire” a notice with a helpful map told us – and another 2.5km to the station. The guide was otherwise excellent, but would have been rather easier to follow had we been walking down-river as it suggested and described rather than in the opposite direction.

On My London Diary I described our route and day in some detail so I won’t repeat that here, and there are over 80 pictures from the day in the account. Perhaps some of them are a little misleading as I used a fisheye lens and made the river look as if it turns considerably more than its already rather twisty route. The were some long and rather boring sections too on which I took no pictures.

*There was no river on the final section*

Scenically this is one of the less interesting of the Thames Path sections, but it was important to complete the walk, even if the final section was completely dry. It was bitterly cold and would have been more enjoyable in warmer weather even though we were well wrapped up – and needed to take a short rest in a pub in Ashton Keynes in the middle of the day to warm up before continuing.

*The dry spring – though Spring had been wet*

The source was something of an anti-climax. What is supposedly a spring with a stone marking it erected there by the Thames Conservators. I don’t know when water was last seen there, and others I know who have walked the river have all found it dry. The best I could find for some distance down the hill was a blue pipe on the grass – but there was nothing flowing from that either. There were some deep puddles in the mud by a gate some way down, and a larger one in the grass just above Thames Head, but it was only below the Fosse Way (A433) at Thames Head that a small stream became visible.

We walked to Kemble station to find we had just missed a train and it was 50 minutes to wait for the next. There was what looked like a cosy waiting room but it was locked. It was far too cold to stand and wait on the windswept platform so despite our aching legs we went for a walk around Kemble before catching the first of three trains for our journey home.

More about the three days of our walk on My London Diary:

Thames Path: Cricklade to the Source
Thames Path: Buscot to Cricklade
Thames Path: Shifford to Buscot

King’s Cross Road – 1989

My walk around King’s Cross on Saturday 8th April 1989 continues in this post. The previous part was Winged Lions, A School, Thameslink, Wine, Buses…

Kings Cross Road, Lorenzo St, King's Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4d-32 — *Kings Cross Road, Lorenzo St, King’s Cross, Islington, 1989 89-4d-32*

140-142 King’s Cross Road on the corner with Lorenzo Street had a distinct style to it, with the two oval windows and some interesting brickwork. British History Online states “This five-storey office block is largely of 1991 but incorporates the front and side elevations of a tenement building of 1888” and the view from where I made this picture is still much as it was before the rebuilding.

The two terracotta panels facing Lorenze Street are still there and together give the date of AD 1888. The BHO article suggests the architect was probably W. Youlle who was the architect for a similar building on Pentonville Road. The ground floor was occupied by shops – bricked up and fly-posted in my picture – with rooms and a toilet on each of the upper floors.

Almost legible in my picture is a line of text above what had been a shopfront on Lorenzo Street which appears to read ‘B R E E D O M E T E R S’ though some letters are unclear and part obscured by the no-entry sign. Perhaps someone will be able to clear up this mystery.

Leeke St, King's Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4d-33 — *Leeke St, King’s Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4d-33*

The buildings at 5-11 Leeke St have become the offices for the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, established by Paul Hamlyn in 1987; after his death in 2001 this became one of the largest independent grant-making foundations in the UK. At left is a doorway with the date 1890 and an arm in armour holding the butt of a broken spear, the Irish Foster family crest for the Foster Parcel Express Co. The conservation area document describes it as “a microscope emblem”.

Kings Cross Road, King's Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4d-35 — *Kings Cross Road, King’s Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4d-35*

These buildings are still there but their uses have changed and the café is now a property management company. The fine block at 150-158 was being refurbished in 1989 and is now home to an advertising agency.

Again British History Online is informative and suggests it was a speculative development. Built in 1902–3 with what it describes as a ” mildly ambitious” facade, it says that 154 and 156 had goods hoists and winches, though there is no sign of them in my picture.

Kings Cross Road, King's Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4d-36 — *Kings Cross Road, King’s Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4d-36*

Again the BHO article linked above tells us that this was built as an office, workshops and stabling in 1899–1900 and was from many years occupied by J J Connelly who probably built it. The wide doorway at left was for horses with a ramp leading up to stables on the upper floor. It was apparently still being refurbished when I made this picture as offices for Community Service Volunteers. The structure is still there but looks rather different as the striped window shades have been removed and the frontage painted a uniform white.

The taller building at right was the Mary Curzon Hostel for Women, built in memory of his wife for Lord Curzon in 1912-3 to provide inexpensive hostel accomodation for working women. Again there is a fuller description in the BHO article. When it was taken over by the LCC in 1955 it was renamed the Susan Lawrence Hostel.

Dodds the Printers, Kings Cross Road, King's Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4d-24 — *Dodds the Printers, King’s Cross Road, King’s Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4d-24*

Dodds the Printers had these shopfronts at 193-5 on King’s Cross Road for many years and their signage shown looked like something from a different age in 1989. From around 2013 the shopfronts have been put to other uses but the printers still appear to be in business at the rear of the premises down St Chad’s Place, the alley through the doorway in this picture. I’d taken a few photographs in this alley in 1986, which show the signs for Dodds on the back of their property.

Kings X Radio Cars, Kings Cross Road, Kin Pentonville Rd, King's Cross, Islington, Camden, 1989 89-4d-11 — *Kings X Radio Cars, Pentonville Rd, King’s Cross, Islington, 1989 89-4d-11*

I turned left onto Pentonville Road, and took a picture of these shops on the north side of the road, all of which are now a Pizza Restaurant, though not the same Italian snack bar as in my picture.

There is still a clock high more or less in the same position though that blank wall has now got four windows. The rectangular clock permanently at three minutes past four which had I think once advertised a businness here has been replaced by a slightly bulky circular one which appears to change with the hours.

I walked a few yards west and tuned right up Caledonian Rd where the next post on this walk will begin. The first post on this walk was Kings Cross, St George’s Gardens & More.

Housing, Low Pay, Arms Sales, A Political Arrest & More

Too much was happening on Thursday 2nd April 2015 to fit it all into a headline, with protests against evictions, jailed Palestinian children, arms companies, sacking of trade unionists at hotels in Ethiopia and the Maldives, a politically motivated arrest and a failed visit to a squat in a prominent London building.

Sweets Way at Annington Homes – James St,

Housing, Low Pay, Arms Sales, A Political Arrest

I began work at a lunchtime protest outside the offices of Annington Homes, the tax-dodging equity investor owned company which owns the Sweets Way estate in north London, calling for an end to evictions and the right to return for all decanted residents.

It was a small but lively protest and attracted considerable attention and support on a street busy with office workers taking their lunch break.

Despite the efforts of the campaigners this small former Ministry of Defence estate of 142 social homes was finally forcibly evicted by evicted by dozens of High Court bailiffs and 7 vans of Met police on 23-24th September. Annington planned to replace these with around 170 homes for private sale at up to £700,000, along with just 59 so-called ‘affordable’ homes at £560,000. Nothing on the new estate was to provide social housing and this was clearly an exercise in social cleansing for profit.

Sweets Way at Annington Homes

Admiralty Arch Occupied by A.N.A.L. – The Mall

Admiralty Arch, the landmark Grade I listed building providing an impressive entrance to the Mall from Trafalagar Square was commissioned by King Edward VII to commemorate Queen Victoria’s death, designed by Sir Aston Webb and completed in 1912. Initially a residence for the First Sea Lord and offices for the Admiralty it was later more general government offices. The government sold it off in 2012 to be developed as a hotel.

Activists from the Autonymous Nation of Anarchist Libertarians had entered the building through the roof at night and were occupying it. I photographed the various notices and banners on the outside of the building and some activities of security and occupiers outside, and talked to a couple of the them. I and a couple of other journalists were offered entry if we brought tobacco or alcohol but felt it wise to refuse and left. I think the squatters were evicted within 24 hours.

Admiralty Arch Occupied by A.N.A.L.

Free the Palestinian Children – G4S, Victoria St

G4S provides security services for Israeli jails in which Palestinian children are held, some as young as 12 years old. The most common charge is throwing stones. Typically there have been 500-700 of them a year in the Israeli military detention system with between 120 and 450 held at any one time. In 2014 Israel held 1266 Palestinian children for interrogation; campaigners say 75% of them are physically tortured and many sexually abused.

One of the protesters who spoke about G4S involvement in the imprisoning and torture of Palestinian children also spoke about her mistreatment by Israeli Security, who forced her to remove her clothes and stand naked to be inspected in public because she was going to visit Palestinians in jail

Free the Palestinian Children

Stations of the Cross Pilgrimage – Westminster

Thursday 2nd April 2015 was Maundy Thursday and Catholic Workers were taking part in a walk around the “geography of suffering” in London halting outside the offices of companies in the arms trade for prayers against the arms trade, war, torture, nuclear weapons, international debt, homelessness, immigration policy and climate change. The ‘Stations of the Cross’ was a day early as this usually takes place on Good Friday.

Among the companies whose offices they prayed outside were arms company Qinetiq in Buckingham Gate, where a security man came out and told them they could not protest there. They told him they were on the public highway and if they wanted to protest they could do so. But they had come to pray not to protest and continued, leaving as they finished their service.

Among other companies I photographed them outside were Rolls-Royce, another weapons manufacturer, where the pilgrimage ended. I had only joined them part way through the event, when the came past the protest at G4S.

Stations of the Cross Pilgrimage

Shame on Sheraton – Hotel Workers – Mayfair

Workers at Sheraton hotels in Ethiopia and the Maldives have been sacked for trade union organising and members of the fast-growing Unite Hotel Workers Branch protested in solidarity with them outside Sheraton’s two Mayfair hotels.

Hotel workers are one of the most marginalised groups of workers in the UK, and many are exploited because their English is poor or non-existent. Here in the UK they can also get sacked for joining a union but despite this, the Hotel Workers branch is the fastest growing branch of Unite because of its determined support for the workers.

I met and photographed their protest outside Le Meridien on Piccadilly for around half an hour before walking down with the to the Park Lane Hotel where I had to leave them to go to Aldgate.

Shame on Sheraton – Hotel Workers

Chingford candidate arrested at Poor Doors – One Commercial St, Aldgate

Police clearly had it in for Lisa McKenzie and during this weekly Poor Doors protest outside One Commercial St a woman officer came up to her a and told her she was being arrested, accused of criminal damage. The officer said she had stuck a Class War sticker on the glass next to the rich door two weeks earlier on March 19th. A snatch squad surrounded her, and despite opposition from the protesters she was led away and put in a waiting police van to be taken to Bethnal Green police station.

While many people had stuck posters and stickers onto the glass windows at almost every Poor Doors protest, this was the first arrest. It’s doubtful whether this is an offence, and it is certainly not criminal damage, as glass is not damaged, with posters and any glue residue being easily removed leaving the surface in as new condition.

I had photographed Lisa and others at the Rich Door fairly extensively on March 19th and was ready to testify that she had not herself stuck anything on the glass – though when her case eventually came to court it was thrown out before I was called.

Lisa was certainly a very vocal protester (as usual) but it’s hard to avoid thinking what picked her out was political pressure because of her candidature for Class War against Iain Duncan Smith in Chingford in the forthcoming general election.

Before her arrest the protest had been hampered by barriers for work on the wide pavement outside the Rich Door of the building, and the protest had started on the opposite side of the main road.

Two incidents caused some hilarity, one where a police officer came to deal with a yellow smoke flare that had been thrown into the road, first seeming to kick it, then picking it up and carrying it away down the alley towards the poor door. It had burnt out by the time he reached this, but as I commented “Everyone else may throw their rubbish here but I was surprised the police thought it a good idea.”

The second was when Lisa pointed out that one of the two women officers standing behind the banner she was holding had taken part in plain clothes in a previous ‘poor doors’ protest, and Ian Bone offered her the megaphone to speak – but this was immediately followed by another woman officer coming to arrest Lisa.

There were some angry scenes as she was driven away, and police refused to talk with the protesters. The protest continued with several speeches before people went home.

Much more at Chingford candidate arrested at Poor Doors.

Bike Theft, Tributes, Housing Benefit, Fascists & UAF

Saturday 1st April 2017 turned out to be a busy day in London, though the buses in my picture on Westminster Bridge were not then going anywhere – and the driver of the No 12 at the front of this row was taking a rest from his seat. Various protests and the police had brought traffic to a stop. As in many other months you can see more of my pictures taken as I travelled around in a London Images section.

Motorcycle Theft Protest Ride – Westminster

I’d vaguely wondered about paying another visit to the Ace Café on the North Circular Road at Stonebridge, but not riding a bike I would have felt something of an outsider, and the journey back to central London by the Bakerloo line wold have taken me around 40 minutes and I would have missed other things that were happening.

Organised gangs are still making rich pickings around the whole of London – and one of my neighbour’s had his bike targeted a few months ago, but the two men cutting through a substantial lock were spotted from the house opposite, and ran away when they were challenged halfway through.

In 2017 there were reported thefts in London of 8,131 motorbikes, 4,121 moped and 3,218 scooters, a total of almost 15,500 thefts. That amounts to one for every 7.5 powered bikes registered in the city. Motorcyclists came with a petition to the Mayor of London and the Home Secretary to give the police greater resources to tackle this crime, and for them to give it higher priority, for more ground anchors in bike parking bays and for tougher sentencing of offenders.

Motorcycle Theft Protest Ride

Flowers for London Victims – Westminster

Ten Days after the Westminster terror attack by a deranged driver, people were still stopping to look and and photograph the flowers for the victims, around the lamp standards on Waterloo Bridge, along the whole of the front of Parliament Square and in front of New Scotland Yard in its new building on the Victoria Embankment, where an eternal flame also remembers all police who have died while doing their duty.

There was a long strip of tributes along the front of Parliament Square opposite were PC Keith Palmer was killed to him and the others who died.

More pictures Flowers for London Victims.

Youth protest over housing benefits loss – Parliament Square

A grass roots group of young people, ‘#1821Resist’, were in Parliament Square to protest against the scrapping of housing benefit for young people which coming into force on this day.

They say that under Tory rule since 2010 homelessness has doubled and that this change will continue to leave vulnerable people without homes, making it almost impossible for them to get into work or education.

Youth protest over housing benefits loss

Iraqis protest US killing in Mosul – Downing St

Iraqis, mainly women dressed in black, were protesting opposite Downing St against the killing of civilians by US and Iraqi forces during the assault on Mosul. Attacks on the city, then held by the Islamic State (ISIL) begun in October 2016 and continuing until ISIL were defeated there in July 2017. According to Wikipedia (and the BBC) “The battle was the world’s single largest military operation since the 2003 invasion of Iraq and was considered the toughest urban battle since World War II.”

The women said that hundreds have been killed by US air strikes after being told to stay in Mosul; people were stopped from leaving were then bombed. The protest was organised by a group of Iraqi women, one of whom told me a nine-year old relative in Mosul had died earlier today. The photographs they held up showed some of the results of the US bombing.

Iraqis protest US killing in Mosul

Britain First & EDL exploit London attack – Westminster

Extremist right-wing groups including Britain First and the EDL (English Defence League) were quick to exploit the London terror attack to fuel their anti-Muslim and anti-migrant racist propaganda, both organising marches. Police had imposed restrictions on both marches confining them to particular short routes to rally points on the Emabankment. London Antifascists and Unite Against Fascism (UAF) who had come to opposed them were only allowed to hold a static protest.

I was able to photograph Britain First at their designated meeting point in the taxi area outside Charing Cross station where their leader Paul Golding arrived with a van full of flags and handed them out, while his deputy Jayda Fransen was busy talking to the media.

The EDL were supposed to be meeting in Trafalgar Square, but were actually gathering in their usual pub, Lord Moon of the Mall, close to the top of Whitehall. Police were busily and rather forcefully keeping back a crowd of antifascists against the shops on the opposite side of the road, injuring a few of them in the crush. Police behind them were shouting at them to go forward, but police in front were preventing them from doing so.

I photographed the EDL on the pavement in front of the Lord Moon of the Mall over the shoulders of a line of police protecting them, but left as police pushed them back inside the pub and returned to Britain First at Charing Cross station where they were getting ready to march.

There were few people on the street as they marched down to the Embankment for a rally, but a couple of women shouted at them calling them racists. Police stopped the marchers from moving towards them, but they had to refuse a Britain First fake-news team who tried to stop them for an interview.

I listened to the rally for a few minutes then tried to go back up Northumberland Avenue to photograph the EDL march, but it was hard to see for police surrounding it. The police quickly went to grab one woman who started to shout at this march.

But the police relaxed their cordon when the marchers reached their rally pen on the Embankment and I was able to walk past them and began to take pictures.

But after a couple of minutes one of the stewards saw me and objected to me being their and called on the police to remove me, after which I had to photograph over the shoulders of the police. One of the officers came to tell me off for having been in with the marchers, but I simply told her I had every right to be there. Shortly after I decided to leave as I had taken enough pictures, and I decided to go to photograph the counter-protesters.

More at Britain First & EDL exploit London attack.

UAF protest extreme right marches

Police had decided that the UAF could only hold a static protest on the Embankment rather than their intended and already advertised march to there from South Africa House in Trafalgar Square, despite ‘facilitating’ the two extreme-right marches. The UAF had turned up at South Africa House on the morning and police had slowly with unnecessary force pushed them down the march route as I’d witnessed earlier in the day.

From the EDL rally I could see and just hear the Unite Against Fascism rally taking place perhaps a hundred yards away down the Embankment, shouting ‘Fascist Scum off our streets’ and other slogans. From the speeches I had heard at the two right-wing rallies both groups were clearly racist and Islamophobic and among the marchers I recognised many faces from clearly fascist organisations I had photographed in the past.

I could see and hear that there were speeches at the UAF rally but not make out what was being said from the distance and over the noise. I tried to walk down towards the UAF but police would not let me take the short direct route despite my showing my press card.

I had to walk back and out onto Whitehall and then around to get to be back of the UAF rally, and by the time I got there many of the counter-protesters had left for home and the speeches had ended, though there were still rather more around than at the two right-wing rallies combined.

UAF protest extreme right marches

Ford/Visteon, Ethiopian Tyrant, Rioters United!

On Wednesday 31st March 2010 I reported on three unrelated protests in London.

Ford/Visteon Workers March For Pension Justice

Ford/Visteon, Ethiopian Tyrant, Rioters United!

In 2000 Ford when split of some of its parts factories to Visteon, a company described as ‘An Enterprise of Ford Motor Company’ and initially with the same shareholders, promising the workers their conditions and pensions would remain exactly the same as they had been with Ford. Ford’s assurances were repeated by Visteon.

But in 2009 Visteon closed down and workers in their factories in Belfast, Enfield, Swansea and Basildon were given just six minutes to leave the sites. In Belfast and Enfield workers refused and occupied the sites for a month, but were let down by their union, Unite who failed to give them support. The occupations eventually forced Visteon/Ford to pay the redundancy pay they were entitled to under their agreements, but pensions were not covered and they only received the lesser amounts covered by Pension Protection Fund compensation.

Since then their fight for the pensions they were promised has continued. I met around 500 former Visteon workers outside the Unite Offices in Theobalds Road, Holborn, where many wore hats and t-shirts with the Ford logo, but with the name replaced by the word ‘Fraud’, which succinctly expressed their view of the company’s action.

I marched with them to Downing Street where they had problems in delivering a letter and petition. As I commented then: “it does now seem unnecessarily complicated and difficult to get access to our elected government, hiding away behind their tall gates and high security. Its both an expression of and doubtless fuels their paranoia over terrorism far in excess of the real threat.”

The marchers then went on to a rally in Parliament Square.

Their fight for a fair deal over their pensions went on for another four years, when eventually as the case was about to go to the High Court, Ford agreed to top up the Pension Protection Fund compensation so that they would receive the full value of benefits accrued when working for Ford. It didn’t cover the nine years they had worked for Visteon, but Unite recommended acceptance as it would settle the claim without the expense (and possible failure) of a court hearing.

Ford/Visteon March For Pension Justice

Ethiopians Protest Bloodthirsty Tyrant – Downing St

Ethiopians came from across the UK to for a day of demonstration opposite Downing St where Prime Minister Meles Zenawi was co-chairing the UN climate finance group. They demanded the UK stop appeasing the Ethiopian dictator, and calling for the release of opposition leader Birtukan Mideksa and other political prisoners in Ethiopia.

Zenawi who became chair of one of the leading military groups fighting in the Ethiopian Civil War was the leader of a coalition that took power in 1991, becoming President then and was Prime Minister from 1995 until is death in 2012. His control of the military made Ethiopia an effective one-party state.

Although the country formally has democratic organisation and elections, elections have been rigged and oppostion politicians jailed, notably the leader of the main opposition Unity for Democracy and Justice (UDJ) party, Mideksa (or Midekssa), a former judge. Many other politicians and journalists have also been jailed and in 2007 the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) named the country as “the world’s worst backslider on press freedom over the previous five years.”

Human rights violations and corruption are rife in Ethiopia, and food aid, education and jobs all depend on membership of the ruling party. His opponents regard Zenawi as a bloodthirsty tyrant and call for him to be brought to trial at the ICC at The Hague on charges of genocide. Human Rights Watch (HRW) have accused it of war crimes in the Somali regions of Ethiopia and against the Anauk communities in Gambella in 2003-4. Human rights abuses have continued in Ethiopia since Zenawi’s death.

Ethiopia is one of the larger countries in Africa and has received large amounts of development aid and humanitarian support from the USA and the UK.

Ethiopians Protest Bloodthirsty Tyrant

Rioters United! 20 Years Since the Poll Tax Riots – Trafalgar Square,

The largest protest against Margaret Thatcher’s Poll Tax was in central London on Saturday 31 March 1990, shortly before the tax was due to come into force. Unfortunately I had missed that event, probably deciding it was best to keep out of trouble. Back in 1990 I was photographing relatively few protests, mainly concentrating on urban landscapes and culture.

Around 30 people turned up for a rally to commemorate the occasion when “the London mob who brought Thatcher down … as well as to promise that the mob were still in business and to pronounce sentence on politicians.”

The ‘Carnival of Death‘ they were promising was not of course a literal death threat, but street theatre in which the effigies of George Brown, David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Nick Griffin were to be executed at a May Day Party. As Chris Knight reminded the gathering, “the only good politician, the only honest politician is a dead politician.”

Our police often fail to understand the difference between rhetoric and reality, and protests involving anarchist groups such as Class War are often ridiculously over-policed, sometimes with disastrous consequences, but almost always provoking more violence than they prevent. On April 1st 2009 for the G20 – Financial Fools Day they had turned up with squads of riot police psyched up to batter largely innocent and joyful protesters – and one of the police killed a newspaper seller simply walking home through the area.

So in my account of this event in Trafalgar Square I was at pains to tell them that the ‘Carnival Of Death’ was “called a carnival; if you want to take part, come ready to dance.”

Shortly after people began the commemoration, a PCSO came to tell those taking part they were not allowed to hold protests or other events in Trafalgar Square without permission. When he was laughed at, he brought over a Heritage Warden who told us the Square was the property of the GLA (Greater London Authority), and that permission was needed for events.

“Fine” said those present. “The GLA is a public body; we own it, this is a public place and we give ourselves permission and intend to continue.” As I pointed out in my account, Trafalgar Square is not just a public place, but one that since its building in the 1830s has been a traditional place for demonstrating radical dissent. It was a tradition that those present were determined to continue.

Fortunately the dozen or so police who arrived shortly after the PCSO had phoned to call for reinforcement simply stood and watched and had enough sense not to try and stop the commemoration, which ended after around 30 minutes when the organisers decided it was time to go down the pub.

At the end of the event, copies of an anti-Election manifesto and a suitably defaced poster showing the leaders of the Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat and BNP leaders were distributed by the Whitechapel Anarchist Group. They advised us to “Use your cross wisely”, under a picture of the four leaders in the cross-hairs of a gun sight, and attached to the bottom was a ‘Free Gift’ – a safety match, with the message ” Burn Your Ballot”.

As they wrote: “It’s time to end the unjust, corrupt system of terror and build a fair, equal society that will benefit the majority. We all know voting doesn’t change anything and our collective apathy allows this folly to continue. It’s time for REAL change. It’s time for revolution.”

Rioters United! celebrate Poll Tax Riots

Mothers Against Fracking, Sindhi Congress, Sexy Soho

Sunday 30th March 2014 I was in Westminster for three very different protests, opposite Parliament in Old Palace Yard, on to Downing Street and finally to Soho and Piccadilly Circus. Only the first was related to it being Mother’s Day.

Mothers Against Fracking – Old Palace Yard

Mothers Against Fracking, Sindhi Congress, Sexy Soho

As I pointed out in My London Diary, “fracking is something the world cannot afford. Increasingly we are aware that we need to move away from fossil fuels and the carbon emissions they cause to avoid further dangerous climate change, and fracking has an even higher carbon footprint than normal natural gas. Increasingly we need to keep carbon – and in particular difficult carbon sources such as this and tar sands – in the ground if we hope to save the planet and its population.”

Mothers Against Fracking had brought together a number of campaigners from around the country for a Mother’s Day rally opposite the Houses of Parliament, particularly from the various camps and protests where drilling had begun. It is an issue that brings together local residents and environmental campaigners and as I commented was “causing mayhem even in the Tory heartlands such as Balcombe in deepest Surrey. “

I listed and photographed many of those who came and spoke, “including Vanessa Vine of BIFF (Britain & Ireland Frack Free), Tina Louise Rothery of RAFF (Residents Action on Fylde Fracking), Louise Somerville Williams (Frack Free Somerset), Green Party leader Natalie Bennett, Eve McNamara of REAF (Ribble Estuary Against Fracking), Julie Wassmer (East Kent Against Fracking). Dr Becky Martin (Mothers Against Fracking) and Tammy Samede from the Barton Moss Camp in Salford.”

But this relatively small protest attracted rather more interest than most from the press, bringing some photographers I’ve never seen at a protest before because of the presence of Bianca Jagger, who took a leading part in the event as my pictures show, and gave an excellent well-prepared and written speech.

As I also pointed out, her speech “lacked the kind of intense personal involvement of many of the others” who spoke. And I wrote “I admire Bianca for her support of this and other campaigns but wish the media would show more interest in causes rather than personalities.”

Much more on My London Diary at Mothers Against Fracking.

World Sindhi Congress Protest – Downing St

The Sindhi are an ancient culture with their own Sindh language and Sindh is now the third largest province in Pakistan. Many Sindh who were Hindu went over the border to India at partition, while other largely Urdu speaking migrants moved into Sindh, on the Arabian Sea between India and the Indus River. The province contains much of Pakistan’s industry and its largest city and former capital, Karachi.

Until 1988 the area was normally referred to in English simply as Sind. When General Charles Napier conquered it for the British Empire in 1843 he famously sent the Latin one-word telegram “Peccavi” (I have sinned) to the Governor General.

The World Sindhi Congress is a human rights organisation for Sindhi people based in Canada, the UK and the USA which organizes cultural events, rallies, seminars, protests and conferences around the world.

They had come to Downing St to protest against the extra-judicial killings of Sindhi human rights activists by the Pakistani security agencies and called on the UK to press the Pakistani government to stop these violations.

The protest followed the assassination in Sindh of two Sindhi political activists, Maqsood Ahmed Querishi and Salman Wadho, one of the latest in a series of atrocities against Sindhi nationalists allegedly carried out by the Pakistani intelligence agencies. The killing on 21 March was followed by protests and riots in Sindh and the closure of shops, markets and several universities in many cities and a strike on the following day.

Qureshi was the leader of Sindhi separatist movement Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz (JSQM) and was involved in organising a ‘Freedom March’ to be held the Sunday after he was killed (which was Pakistan Freedom Day) in Karachi to inform the international community of the continuing violation of the human and civil rights of the Sindhi people.

Sindh separatists point out that the province has not been given the autonomy it was promised and that despite generating 70% of the country’s revenue and providing 60% of it natural resources it recives only around an eighth of national expenditure. But Wikipedia suggests there is relatively little popular support for separation from Pakistan.

World Sindhi Congress Protest

Keep Soho Sexy – Piccadilly Circus

The event at Piccadilly Circus was something of a hybrid one, part protest and part film set for the latest music video by singer songwriter The Soho Hobo (Tim Arnold.) As I wrote:

This was the only protest I’ve ever attended that came with a clapper board, with its title ‘Picadilly Trot – Soho Hobo’ (sic) and where those taking part had to go back and dance across Piccadilly Circus for another take, and then doing it again without the musicians. I assume they’ll manage to spell the name right on the final edit and I hope it gets the protest more publicity, but I don’t think its a good way to run a protest and I wasn’t amused at having to stay out of shot while taking pictures.

Mainly off the film cameras but very much on mine were protesters with placards from the English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP) and Queer Strike calling for an end to the raids on flats used by women sex-workers. The protesters are there at the back at some scenes in the finished video, but I doubt if anyone watching could get any idea of who they were or what they were protesting about.

The previous October I photographed a protest outside the Soho Estates offices in Greek Street after a number of women were evicted from their flats in Romilly St. Because these flats are self-contained and housed only a single sex-worker they were not legally brothels, but police and Westminster Council threatened to prosecute the landlord who refused to stand up for his tenants and simply evicted them.

The women involved say that the flats provided a much safer environment and they are much less safe if forced to work on the streets.

Campaigners say that the evictions are a part of a wider threat to the unique character of Soho, which has long been reputed for its cosmopolitan nature and various and often risqué entertainments of various kinds. The ECP say “if sex workers are forced out it will lead the way for other small and unique businesses and bars to be drowned out by major construction, chain stores and corporations.”

The police (and Westminster Council) are widely seen as being agents of the property developers who want to make billions from knocking down Soho and redeveloping parts of it as hotels and luxury flats, destroying the unique atmosphere of the area.

Keep Soho Sexy

Brexit, Fridays For Future & Turkey

I’d not been well for a few days in March 2019 and was still feeling rather weak and tired on Friday 29th March, but decided to go up to London and cover some events happening in and around Parliament Square. But I found I wasn’t really well enough, and had to leave and come home much earlier than I had intended, before things were expected to get rather livelier later in the day when extreme right protesters were expected to march join those already in the square.

Brexiteers protest Betrayal – Parliament Square

Brexit, Fridays For Future & Turkey — *‘Clean out the Augean Stables’ was doubtless the kind of snappy slogan that would appeal to Rees-Mogg*

Friday 29th March had been the original deadline for the UK to leave the EU established when Theresa May triggered Article 50 and this was approved by the House of Commons, officially notifying the European Council of its intention to leave.

But things had not gone to plan, Parliament had dithered and there had been no real attempt to make the necessary negotiations for our departure – and indeed these have only really been completed with the Windsor Framework more or less agreed a month ago. Boris Johnson won an election on his promise of an ‘oven-ready agreement’ but this turned out as might have been expected to be half-baked.

Even with the agreement over the Irish border – if it proves workable, much still need to be agreed to really sort out our relationship with the EU and get things back to normal, though even that will be rather unsatisfactory compared with EU membership.

Brexiteers came to Parliament Square to protest against this failure to leave by the deadline, holding posters and banners. Later a ‘Leave Means Leave’ march arrived with two Orange marching bands.

There was a lot of noisy shouting and some MPs who walked through the crowd were subjected to angry abuse, while a few who were ardent supporters of Brexit stopped riedly to talk with the protesters.

There were also a few Remain supporters, and while I was present they were largely ignored by the Brexiteers and the atmosphere remained generally calm. Among them was #EUsupergirl Madeleina Kay dressed as Britannia.

But after a couple of hours I was feeling very out of breath and weak and decided I was in no state to continue working, particularly as things were expected to get rather more heated as the extreme right Tommy Robinson and the Democratic Football Lads Alliance were expected to arrive shortly.

Brexiteers protest Betrayal

Fridays for Future climate protest – Parliament Square

Although the Brexiteers were the largest and noisiest group in Parliament Square, others were also protesting and I photographed them too.

The school strike for climate was one of many weekly #FridaysForFuture events taking place in many cities and towns across the world. These protests were inspired by the action of 15-year old Greta Thunberg who instead of going back to school at the end of the Summer break in August broke the law by protesting outside the Swedish Parliament.

Fridays for Future climate protest

Kurds support hunger strikers – Houses of Parliament

On the pavement in front of Parliament as I was getting ready to leave I photographed a group of Kurds who were protesting in solidarity with hunger strikers in Turkey, some of whom had been on hunger strike since November.

The strikes began on November 7th and were against the imprisonment of members of the HDP (Peoples’ Democratic Party) and the Free Women’s Congress, as well as many journalists, socialists and LGBTI+ campaigners. A number of Kurds in the UK have also gone on hunger strike in sympathy, including two of those taking part in this protest.

Leading the hunger strike in Turkey was HDP MP Leyla Güven, on indefinite hunger strike for over 110 days, vowing to continue until death unless the isolation of Kurdish Leader Abudullah Ocalan in prison was ended – and called an end to her hunger strike in May when this happened, having kept alive by consuming only Vitamin B and salty and sugary liquids.

The UK government continues to support Turkey as a fellow member of NATO despite the continuing human rights abuses there. Ocalan and many other Kurds remain in jail and many Kurds have been killed.

Kurds support hunger strikers

Winged Lions, A School, Thameslink, Wine, Buses…

My walk on Saturday 8th April 1989 continued. The first (and previous) part was Kings Cross, St George’s Gardens & More.

Carving, Willing House, Gray's Inn Rd, King's Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4d-63 — *Carving, Willing House, Gray’s Inn Rd, King’s Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4d-63*

Close to the north end of Gray’s Inn Road, at 356-364 on the corner with St Chad’s Place, is a remarkable early 20th century building in a style described as French Baroque, Willing House, built in 1909 as offices for Messrs Willing Advertising, architects Alfred Hart and Leslie Waterhouse. It’s Grade II listing is perhaps deserved more for the carvings on its facade by William Aumonier Junior, than its rather quirky style.

On the peak of its roof, not shown in these pictures, though appearing rather small on another not digitised, is Mercury, a sculpture by Arthur Stanley Young. According to Wikipedia, Mercury “is the god of financial gain, commerce, eloquence, messages, communication (including divination), travelers, boundaries, luck, trickery, and thieves“, most of which seem appropriate for one of London’s major advertising companies.

This bas-relief by Aumonier, one of a pair, shows one man blowing a long trumpet and another more obvious with a horse, though what he is supposedly doing to the poor beast is unclear. Above them is a highly stylized sun.

Doorway, Willing House, Gray's Inn Rd, King's Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4d-64 — *Doorway, Willing House, Gray’s Inn Rd, King’s Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4d-64*

This is the ornate main doorway to the building, with giant winged lions on the pilasters at each site. Above them is a frieze with one old man holding a globe and another blowing a trumpet, and Aumonier has thrown in a few cherubs for good measure.

London Details provides a great deal of information about Willing and Co, founded in 1840, and this building. There is also an unusually long description in its Grade II listing.

Winged Lions, Willing House, Gray's Inn Rd, King's Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4d-65 — *Winged Lions, Willing House, Gray’s Inn Rd, King’s Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4d-65*

A closer view of one of the two winged lions. In 1989 this building was apparently in use by Camden Council but has since been converted into a hotel. Mercury on the roof has also recently been given a comprehensive makeover, repainted to his original grey and his caduceus regilded.

King's Cross Thameslink, Railway Station, St Chad's Place, King's Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4d-52 — *King’s Cross Thameslink, Railway Station, St Chad’s Place, King’s Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4d-52*

The railway runs under part of Willing house and the unfortunate guests may get a room overlooking the lines, which carry Thameslink between Kings Cross and Farringdon. Railway nerds might welcome this but I hope for others the soundproofing is effective.

This site had been opened as King’s Cross Metropolitan in 1863, on London ‘s first underground line, and a second pair of lines added in 1868. The platforms for the Metropolitan, also serving the Circle and Hammersmith & City Lines, were closed and replaced by some a little nearer King’s Cross in 1940, but the station remained in use. It was rebuilt and opened here in 1988 as King’s Cross Thameslink. It closed for good in 2007 and Thameslink trains now stop at new platforms somewhere in the bowels of Kings Cross and St Pancras.

Former Church School, Brittania St, Wicklow St, King's Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4d-41 — *Former Church School, Brittania St, Wicklow St, King’s Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4d-41*

This Grade II listed Church School built in 1872, its architect Joseph Peacock who had previously designed St Jude’s Church, the first church to be constructed in London using monies from the Bishop of London’s Fund, which was consecrated in 1863. In June 1936 the parish was united with with Holy Cross, Cromer Street and the church was demolished with many of its memorials being moved to Holy Cross. The school became offices.

Brittania Wine Warehouse, Britannia St, King's Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4d-43 — *Brittania Wine Warehouse, Britannia St, King’s Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4d-43*

This building now has a sign in stone I think revealed by the removal of that for the Brittania Wine Warehouse ‘LONDON GENERAL OMNIBUS COMPANY LIMITED’. The company was founded in 1855 and remained the main bus operator in London until 1933. It was originally an Anglo-French company, the Compagnie Generale des Omnibus de Londres, and now we once again have many buses in the capital run by a French company, London United being a part of the French state-owned RATP ( Régie autonome des transports parisiens.)

This was the horse bus depot of the LGOC, and later their motor bus depot, and their last late horse-drawn bus ran in 1911.

Derby Lodge, Britannia St, King's Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4d-45 — *Derby Lodge, Britannia St, King’s Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4d-45*

Derby Lodge, Grade II listed philanthropic flats from erected around 1865 for Sydney Waterlow’s Improved Industrial Dwellings Company with the help of builder Matthew Allen. Grade II listed. Listed in the 1990s and since refurbished.

Like other similar flats of the era their design was based on the model cottages erected for Prince Albert as a part of the 1851 Great Exhibition in Hyde Park and later re-erected in their current location in Kennington Park where they still are.