It’s now 21 years since St Patrick’s Day was first celebrated on a large scale in London, thanks to then London Mayor Ken Livingstone, who had long been a supporter of Irish republicanism, and MP for Brent East, from 1987 to 2001. His constituency included areas around Kilburn – Brent is the London Borough with the largest Irish population.
Until forced to drop its policies because of Tory cuts, Brent had a great record of supporting celebrations of a number of festivals for its different communities, and and last year I posted here about the various years I photographed the Brent St Patrick’s Day Parade.
In 2002, London had its first St Patrick’s Day Parade, from the Catholic Westminster Cathedral to Trafalgar Square, where there were a range of Irish performances and a great deal of singing and drinking to celebrate the event.
Unlike the Brent celebrations which were on the day itself, the official London celebrations which have continued annually since then happen on the day itself. In 2002 St Patrick’s Day was on a Sunday (and in 2013 and 2019) and the parade took place on the day, but in other years it has been celebrated on the nearest Sunday.
I did go back in 2003 to celebrate St Patrick’s Day, when the parade began from Hyde Park, but found it rather less interesting. Somehow I never got around to uploading any of the pictures I took to My London Diary, so these colour images are on-line for the first time.
Irish Piper, 2003Parade Steward, 2003
These pictures were taken on my first digital camera capable of professional results, a Nikon D100, which was capable of making high quality digital images, although its 6.1Mp now seems meagre. Its small, dim viewfinder was also rather primitive and at the time I only owned a single lens to fit it, a 24-80mm zoom, which on its DX sensor gave the equivalent of a 36-120mm on 35mm film.
I was also working with two film cameras, one with black and white film and the other with colour negative, both I think using wider lenses. The pictures might be better, but I’ve only ever got around to printing one of them. It was coverage of events like these that really made me appreciate the huge advantage of digital, that the results were immediately available. I’ve still not digitised any of the colour pictures from 2002 or 2003.
It was this that really made possible ‘My London Diary’, though I had begun it a little earlier – and there is some earlier colour work taken with consumer-level digital cameras on it among the mainly black and white images which then were scanned from the 8×10″ RC prints I made to give to a picture library.
My London Diary has taken something of a rest recently, though I may go back to it at some later date. The reasons for this are mixed. The pandemic meant there was nothing much to add for rather a long time, just a lot of pictures taken on local walks and bike rides. the software I used to write it doesn’t work on my more recent computer, and I’ve almost reached the limit of the number of files that my web server allows. If I’d kept uploading files I could not have continued with >Re:PHOTO.
Lung Theatre ‘E15’ Battersea March: Thursday 16th March 2017 was a rather unusual day for me in that rather than photographing a protest I was being part of a theatrical performance, though not in a theatre but on the busy evening rush hour streets of Battersea.
But like many of the others there, I was playing myself as a photographer of protests, and taking pictures as I would if this had been a real protest.
This performance was to announce that Lung Theatre, a small theatrical group, were bringing their Edinburgh festival award-winning performance ‘E15’ to Battersea Arts Centre, and they were doing so with the help of many of the housing protesters, particularly from the Stratford-based Focus E15 campaign, on which their ‘verbatim theatre’ performance was based.
An interesting article, Documentary & Verbatim Theatre by Tom Cantrell of the University of York gives a clear definition, “Verbatim theatre is a form of documentary theatre which is based on the spoken words of real people. Strictly, verbatim theatre-makers use real people’s words exclusively, and take this testimony from recorded interviews.”
The “protest” began in the rather dim light of the street outside Clapham Junction’s busiest entrance, and it was hard for me to distinguish the actors from the housing protesters by their speech and actions, though rather easier in that they were the only faces I didn’t recognise, having met and photographed the activists so often at previous events. But the group certainly put on a convincing performance as they handed out leaflets and fliers, both about the Focus E15 campaign and their forthcoming performances at the Battersea Arts Centre.
Focus E15 began when a group of young mothers housed in the Focus E15 hostel in Stratford were told that Newham council were going to evict them and they would be dispersed not just in the borough but to rented accommodation across the country in far away places where they had no friends, no family and away from any jobs, schools, familiar services and support.
Newham had adopted a policy which amounted to social cleansing, removing people from its area who, as the then Mayor put it, could not afford to live there. Rather than accept this they came together to fight the council, and inspired others across the country to fight for ‘Social Housing NOT Social Cleansing’.
And Focus E15 won their fight but didn’t stop there, continuing the fight for others in the area faced with homelessness and eviction, demanding the council bring empty council housing back into use in a campaign for ‘Housing For All’. They are still out on Stratford Broadway with a street stall every Saturday, still forcing the council to face up to its responsibilities despite considerable harassment (and more recently a change of Mayor.)
As well as some of the leading activists from Focus E15 at the eevent were also other campaigners including some from Sweets Way in north London and Lewisham People Before Profit and others fighting the demolition of council housing by London’s mainly Labour controlled councils, increasingly in league with estate agents and property developers scrambling for excessive profits from sky-high London market prices. And they had brought some of their banners with them for the event.
From Clapham Junction the “protesters” marched up Lavender Hill to the Battersea Arts Centre, where they occupied the foyer for a few final minutes of protest in what had been a pretty convincing event. And while actors had to go on stage and give their performance, the activists could sit down in the theatre and watch.
I didn’t join them, as I knew I had to come back to view it a week later and then be a part of a panel discussion Art & Accidental Activism, a week later. It was an impressive performance and gave a real impression of some of the more dramatic aspects of the real protests I had covered and made clear the political aspects of the housing crisis and why activism was necessary. But sometimes it did seem strange to hear words I remembered well coming out of a different person.
I couldn’t really enjoy it as much as I would have liked as I was very nervous, considerably daunted at having to appear afterwards ‘on stage’ to answer questions with fellow panelists Jeremy Hardy, journalist Dawn Foster and theatre legend Max Stafford Clark. But in the event it went well (my sternest critic says) and I rather enjoyed it and the session in the bar that followed.
LSE Cleaners Protest, Police Arrest Lisa: On Wednesday 15th March 2017, students and supporters joined cleaners on the picket line at the London School of Economics for a lunchtime rally on the first day of the 2 day strike by members of United Voices of the World union.
Cleaners at the LSE have felt let down by management at least since January 2012 when the contractor who the LSE had outsourced them to cut their hours and was bullying them into signing new contracts.
As I wrote back then, “Outsourcing – as doubtless research by the LSE will have shown – almost invariably leads to lower wages and poorer working conditions for the staff involved. And although the cuts and alleged bullying is being carried out by Resource Group, the responsibility for it must lie with the LSE who are responsible for the contract with them.”
David Graeber (right) at the protest
In September 2016 the cleaners with the United Voices of the World trade union launched a new campaign for parity of treatment with other workers at the university with a meeting which was a part of the LSE’s 3-day ‘Resist’ Festival organised by LSE research fellow Lisa McKenzie which had featured talks and debates often critical of the LSE, with contributions by LSE Professor of Anthropology David Graeber and Martin Wright of Class War and in particular a damning indictment by Simon Elmer of Architects for Social Housing (ASH) of a report by a group of LSE academics on the redevelopment of the Ferrier Estate, deliberately run-down, demonised and emptied by Greenwich Council from 1999 onwards, as Kidbrooke Village.
Protesters walk into the estates office foyer
The protest on 15th March 2017 began with a rally on the LSE campus demanding equal sick pay, holidays and pensions etc to similar workers directly employed by the LSE and an end to bullying and discrimination by their employer Noonan.
Grim Chip of Poetry on the Picket Line performed and there were several speeches by UVW members including LSE cleaner Mildred Simpson.
Dvid Graeber and Petros Eila
The protesters then marched the short distance across Kingsway to the LSE Estates Division where cleaning contractors Noonan have their LSE office. They walked in and occupied the foyer there for over and hour, only leaving after being promised that Allan Blair LSE Director of Facilities Management would talk with the cleaners union the United Voices of the World.
As they left the foyer, police jostled some of them before assaulting and arresting LSE academic Lisa McKenzie, charging her with assault and then bundling her into a waiting police van.
Apparently the receptionist at the estates office had complained that she had been assaulted by McKenzie as the four people holding the UVW banner pushed past her on their way into the office. I had been following close behind them and neither I nor the other protesters had seen any evidence of assault.
None of the other three holding the banner were arrested and it seemed fairly clear that the arrest was not for any offence. Perhaps the police were still aggrieved after a case against her when she was wrongly charged for three offences at a protest in Febnuary 2015 was thrown out of court. That had taken place at the time she was standing in the General Election against Iain Duncan Smith and was an arrest that appeared clearly politically motivated.
But on this occasion it could well have been that the LSE management had pointed her out as a trouble-maker. McKenzie, a working class academic and author of a highly acclaimed study of class and culture on the Nottingham estate where she lived for more than 20 years has been the a subject of constant criticism from others both inside the LSE and in the wider academic community, and when her contract there came to an end it was not renewed.
The protesters were left angry and confused. Why was Lisa being picked on? The protesters felt it must be politically motivated and it was difficult to see any other reason. I think she was later released without charge, possibly because there was CCTV evidence that showed there was no case to answer.
This is the second and final part of my walk on Friday 7th April 1989 which had started at Gospel Oak station and I had walked up to Highgate. You can read the first part at Highgate April 1989.
Highgate Literary, Scientific Institution, South Grove, Highgate, Camden, 1989 89-4a-11
I took another picture of the Highgate Literary & Scientific Institution, but didn’t explore much more at the top of the hill.
Pond Square, Highgate, Camden, 1989 89-4a-22
Though I did take a few more pictures, but have only digitised this one. I was eager to go down the hill again, this time taking Swain’s Lane, by the side of the Literary & Scientific Institution.
Swain’s Lane is rather steeper than West Hill and apparently had got its name from being used by pig herders and was first recorded in writing as Swayneslane in 1492. It provided access to farms on either side and only the top few yards were developed for housing before 1887. Fortunately I was walking down hill and hadn’t brought my bike as riding up this lane would have been something of a challenge.
Even now much of Swain’s Lane is undeveloped as it runs between one of London’s great cemeteries, Highgate Cemetery and one of its fine parks, Waterlow Park, both behind brick walls with just a narrow pavement. Below Waterlow Park on the east side is the newer part of Highgate Cemetery, which includes Karl Marx’s Tomb.
The Grade II listed building is the picture is the Lodge at the Swain’s Lane entrance to Waterlow Park, built in the mid-19th century in a fine example of Victorian Gothic, though the chimneys are more Tudor. The post at right is for the park gate and I took just a brief stroll inside before continuing my walk. On warmer days I’ve explored the park rather more and sometimes found a bench to eat my sandwiches as well as taking a few pictures.
In 1992 I visited and took some pictures in both the West and East parts of Highgate cemetery, some of which are on-line in Flickr, but on this walk I didn’t have time to stop and just went on down the hill.
Immediately south of the West cemetery is the Holly Lodge Estate, with mansion blocks on Makepeace Avenue and Oakeshott Avenue. The website tells that in 1809 Harriot Mellon, a young actress acquired a large villa later known as The Holly Lodge here, and after she married banker Thomas Coutts in 1815 both house and grounds were enlarged and landscaped. She died in 1837, leaving the property and her fortune to one of the most remarkable women of the Victorian age, her husband’s ganddaughter, Angela Burdett-Coutts.
When she died in 1906 her husband tried to sell the entire property with no success, but then managed to sell off some of the outlying parts – including Holly Terrace on West Hill and South Grove House, both mentioned in the previous post on this walk but it was not until 1923 that the main part was sold off and development of the Holly Lodge Estate began.
This area was acquired by the “Lady Workers’ Homes Limited to build blocks of rooms and flats for single women moving to London in order to work as secretaries and clerks in the city on the Eastern side of the estate.“
These blocks built in the 1920s had fallen into a poor state of repair by the 1960s and were acquired on a 150-year lease in 1964 by the Metropolitan Borough of St Pancras – and so are now owned by the London Borough of Camden. The council for some years continued with the policy of only housing women on the estate but this has now lapsed.
The flats were designed without separate kitchens and with shared bathrooms and toilets as bed-sits for single women – and the estate was built with a long-demolished community block with restaurant, reading and meeting rooms and a small theatre, and behind it three tennis courts. Some of the bed-sits have been converted into self-contained flats but others still share facilities.
Raydon St, Dartmouth Park Hill, Highgate, Camden, 1989 89-4b-42
I returned to Waterlow Park, making my way through it to Dartmouth Park Hill and on to take thsi picture of some very different housing on the Camden’s Whittington Estate. But by now I was in a hurry and the light was fading a little and I took very few photographs (none online) as I made my way through the streets of Dartmouth Park to Highgate Road and Grove Terrace and on to Gospel Oak station for my journey home.
Immigration, Lions, Low Pay & Child Prisoners. I started my day on Friday 13th March 2015 in Feltham in outer London, outside an Immigration Tribunal before going in to cover three further protests in central London.
Let Ife Stay in the UK! York House Immigration Tribunal, Feltham
Immigration has been very much in the news lately, with the UK government introducing new legislation to attempt to evade its responsibilities under international obligations over the treatment of refugees, demonising those who have genuine asylum claims as “illegal” and refusing them the opportunity to make claims.
For years both our major political parties have vied with each other to produce more and more draconian measures to cut the number of migrants coming to the UK. A part of this has been the setting up of more and more Byzantine and understaffed systems to slow down the processing of claims by the Home Office. More and more people are kept in limbo for years before eventually being granted leave to stay in this country.
It’s our system that has led to the huge growth of people smugglers, at first using lorries and more recently concentrating on channel crossings in unsafe and expendable small boats.
Some of the petition to keep Ife and her family in the UK
The real basis for this trade is that there are no safe routes that most genuine asylum seekers can take to enter this country. Even the few country-specific schemes we have are not working properly. Were we to set up a system that worked fairly and efficiently it would largely put the people smugglers out of business, perhaps cutting the demand for their services by around three-quarters.
Setting up a system that rapidly – perhaps within 28 days – sorted out those with a probable case for asylum from those who were clearly economic migrants would not be difficult, and we could admit those who are likely in the end to be given asylum on a provisional basis, allowing them to work and contribute to our society while their cases were under more detailed scrutiny.
Lineker’s tweet “This is just an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the ’30s” was simply stating facts. It certainly is immeasurably cruel, and listening to speeches by Tory MPs and ministers both in Parliament and in media interviews we largely hear a complete lack of compassion from people claiming to be “compassionate“.
Perhaps it might have been politically more acceptable to call it something like Orwellian double-think but government policy often seems to be very accurately following the well-known quote “If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will even come to believe it yourself.” And I probably don’t need to tell you who said that.
Obviously we should not refer to “invasions” or define people’s actions as illegal when their activities are legal under international law, and certainly even people breaking laws are not themselves illegal.
I didn’t know there was an Immigration Tribunal in Feltham before the protest here, rather hidden away on a small industrial estate a mile or two south of Heathrow. And clearly the staff working there didn’t want people to know, and attempted to get police to stop the protest – but were told by police it was legal. It wasn’t a big protest, calling for a 2 year old Ife and her mother and brotheer to be allowed to stay in Peckham where the Ife and continue the medical treatment she needs rather than be deported to Nigeria. You can read more about the protest at Let Ife Stay in the UK!
Save Our Lions – ban Canned Hunting – Trafalgar Square
It took me a little over an hour to travel by bus, train and tube to Trafalgar Square where I joined (a little late) several hundred people who were there to protest against ‘canned hunting’, where lions are bred and raised tame on farms in South Africa for rich visitors to pet, to ‘walk with lions’ and to shoot as trophy heads.
It’s a sordid business, degrading noble animals and threatening wild lions which are captured for farm breeding to improve the quality of the stock. Young females are often killed as soon as they have got too large for the petting zoos, as females are in little demand as hunting trophies.
After some speeches on the North Terrace I was invited to go across with a couple of protesters to South Africa House, where I took a few pictures as they posed in the entrance before security told us to leave.
Poverty pay at the Royal College of Art – RCA, Kensington Gore
IWGB members, supported by students, protested noisily at the Royal College of Art against low pay of outsourced workers, demanding they be paid the London Living Wage now, not from September as the college has offered; the workers need it now.
This was a noisy protest with trade union members and students banging on drums, whistling, blowing plastic horns and chanting slogans, mainly “Living Wage Now!” with RCA security and a couple of police looking on.
After protesting at the entrance to the RCA for some time they marched out on to the main road and held a short rally at the end of the college building close to the Albert Hall before going on a further noisy protest at a small enclosed yard next to a college dining area.
Finally I went to Victoria Street where protesters on the wide pavement outside the G4S offices were calling or the release of 5 young boys from Hares, held and tortured in Israeli jails which G4S helps to run.
They were arrested two years ago after they had been accused of throwing stones at an incident when an illegal settler crashed into the back of a truck. If they are ever tried, like most Palestinians in Israeli courts they are likely to be found guilty – even if there is little or no real evidence and could be sentenced to over 25 years in jail.
The protesters also called for the release of other Palestinian child prisoners, handing out leaflets and displaying banners which detailed some of the cases and the torture of children often tortured and held in isolation in small dark cells in the prisons for which G4S provides support.
Friday 7th April 1989 was at the end of my Easter break from teaching and I took the opportunity to take a walk in North London, taking the North London Line from Richmond to Gospel Oak.
I walked up to Highgate Road where I found this unusual form of advertising, with a Sinclair C5 piggy-backing on a Datsun. On the back of the C5 were these two boards, one with a woman’s face at the top.
The C5 was doomed from the start and it’s hard to understand why any competent businessman had ever thought it could succeed. Recumbent bicycles have never attracted wide ownership despite their mechanical advantages; perhaps if there were no cars, lorries, buses etc on our road they might have done so. And the C5 was just a recumbent trike with an electric motor and some plastic bodywork.
It’s low viewpoint made driving in traffic unsafe, the bodywork gave little or no protection, the carrying capacity was one person and virtually no other load and its range – even if it could have made the promised 20 miles – too low. And with a top speed of only 15mph and little protection from the weather. Only 5000 were sold before the company failed, although the unsold stock later became a cult item for off-road use and often substantial modifications – with some re-engined and souped up to 150 mph.
Houses, Highgate Rd, Dartmouth Park, Camden, 1989 89-4a-55
These substantial houses just south of St Alban’s Road now have lost the dark finish which provided a contrast on the upper floors. The wide gateway under the ventre of the two linked blocks leads through to Oak Court, a post war block. perhaps from the 1960s presumably built by St Pancras Council in the gardens of these houses behind St Albans Villas with a vehicle entrance from St Albans Rd.
Houses, Highgate West Hill, Highgate, Camden, 1989 89-4a-41
Highgate Road ends at Swains Lane, but Highate West Hill continues in the same direction, and walking up it you notice the hill. The large semi-detached house in the foreground is No 23 and you can see that No 27 is a few feet higher up the hill. Some of the other houses in this row have similar tiled decorations to those on No 25 at the middle of the picture and I imagine all once did. Just a little further up is No 31 where John Betjaman grew up.
Wall, Holly Terrace, Highgate West Hill, Highgate, Camden, 1989 89-4a-45
It’s quite a low walk uphill, and much of the road is lined with fences and trees which hide the houses behind, and I made few pictures. Nearing the top of the hill you can still see this wall with an unusual curve at 1 Holly Terrace and that rather crazy tree as well as the fine house is still there too. These houses date from around 1807, built on the site of an older property.
House, Highgate West Hill, Highgate, Camden, 1989 89-4a-33
The hill continues upwards, with this slightly odd villa at No 80, looking to me rather like a German toy house. Beyond it you can see South Grove House and the spire of St Michael’s Church in South Grove, the highest church in London, architect Lewis Vulliamy (1791-1871), consecrated in 1832 and one of the earliest neo-Gothic churches.
It was one of 600 new churches built following the 1818 passage of An Act for the Building and the Promotion of Building Additional Churches in Populous Parishes. It was actually completed nine months before it could be consecrated, having been completed in something of a record time of 11 months, but another Act of Parliament had to be passed to allow its consecration as “The land on which it was built was from the parish of St Pancras, which was a peculiar under the jurisdiction of the Dean and Chapter of St Paul’s Cathedral.”
Highgate Society, Highgate Literary, Scientific Institution, South Grove, Highgate, Camden, 1989 89-4a-21
In South Grove I made this picture of the Highgate Literary & Scientific Institution, which has the date 1839 above it. The building was earlier, having previously been a school, and the building got a new porch and frontage in the 1880s. Such institues were common during the 19th century before the establishment of public libraries, but few now remain still offereing “opportunities for life-long learning through its courses, library, archives, art gallery, lectures, debates, cultural and social events.“
On Tuesday 11th March 2014 I attended two protests, the first at Parliament against a change in the law on closing hospitals, and the second calling for a living wage for cleaners at Chelsea College.
Stop Hospital Killer Clause 119 – Parliament
Unite, GMB, the Save Lewisham Hospital campaign and other hospital protest groups protested outside Parliament against Clause 119 inserted to change the law over hospital closures into the Care Bill, which was having its third reading in the House of Commons.
In 2014 the High Court ruled that health minister Jeremy Hunt had acted illegally in proposing a downgrading of maternity and A&E services at Lewisham hospital because the neighbouring Queen Elizabeth Hospital Woolwich was going bust.
So Jeremy Hunt decided to change the law, and inserted Clause 119 into the Care Bill to give the special administrators overseeing an English NHS Trust in financial difficulties powers to close, merge or alter the services at any other hospital to balance the books without any proper consultation or regard to the social and health effects.
It was a measure which went entirely against the whole idea that local people and local GPs would be in control of health services in their own areas, something which had been stated to be at the centre of Tory/Coalition health policies. The local commissioning groups it says will be at the centre of local health provision will have absolutely no say over what happens to the services that they commission when this clause is invoked.
Though many saw these local groups rather as ways to make the continuing process of passing the NHS over to private companies easier than providing any real local control.
Clause 119 was a panic measure drafted in a fit of pique after Health secretary Jeremy Hunt was defeated in his attempts to raid the thriving Lewisham Hospital to meet the huge PFI debts of some other hospitals in South East London. The attempt to close Lewisham with the deterioration in services for the people in the area provides a clear and obvious example of why actions of this kind should remain illegal.
Lewisham’s closures were stopped by powerful local opposition which brought doctors, local councils, Millwall Football Club and the whole local community out onto the streets – and also making donations to enable Hunt to be taken to the courts. And taken again to fight his unsuccessful appeal against the original decision.
The protest on 11th March 2014 began with a period of silence to mark the death early that day of RMT General Secretary Bob Crow. Speakers at the rally included a member of the Shadow health team, other MPs, consultant Jackie Davis of the National Health Action party, Rachael Maskell, Unite Head of Health, and several NHS activists including Jill from Lewisham and Sandra from Charing Cross.
Pay UAL Cleaners a Living Wage – Chelsea College of Art
A short walk down Millbank, just past Tate Britain, took me to UAL Chelsea College of Arts where GMB and the University of the Arts Students’ Union were calling on the College to ensure that their cleaners, employed by Bouygues Energy & Services, are paid the London Living Wage.
The cleaners were then being paid on the national minimum wage, which for those over 21 was £6.31, less than three-quarters of the London Living Wage, calculated annually by the Greater London Authority, then £8.80 per hour.
The protesters went to call on Vice-Chancellor Nigel Carrington, who after a few minutes came out to talk with them. He told them he thought that they had some good points, but that he did not employ the cleaners and could not grant them the living wage. He also said that he cleaners were paid more then there would be less money to spend on other things, including the student courses and provision.
The protesters responded that many organisations insist that contractors pay the living wage to all employees, and that contracting out of services is simply a way to exploit employees – paying lower rates and giving them worse conditions of employment – while keeping the institutions hands clean.
They were told they could go in to the staff forum meeting so long as they put down their banners, placards and megaphones, and the students decided to do so. The rest of us left.
Brick Lane and Tubby Isaacs is the third and final part of my walk which began with A Walk In the City – March 1989. The previous post was Shops, Soup Kitchen, Spitalfields 1989.
Hanging on the wall outside the Mosque on Brick Lane were a number of posters for sale showing various aspects of the Muslim World.
As is widely known, the mosque – which I’ve photographed on various occasions so didn’t bother on this walk – has a long a varied history since it was built in 1743 as La Neuve Eglise for the Huguenots who had come to the area as refugees from persecution by Catholics in France.
In 1809 is became a Methodist chapel for the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews, changing ten years later to a more mainstream Methodist chapel.
In 1898 it became the Spitalfields Great Synagogue for the Machzike Hadath communty of Lithuanian heritage, one of several large synagogues in the area. Not far away in Aldgate was the Great Synagogue of London (destroyed in wartime bombing) as well as the Sandys Row Synagogue and there were others in the area. After over 70 years the Machzike Hadath moved in 1970 to Golders Green where most of the community now lived.
The building was bought and refurbished by Bangladishis, by then the main community in the area, and opened as a mosque for in 1976 as the London Jamme Masjid. Friday sermons are in Bengali, English and Arabic and the Grade II listed building can accomodate over 3,000 worshippers.
I continued north up Brick Lane and was surprised to see this workmanlike horse-drawn cart crossing the street and going up Bacon Street, pulled by a rather resigned-looking small working horse.
I hadn’t seen something like this since I was in short trousers back in the early 1950s. There were still some breweries using horse-drawn drays, mainly for publicity but those were much grander affairs with huge Shire horses. This was a rather smaller and more crude heavy-duty construction, almost home-made compared to the highly finished examples my father worked on in his father’s workshop as a young man.
Probably you are more likely to see horse-drawn vehicles in London now than back in the 1980s, but these are either the grand carriages such as those used on occasions such as the Lord Mayor’s show or light traps in which a few mainly travellers occasionally come in from the countryside for a sporting Sunday ride around the capital.
Surplus Centre, Brick Lane, Bethnal Green Rd, Spitalfields, Tower Hamlets, 1989 89-4a-61
The buildings on the corner of Brick Lane and Bethnal Green Road still look much the same, at least above the ground floor, where the shops are now rather less interesing than the Surplus Centre, dealing as it states in ‘Government Surplus Clothing & Camping Equipment, JEANS, Trousers, Combat & Donkey Jackets, Leather & Fur Lined Jackets, Motor Cycle Clothing, Anoraks, Shirts, Gloves, Tents & Everything For Camping’
Although the small print helpfully informs me “126 Brick Lane & 45-B Hanbury St Prop Contessa-Restaurants Ltd‘ and gives telephone numbers its difficult to recognise this location now, though I think the two doorways are still present if no longer in use on a graffitt-covered brick wall which has lost its upper storey, just a few yards east of Brick Lane on Hanbury St.
The first Indian Restaurant in Brick Lane was The Clifton, a cafe which opened in 1959 by Musa Patel, a Pakistani migrant to the UK in 1957, named after the wealthy seaside suburb of Karachi where he had been born in 1936.
In 1974 he made it into Brick Lane’s first licensed restuarant, later renamed The Famous Clifton. It was the first restaurant on the street to use a tandoori oven, and the first to attract customers other than the local Bangladeshi clientele and thus begin the transformation of Brick Lane. It closed soon after Musa Patel’s death in 1996.
H Suskin, Textiles, Brick Lane area, Spitalfields, Tower Hamlets, 1989 89-4a-65
H Suskin Textiles Ltd had a workshop in Wilkes St and are said to have had a shop at 45 Wilkes St, since demolished. This is very clearly at Number 45 so I think this is probably it. They also had a shop at 79 Brick Lane.
At the top of the flyposted window shutters are political posters in Bengali and English asking for votes for Mohammad Huque and Syed Islam in the local elections. Below that are three adverts for Gurdas Maan Nite, an Indian musical event starring the famous Indian Punjabi singer, songwriter & actor, probably on film.
At bottom right are adverts for an expensive Dinner and Dance in August 1988 at the London Hilton, but the largest space is taken by posters ‘Hands Off Afghanistan‘ advertising New Worker public meetings in Manchester, London, Birmingham, Liverpool and Sheffield calling for support for the People’s Government left in charge when the Russians withdrew and for an end to UK support by MI6 and the SAS of the Mujahideen. The New Worker is the weekly newspaper of a 1977 splinter group, the New Communist Party of Britain, from the Communist Party of Great Britain which among other differences had been opposed to the 1966 renaming of the Daily Worker as the Morning Star.
I walked on down Brick Lane and Osborne Street to Whitechapel High Street and then back towards the City. On my way I passed the corner with Goulston Street where until 2013 you could still see the world famous Tubby Isaacs sea food stall.
Isaacs was founded by Isaac Brenner in 1919, and when he emigrated to the USA in 1939 to avoid conscription it was taken over by Solomon Gritzman. He had a brother Barney who set up another stall opposite and the two were bitter rivals for many years – I think the ‘We Lead – Others Follow‘ was a reference to his brother. When Solly died in 1975 the business passed to his nephew Ted Simpson who had worked with him.
My picture shows his son Paul who had just taken over, having worked with his father since he was 14. In 2013 he decided it was time to close the stall as most of its customers had died. I don’t know where this gang of children came from but I don’t think they were about to buy anything back in 1989.
I made my way back to Bank for the train home, pausing only briefly for yet another picture of the recent Lloyd’s building, not digitised.
Fukushima Anniversary Questions Nuclear Power Safety – London, 9th March 2013
On 11th March 2011 Japan suffered its most powerful recorded earthquake. The Fukushima power plants fusion reactors were immediately shut down and diesel generators started to pump the coolant needed to keep the reactors safe.
But the earthquake generated a tsunami, with giant 45ft waves which swept over the sea walls of the power plant, flooding and disabling the emergency generators. As Wikipedia states “The resultant loss of reactor core cooling led to three nuclear meltdowns, three hydrogen explosions, and the release of radioactive contamination in Units 1, 2 and 3 between 12 and 15 March.“
Around 110,000 people were evacuated from a 12 mile exclusion zone around the plant because of airborne radioactive contamination, with many losing their livelihoods as well as their homes. The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) who owned the site are still carrying out necessary cleanup of the site and removal of the radioactive fuel debris is expected to take until around 2040 or 2050.
A TEPCO report in 2000 had recommended improved safety measures against seawater flooding, designed to stop tsunami waves greater than those that caused the 2011 disaster, but these and several other warnings were dismissed by the company as unrealistic. Earlier scientist had expressed concerns about the dangers of building nuclear power plants in Japan because of the earthquake problems.
Japanese expatriates in London began a series of weekly protests against nuclear power at the Japanese Embassy on Piccadilly and also protested outside the TEPCO offices in Berkeley Square. The protest on Saturday 9th March was was organised by ‘Japanese Against Nuclear UK’ together with ‘Kick Nuclear’ and CND.
I went to photograph the protesters as they met up for the march at Hyde Park Corner. They intended to make brief protests at several locations including the Japanese embassy, the EDF office and Downing St before ending with a rally and final protest opposite Parliament in Old Palace Yard.
Many of them had come with sunflowers, a symbol of renewable clean energy, particularly solar energy. There were several banners with the smiley sun symbol and the message ‘Nuclear Power? No Thanks’ and a group of people encased in fluorescent yellow barrels with a radioactive danger symbol and labelled ‘Radioactive Waste.’
Some of the Japanese protesters had brought Japanese masks used to hide faces at protests in Japan against Fukushima, although many preferred to have sunflowers painted on their faces.
Among those who had come to protest were some who had come on a coach from Somerset, where they were opposing plans by EDF to build a new power station at Hinkley Point. The plans for the first new nuclear reactor in Britain for over 30 years were approved by the EDF board and the UK government in 2016. The first reactor arrived there last month though the project is several years behind time and is now expected by EDF to be completed in 2028.
Although some environmentalists have backed nuclear as a necessary part of our energy supply if we are to cut carbon emissions, it seems likely that increases in the efficiency and the continuing drop in costs of renewable alternatives will make the new power station a huge white elephant, producing electricity at a much higher cost guaranteed by the UK government to the developers.
I left the protesters as the march was about to start to go to the Million Women Rise march which was taking place at the same time. You can see more about that at Million Women Rise.
March 8th – Women Strike And Protest. Last year on International Women’s Day I published a long post, International Women’s Day Marches with images from my coverage of them from 2002 until 2020. This year I look back five years to Thursday 8th March 2018 when I covered a wide range of protests, most of which were linked to International Women’s Day
Shut Guantanamo at new US Embassy – US Embassy, Nine Elms
This was the first protest outside the new US Embassy where they intend to continue the regular monthly protests which they have had outside the old embassy in Grosvenor Square since 2007 until the illegal and immoral US prison camp is shut down and all the prisoners released.
Normally these protests take place on the first Thursday of every month, but in March 2018 the protest scheduled for March 1st was postponed for a week because of snow. Because of the change of date some regular protesters were unable to attend and the protest started a little later than usual as some had problems finding the new location. This was the only event not connected with International Women’s Day I covered on the day.
In March 2018, 41 prisoners remained held at Guantanamo. There was no evidence against most of those held and tortured there that would stand up in any court of law, often simply a matter of suspicion or hearsay or desperate statements made under extreme torture. Many were simply foreigners in the region seized to gain cash rewards from the US forces.
Global Women’s Strike had organised a mock trial of the UK Family Courts in an International Women’s Day protest in front of Parliament.
Among those who spoke were mothers whose children had been unjustly taken away, and statements from others were also read out, along with some shocking comments made in court by judges.
The UK has the highest rate of adoptions in Europe, almost all without consent of their birth family. Families of colour, immigrants and disabled are all disproportionately affected and in some working class areas 50% of children are referred to social services.
Poverty, often the result of benefit cuts and sanctions and poor housing conditions especially in temporary accommodation is often mistaken for neglect and the help mandated under the 1989 Childrens Act is seldom available. Children are often simply taken into care and then put up for adoption even though they have mothers or grandmothers who are capable of good parenting and only need support.
The campaigners say that victims of domestic abuse are often accused of ‘failing to protect’ their children and vague charges such as putting children at risk of future emotional harm and neglect are used by the secret courts to remove children from mothers and grandmothers. They want hearings with proper public scrutiny and an end to the gagging of mothers and familys, a great use of kinship carers and the proper implementation of the 1989 Children Act, and the Care Act 2014 which entitles disabled mothers to extra help.
Parliamentary officer Black Rod sent police to try to shut down the protest, but the organisers showed them documents to say they had permission for the protest and to use a megaphone. They seemed puzzled but left.
This was the big event of the day and included speeches about a wide range of causes. As the organisers said the “Women’s Strike is a strike for solidarity between women – women of colour, indigenous, working class, disabled, migrant, Muslim, lesbian, queer and trans women” and “is about realising the power we already hold – activating and nourishing resistance.“
Many of the women present went on to other protests elsewhere including several protests in support of cleaners at the TopShop and The Royal Opera in Covent Garden, and cinema workers at Picturehouse, calling for an end to immigration detention an in solidarity with the Yarl’s Wood hunger strikers, for Unilever to withdraw its investment in Myanmar where its presence supports a government that has brutally raped, tortured and killed many Rohingya, and supporting sex workers by calling for the decriminalisation of prostitution and I also went to cover some of these
Solidarity with Yarl’s Wood hunger strikers – Home Office
At the Home Office protesters showed solidarity with those held in Yarl’s Wood on International Women’s Day, in particular with those who had began a hunger strike 15 days ago against their imprisonment and the conditions and treatment by the detention centre staff and the Home Office.
Since then the strike has gathered momentum and escalated into an all-out strike: work strikes, occupations, and a general refusal to cooperate, and long lists of the detainees demands have been published by Detained Voices.
Reinstate the Royal Opera House 6 – Royal Opera, Covent Garden
Six members of grassroots independent workers union CAIWU were fired by cleaning services company Kier for their jobs at the Royal Opera House, another disciplined and a sixth was on final written warning. They were clearly being victimised folloing successful trade union action which had forced Kier to pay its workers there the London Living Wage.
The large and loud action with union members augmented by women from the Women’s Strike blocked Drury Lane for some minutes. Police arrived, talked to the protesters and then went inside to talk to the managers inside before emerging, carefully removing poster and fliers the protesters had left on their car before driving off. The protesters later moved back into Covent Garden Market leaving the road free.
Women from the Women’s Strike called on Unilever to disinvest from Myanmar where they have a $667 million investment.
The military government there are committing systematic rape and other torture with total impunity as part of their genocide against the Rohingya people. Unilever claims, especially in its marketing for Dove products to respect the dignity and rights of women and girls and says it “aims to improve safety for women and girls in the communities where they operate.”
