>Re:PHOTO Peter Marshall - Thoughts on Photography

Biometric ID Cards – 2008

Biometric ID Cards are now once again under consideration by Keir Starmer’s Labour government having being heavily promoted since 2023 by Tony Blair, William Hague and others including the misleadingly named ‘Labour Together‘ right-wing think tank – once directed by Morgan McSweeney who became Starmer’s campaign director – and who he appointed as Labour’s chief of staff when he became leader – and McSweeney became Downing Street Chief of Staff in October 2024.

Until 2008, Britain had only introduced identity cards at times of war. They were scrapped in 1919 but kept on rather longer after World War Two when they were only abolished in 1952.

While the British people were prepared to put up with them in wartime, identity cards were always viewed as fundamentally un-British, incompatible with our ideas of civil liberties and freedom. We contrasted our free society with others abroad where citizens could be stopped at any time on the streets and required to produce their papers – and chilling scenes of the Gestapo doing so were frequently invoked in popular culture. We were proud of not being a police state, but increasingly we are now moving more and more in that direction.

Now the idea is firmly back on the political agenda, there have been two major protests in London against the introduction of these ID cards. Unfortunately for different reasons I’ve not managed to cover either of them. A third protest is coming up in December and I hope to be there.

A petition to Parliament against their introduction has already received around 3 million signatures and will be debated on 8 December 2025. The initial government response is “We will introduce a digital ID within this Parliament to help tackle illegal migration, make accessing government services easier, and enable wider efficiencies. We will consult on details soon.” You can read more at Big Brother Watch.

Biometric ID Cards were introduced under the Identity Cards Act 2006, which came into force on 25th November 2008, when they became compulsory for all non-EU students and spouses applying for or renewing visas for study or marriage. They were to be required shortly for all foreign nationals in the UK and also to be rolled out to other groups including students who want a student loan by 2010. And from 2011 you were to be reqquired to have one – and have your details on that database – if you wanted to renew or get a passport.

London NoBorders and NO2ID (their website I linked to in 2008 is now a gaming site) marked the occasion with a picket outside the UK headquarters of the Border and Immigration Agency at Lunar House in Croydon.

It was, as I noted, a bitterly cold day and “on Wellesley Road a biting Siberian wind seared the demonstrators outside Lunar House. It seemed appropriate that such a freezing blast should surround the UK headquarters of the Border and Immigration Agency and indeed be generated by its twenty stories of the grim early 1970s office complex. After all its raison d’être is to give would-be immigrants and asylum seeks an extremely cold reception.“

It’s impossible to think about the introduction of ID cards without thinking of Orwell and ‘1984’ (though I also had another author in mind when I wrote of it as “a warning of things to come for all of us in a Brave New Britain of state surveillance and control whose infrastructure is increasingly with us through security cameras, the interception of mobile phone signals and electronic communications and the planned introduction of universal ID cards.“)

Although New Labour had few worries about the descent into totalitarianism, our other main political parties had clear reservations, though for the Conservatives they were intrusive but more importantly “ineffective and enormously expensive.” The Lib-Dems were also opposed to them and under the coalition the Identity Documents Act 2010 scrapped the National Identity register and the database and plans for future issues of cards, although they remained as residence permits for foreign nationals.

Also present at the protest was one man, David Mery, fortunate to be still alive – unlike Jean Charles de Menezes. Like that innocent Brazilian electrician six days earlier he had gone into Stockwell Underground Station in 2005 and been suspected of being a terrorist, but this time the police didn’t shoot first and ask questions later. Though having established he wasn’t carrying a bomb they still arrested him and put him through the mill rather than simply apologising on the spot and releasing him.

As I wrote, “his treatment in the months and years following the event can most favourably be described as Kafkaesque. He finally (or at least probably) succeeded in having both his fingerprints and DNA record removed from the police databases, but it took over two years of fighting. His blog and articles are essential reading for anyone who wonders why civil liberties are important.“

A few more pictures at Protest at ID cards start.

Flickr – Facebook – My London Diary – Hull Photos – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photos

All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
Contact me to buy prints or licence to reproduce.

Antifa Remember Carlos, TOTAL, Musharraf & More – 2007

Antifa Remember Carlos, TOTAL, Musharraf & More: I spent Saturday November 24th 2007 travelling around London to photograph protests. On the South Bank, anarchists were remembering Carlos Presente killed by fascists in Madrid earlier in the month, protests were taking place at TOTAL garages across the country for their support for the repressive Burmese regime – and I went to several of those in London. Pakistanis protested at Downing Street against President Musharraf and there were a number of protests in Parliament Square. Below are a few of the pictures and the text I wrote in 2007, with links to more images.

Antifa Remember Carlos Presente

Jubilee Gardens

Antifa Remember Carlos, TOTAL, Musharraf & More — *A comrade speaks at the memorial rally*

Carlos Presente was only 16, but was already active in opposing fascism in his native Spain. Along with other antifascists, he had stood on the street to defend one of Madrid’s multiracial working class areas when Nazis held an demonstration against immigrants.

After the demonstration on 11th November, 2007, Carlos and a comrade were attacked and stabbed while waiting on an underground platform by one of the fascists who had been demonstrating. The hunting knife went through his heart and he bled to death.

The Anarchist Federation – IFA and Antifa Britain held a short memorial rally to honour Carlos. Fittingly it was at the memorial for those who fought against fascism in the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s in London’s Jubilee Gardens.

More pictures

TOTAL Day of Action – London

Kilburn, Kensal Green & Baker St

The French oil company, TOTAL, is the fourth largest oil company in the world, and the largest supporter of the Burmese military regime. Although the media hardly noticed the country before the recent outrages against monks, it has long been one of the most brutal dictatorships around.

It holds over 1300 political prisoners, many subject to routine torture, makes widespread systematic use of forced labour and uses rape as a deliberate policy against women from some of its ethnic minorities.

It also has more child soldiers than any other country and spends roughly half the government budget on the military – and much of that budget derives from TOTAL.

Saturday saw demonstrations across the country against TOTAL garages, urging motorists not to support the repression in Burma by buying from TOTAL. There were at least 11 demonstrations in London, and I went to photograph at three of them, in Kilburn, at Kensal Green and [after photographing other protests below in this post] at Baker Street.

It wasn’t surprising, given the widespread nature of the action that numbers at some garages were small. I left Baker St after an hour – half-way through the demonstration, and more people turned up after I’d gone.

More pictures

Pakistanis Protest at Commonwealth Suspension

Downing St, Whitehall

I don’t know what fraction of Britain’s Pakistani population supports President Musharraf. Polls earlier in the year in Pakistan showed that almost two thirds of the population thought he should stand down. Of course there are some here who owe their positions to him, and certainly others who support him.

So it was hardly surprising to find a couple of hundred protesters in Whitehall on Saturday afternoon opposite Downing Street following the decision on Friday by a committee of Commonwealth foreign ministers to suspend Pakistan because Musharraf had imposed emergency rule – and then sacked the judges who were about to rule his proposed next term as President unlawful.

More pictures

Peace Strike and other happenings

Westminster

*Problems with the amplification didn’t prevent the24 hour picket starting*

Cold weather is not kind to batteries, and the overnight frost killed those used for the amplification in Parliament Square, so although some supporters had turned up for the ‘Peace Strike’ the planned starting rally couldn’t take place.

*Demonstrators in Parliament Square to mark 500 days in captivity for the two Israeli soldiers whose capture by Hezbollah led Israel to attack Lebanon.*

A few more pictures

[As darkness fell I made my way to my final protest of the day at the Baker St TOTAL garage.]

Flickr – Facebook – My London Diary – Hull Photos – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photos

All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
Contact me to buy prints or licence to reproduce.

Between Kings Cross & St Pancras – 1990

Between Kings Cross & St Pancras: A week after my previous walk which began from Kings Cross I was back there again for another walk on Sunday 18th February 1990, beginning with a few pictures close to the station in Kings Cross and Somers Town. This was an area I’d photographed in earlier years but still interested me. Since 1990 it has of course changed dramatically.

*Cheney Rd, Kings Cross, Camden, 1990, 90-2d-34*

Cheney Road is no longer on the map of London although one of the buildings on it remains. It ran north-east from Pancras Road along the side of Kings Cross Station, then turned north-west towards Battlebridge Road and the gasholders you see here. Of course those gasholders are no longer where they were in 1990, but were moved further north and to the opposite side of the Grand Union Canal as a part of the redevelopment of the area including the addition of the Eurostar lines into St Pancras.

This street was a popular film location, best known for its use in The Ladykillers. In the middle distance at left you can see the roof of the German Gymnasium, with its distinctive windows at its top, I think the only building in my picture that remains (at least in part) in situ.

*Pancras Rd, Somers Town, Camden, 1990, 1990, 90-2d-36*

St Pancras Hotel and stating seen looking south down Pancras Road on a sunny Sunday morning. I think I used the controlled parking zone sign to cut down flare. A taxi is turning into Kings Cross over a short section of cobbles.

The station was completed in 1869 and the Midland Grand Hotel in 1876, though it had its first visitors in 1873. Both were designed by George Gilbert Scott and are Grade I listed. They were built for the Midland Railway whose main lines ran from here to Manchester, Sheffield and Nottingham via Derby. The hotel was expensive to maintain and closed in 1935, then becoming used as railway offices by the London, Midland & Scottish Railway.

My first trip to Manchester in 1962 was from here, but soon after in 1967 the central section of the route – one of England’s most scenic – was closed. Now the line ends at Matlock (with a Couple of miles of preserved railway to the north, and we have change at Derby on our journeys to Matlock.

*Pancras Rd, Somers Town, Camden, 1990, 90-2d-21*

Looking north up Pancras Road with the arches of the station to the left of the picture and one of the gasholders in the distance. The curved pediment above the door in the middle block at right is the entrance to the German Gymnasium. This end of the Grade II listed building was demolished when St Pancras International was built, and the west end of the building was replaced by modern brickwork in keeping with the other walls of the building.

*Turnhalle, German Gymnasium, Pancras Rd, Kings Cross, Camden, 1990, 90-2f-66*

This was the original west end of the Turnhalle at 26 Pancras Rd.

*Pancras Rd, Somers Town, Camden, 1990, 90-2d-22*

Kings Cross Automatic Gearbox Centre at 87-89 Pancras Road, Newport Joinery at 92 and other small businesses along the west side of athe road were all demolished to make room of the new platforms for St Pancras International

*Stairs, Stanley Buildings, Stanley Passage, Kings Cross, Camden, 1990, 90-2d-15*

A notice at the left of the stairs of Stanley Buildings flats, says NO to the British Rail bill in Parliament which would see the building of the new international station and the demolition of much of the conservation area. Despite much opposition, the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Act was passed in 1996.

Stanley Buildings were built in 1865, designed by Matthew Allen for the Improved Industrial Dwellings Company under the guidance of Sydney Waterlow. Grade II listed in 1994, but that has not enough to save them as they were and one block was entirely demolished and the remaining block incorporated into a modern building, losing much of its character. The listing text ends: “Among the earliest blocks built by Waterlow’s influential and prolific IIDC, Stanley Buildings are in addition an important part of a dramatic Victorian industrial landscape.” Their remnant now sits largely hidden in a modern development.

DLR – Beckton Extension – 1994

DLR – Beckton Extension: One of the earliest projects I had used a panoramic camera on was the building of the Docklands Light Railway Beckton extension which had been a part of a transport show at the Museum of London in 1992. I had made these pictures on black and white film – you can view these along with many other pictures in my Flickr album ‘1992 London Photos‘

*DLR, Train, Station, Beckton, Newham, 1994, 94-715-11*

So when the Beckton branch from Poplar opened at the end of March 1994 I made a note to myself to return there and make more panoramas along the completed route, but this time working in colour. But I was busy with other things and it was only in July 1994 that I finally managed to go and take some new pictures.

*Station Entrance, DLR, Beckton, Newham, 1994, 94-715-13*

I began by taking a DLR train to the end of the line, Beckton Station, and then walked out to make a few pictures in the area surrounding the station.

*Horses, sculpture, Brian Yale, Beckton Bus Station, Woolwich Manor Way, Beckton, Newham, 1994, 94-716-62*

I’d first visited Beckton in 1981, and had gone back briefly when I was working on the DLR construction in 1982, but by 1994 things were very different to my first visit. Then Beckton was still a largely uninhabited area, noted for its gas works – then mainly in ruins and for being at the end oof London’s Northern Outfall sewer.

*Station Entrance, DLR, Beckton, Newham, 1994, 94-716-51*

There had also been a large postwar prefab estate, but that had been swept away and plans to build large council estates to help solve Newham’s huge housing problems were swept away with the advent of the London Docklands Development Corporation, who sold off most of the land for private housing. The LDDC also commissioned the Horses sculpture by Brian Yale, who had worked for many years as an artist and environmental designer for the architecture department of the Greater London Council, creating “designing murals, sculptures, public art works and play spaces for GLC housing estates and schools“. He was also commisioned by them to produce the long 50 panel The Docklands Frieze at Prince Regent Station.

*Robert, Steam Engine, Winsor Terrace, Beckton, Newham, 1994, 94-716-32*

Robert, a 0-6-0 tank engine was built in 1933 for the Staveley Coal and Iron works and worked in their sidings until 1969. It then went to various preserved railway sites, at one of which it gained its name. Kew Bridge Steam Museum in 1993 restored it to look like a Beckton Gas Works engine (presumably for the LDDC) and it was placed here. After some vandalism Newham Council took Robert over and moved it close to Stratford Station. The engine was again moved during building works assocatied with the 2012 Olympics and finally came back to a different location outside Stratford Station in 2011. It was still there when I last went to Stratford a few weeks ago.

I took a long walk around Beckton, and made quite a few normal format images in black and white, but relatively few colour panoramas, mainly close to the station, then walked rather futher around the area making more panoramas, only relatively few of them on-line at Flickr – two of those in this post are online for the first time including ‘Link Road, Beckton’ below.

*Link Road, Beckton, Newham, 1994, 94-716-11*

I this was part of one of the ring road schemes around London that was never built, Ringway 2, which was planned go under the River Thames at Gallions Reach in a new tunnel between Beckton and Thamesmead. When I made this picture it simply came to a dead end not far on.

More panoramic pictures from around the DLR Beckton branch in a later post.

Flickr – Facebook – My London Diary – Hull Photos – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photos

All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
Contact me to buy prints or licence to reproduce.

Walthamstow Housing Action & Class War at the Ripper Museum – 2015

Walthamstow Housing Action & Class War at the Ripper Museum: On Saturday 21st November 2015 I spent an hour covering a lunchtime rally and march about the housing problems in the London Borough of Waltham Forest before rushing to Whitechapel where Class War were holding another of their protests outside the sensational tourist attraction celebrating the horrific acts of ‘Jack the Ripper’.

Homes for All against social cleansing

Leyton & Walthamstow

Walthamstow Housing Action & Class War at the Ripper Museum

People met in Abbots Park Leyton for a rally organised by Waltham Forest Housing Action before they marched to a longer rally in the centre of Walthamstow. over the severe housing problems faced by those living in the borough of Waltham Forest.

The council has a housing waiting list of over 20,000 families, and although there is considerable home building taking place in the borough only 400 of 12,000 homes planned in Walthamstow in the next 5 years are for low earners.

As in most of London’s boroughs, mainly held by Labour councils, the ‘regeneration’ schemes begun under New Labour has led to the loss of social housing, pricing most local people in the many lower paid and middle-income jobs which are essential for the city to run. Regeneration has led to social cleansing with poorer residents being forced out to areas further from the centre.

The campaigners called for an end to housing evictions in the area – then taking place at twice the average rate for London, and the capping of private rents which are on average much higher than the maximum set by housing benefit, as well as a huge increase in social housing.

Housing benefit acts as a huge public subsidy for landlords, passing money to them. The public and those who live in rented accommodation would be much better served by money being spent of building social housing which would give a return to local councils from the rents.

Private rents allow landlords to get housing benefit and the excess rent paid by the tenants to pay off the loans they take out so they can buy property and get the benefit of increasing their capital – at our and the tenant’s expense.

Rising rents have increasingly made it impossible for many key workers – teachers, firefighters and others – to afford to live in the boroughs they serve.

*Press TV interviewed one of the campaigners who holds a placard ‘I have moved 4 times in 3 years! I want secure affordable housing’*

Although Press TV covered the event there was (as usual) no interest shown by mainstream UK media

Among the trade unions supporting the march were the National Union of Teachers and the Fire Brigades Union – who provided their fire engine as a platform for speakers and to lead the march.

Local politicians also came for the event along with Green Party Deputy Leader Dr Shahrar Ali. Among local groups with banners were residents of Residents of Fred Wigg and John Walsh towers on the edge of Wanstead Flats in Leytonstone., where the 234 social housing units are to be replaced by only 160 and new private flats were to be sold to raise £30 million.

I left as the march was on its way to Walthamstow to go to Whitechapel.

More on My London Diary at Homes for All against social cleansing.

Class War at the Ripper ‘Museum’

Cable St, Whitechapel

I met Class War as they arrived outside the Jack the Ripper tourist attraction in Cable St with their ‘Womens Death Brigade‘ banner for another in their series of protests against the ‘museum’ which celebrates the brutal and macabre killings of working class women in Whitechapel in 1888.

*Owner Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe’s partner Julian Pino and an employee in the shop*

The murderer was an insane serial killer who ripped open the bodies of his victims, removing the uterus and heart and a whole industry has arisen over trying to establish his identity, spurred on by the particularly gory details of his crimes.

*An officer tells Puno to stop phoning ‘999’ as the police are already here*

Although the police at the time were unable to solve the case, they appear to have given up after Montague Druitt drowned himself in the Thames shortly after the final one of these murders. But those aiming to profit from the whole series of articles, books and films have done their best to build up doubt and uncertainty, putting forward others, often very unlikely such as painter Walter Sickert, as the criminal.

The protest was noisy but peaceful with many of those taking part wearing masks of the shop’s owner – who had lied about the site becoming a museum to celebrate women’s history to gain support and planning permission.

It was enlivened by the arrival of activist singer/guitarist Cosmo who performed three appropriate songs which raised everyone’s spirits, and even the police obviously enjoyed the protest.

Shop owner Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe had left a shop worker and his partner Julian Pino inside the ‘museum’ to face the protesters and their was one spot of farce when a police officer went inside to tell him to stop continually phoning ‘999’ as the police were already there.

A man claiming to be a local resident and seemed to be a friend of the ‘museum’ came to complain to Class War against them protesting against a business that was bringing investment to an area that was so obviously in need of it. He was told that this kind of investmentglorified violence against women and was clearly detrimental to the area and offensive to many – including the living descendants of the victims.

It was hard to avoid the conclusion that his intervention had been prompted and possibly funded by the owner of this tacky tourist attraction, which noticeably attracted no customers while the protest was taking place.

More on My London Diary at Class War at the Ripper ‘Museum’.

Flickr – Facebook – My London Diary – Hull Photos – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photos

All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
Contact me to buy prints or licence to reproduce.

Tollington to Holloway – 1990

Tollington to Holloway continues my walk on Sunday February 11th 1990 which began at Kings Cross with the post Kings Cross and Pentonville 1990. The previous post was More from Tollington Park – 1990.

House, Tollington Way, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1990, 90-2d-56 — *House, 1A, Cornwallis Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1990, 90-2d-56*

This 3 storey detached house on Cornwallis Road, just a few yards down from Tollington Way, attracted my attention for its unusual decoration above what seemed a very ordinary door and window. According to Streets With a Story the street was developed in three periods as Shadwell Road, Esher Villas and Cornwallis Road in 1863, 1879 and 1885. This house probably dates from the latter part of that development but I’ve found nothing about it on-line

*Royal Northern Hospital, Tollington Way, Holloway, Islington, 1990, 90-2d-42*

The Royal Northern Hospital was founded in York Rd (York Way) in 1856 at his own expense by a surgeon who had been sacked from University College Hospital for smacking a patient’s bottom. The hospital provided free services for North London’s Poor as well as treating railway workers. But the railway bought the house and they had to move, using several properties in the area. Finally it got is own home and the Great Northern Central Hospital opened on Holloway Road in 1888, changing its name to the Royal Northern Hospital in 1921 and expanding to Tollington Way in the 1930s. It merged with the Whittington Hospital in 1963. The facade of the main building has been retained on Holloway Rd and the building is the Northern Medical Centre

*Holloway Rd, Holloway, Islington, 1990, 90-2d-43*

This picture was made from Tollington Way looking to the rather grand Italianate terraced villas on the opposite side of Holloway Road, Belgrave Terrace. They were locally listed in 1978. At left is The Cock Tavern at 596 Holloway Road. The pub was built in the 1880s and in the 2000s became a live music venue and bar, now Nambucca. Damaged by fire in December 2008 it reopened in 2010 and was refurbished in 2014 only to close in 2022 but unexpectedly reopen in 2024.

*VICTORY TO THE IRA, Landseer Rd, Holloway, Islington, 1990, 90-2d-46*

Holloway is one of the more densely populated areas of London with a very multicultural population including many Irish among its residents, and among them a significant number who supported the Irish struggle against the English occupiers in Northern Ireland. In 1990 we were in the middle of active attacks by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) on targets in London – the following year they attacked Downing Street using mortar shells and in 1992 a powerful bomb at the Baltic Exchange destroyed it and other buildings in the City of London, following this in 1993 with another bomb in Bishopsgate.

The street was named after the animal painter and sculptor Sir Edwin Landseer, best known now for the lions at the base of Nelson’s column. He became a ‘national treasure‘ and his death in 1873 gave rise to mourning across the nation and large crowds lined the streets as his funeral cortège made its way to St Paul’s Cathedral. Probably the street dates from around then.

*W Wooley, Egg & Butter Merchant, 541, Holloway Rd, Holloway, Islington, 1990, 90-2d-31*

The building is still there on Holloway Road, but sadly is no longer an Egg & Butter Merchant and has a new shopfront – and a bus shelter on the pavement in front of it.

Tollington to Holloway - 1990 — *Lingerie, Stop Smoking, Royal Jelly & Ginseng, Holloway Rd, Holloway, Islington, 1990, 90-2d-32*

As I made my way to the station at the end of my walk I could not resist this shop window with a rather strange mix of products including those listed and some rather strange health supplements. I only stopped long enough to take a picture and wasn’t tempted to buy anything.

My next walk a week later was also in North London and will be the subject of a later post.

Flickr – Facebook – My London Diary – Hull Photos – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photos

All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
Contact me to buy prints or licence to reproduce.

Stop The War March, November 2001

Stop The War March: Although I’ve usually posted events from the past on the actual anniversary, this post comes a day late as by the time I remembered this I had already written a post for yesterday. So although I’m publishing this on 19th November, the march organised by Stop The War took place on November 18th 2001. It was a large one, although as I wrote the reports by police severely under-counted the numbers taking part.

The Stop the War Coalition had been founded in September 2001 in the weeks following 9/11 after George W. Bush had announced the “war on terror”. At first its protests were mainly directed against the war in Afghanistan, but later it opposed the the US-led military invasion of Iraq and since then has campaigned against other wars against Libya, in Syria and elsewhere.

In recent years it has been one of the groups involved in the many protests, small and large against the genocide taking place in Gaza along with CND and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

I had covered their first major march by Stop the War in October 2001 and have continue to photograph many of their events to the present day, though for medical reasons had to miss the largest public demonstration in British history on 15th February 2003 shortly before the invasion of Iraq on 20 March 2003.

Back in 2003 the coalition was a huge one. Wikipedia states “Greenpeace, the Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru and the Scottish National Party (SNP) were among the 450 organisations which had affiliated to the coalition, and the coalition’s website listed 321 peace groups.”

The Socialist Workers Party has always played a leading role in Stop the War and the Muslim community has been important from the start with the coalition recognising “a war against Afghanistan would be perceived as an attack on Islam and that Muslims, or those perceived as being Muslim, would face racist attacks in the United Kingdom if the government joined the war.” The Muslim Association of Britain was closely involve in organising this and other protests.

In 2001 I was still photographing using film, both black and white and colour, and all of the pictures I contributed to picture libraries were in black and white, as are those on My London Diary. Back then the demand from newspapers and magazines was still mainly for black and white and was still reproduced largely from prints.

Occasionally I would print images taken on colour negative as black and white prints to submit but mainly I had sufficient pictures taken as black and white. There are some people who now convert their colour digital images into black and white, feeling I think that it somehow makes them more ‘authentic’. It does occasionally make images stronger but mostly it simply makes them less descriptive and often confused.

Below is the post I wrote for My London Diary. It says nothing about why the protest was taking place, which would have been obvious to viewers at the time that it was against the war in Afghanistan.

“November 18 we were back again marching to stop the war. Two hours after the march started there were still marchers leaving Hyde Park, and we were getting messages that Trafalgar Square was full. The police estimate of 20,000 was pathetically low and even the organisers’ figure of 50,000 might have been on the low side. It’s always difficult to count such things (I usually give up counting around the one thousand mark when I’m covering demonstrations and make a guess above that, but this was certainly on a similar scale to the countryside march which is the largest event in recent years.

The march was more split up into factions than most, although the start was fairly mixed. There were large organised male and female sections of Muslims for Justice in the middle of the march and a big group of younger marchers, including anarchists, towards the end. Actually I didn’t manage to see the end of the march, and people were still arriving in Trafalgar Square when I left.”

A few more pictures on My London Diary

Flickr – Facebook – My London Diary – Hull Photos – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photos

All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
Contact me to buy prints or licence to reproduce.

Shut Down Yarl’s Wood 12 – 2017

Shut Down Yarl’s Wood 12: On Saturday 18th November 2017 I put my folding bike on three trains to take me to Bedford Station and rode the five or so miles to the closed main gates of Twinwoods Business Park on a former wartime aerodrome. Mostly it was an easy ride, but the last half-mile or so was up a rather steep hill and I was well out of breath by the time I arrived to meet the crowd of protesters already there but waiting for more coaches to arrive.

It was I think my 11th visit to photograph the protests organised by Movement for Justice at Yarls Wood Immigration Centre on the other side of the business park a little over a mile away which we could reach by a public footpath.

The numbers at the protest were down on the previous protest as the preparations for the event had been disrupted by a controversy about Movement for Justice, with one formerly very active member leaving feeling very angry about the group’s treatment of her. Although I sympathised with her I felt that much of what she claimed to reveal about the group was already well known and that she and her supporters were using her personal issue in a way that damaged the campaign to close Yarl’s Wood and other immigration prisons.

As I wrote in 2017:
“MfJ has never made any secret of its political background (you can read about it on Wikipedia), and has done far more than any other group to raise the issue of immigration detention, organising major protests at Harmondsworth, the Home Office and Yarl’s Wood and working practically with many former asylum seekers to stop deportations. And while much of the organisation of protests has clearly been carried out by a small and devoted core group, the activity and enthusiasm of those former asylum seekers is vital. MfJ would be impotent without their support, which it would not have unless it commanded their respect.”

The protesters held a noisy rally on the grassy area at the side of the road, with much chanting of slogans, practising them for when they would be outside the prison. They had brought large clear posters and banners that the women inside would latter be able to see, as well as a sound system and a ladder.

When all had arrived we set off marching a few hundred metres down the road to the start of the footpath, with me pushing my bike and stopping occasionally to take pictures. When we got closer to the site, one of the campaigners kindly offered to push my bike so I could take pictures of the marchers more easily.

We went through a gate into a field next to the detention centre where the protesters began to make a great deal of noise, particularly by kicking and banging on the lower solid metal section of the 20ft fence imprisoning the site.

The field slopes up steeply from the fence and others stood on the flat area at the top where they could see through the grid on the top 10 feet of the fence – and be seen by the women inside who were able to get to the upper floor windows. Some of the protesters had brought flowers and stood on the ladder to poke them into the grid.

We could see – if not clearly – the women inside who had come to greet the protesters, holding up messages: ‘SOS Plz’, ‘5 Months In No End in sight‘, ‘We Need Freedom‘, ‘We just no visa not criminal‘, ‘Release Us’. The windows can only be opened a few inches but some managed to hold out their messages. The photographs using a very long lens show them more clearly than we could see them.

The prison guards had put on a fashion show in another block of the centre to try to entice the women away from the windows, and guards were harassing them and telling them to leave the rooms facing the protest, event trying to pull them away, but they still manage to stay there to greet the protest. But some of the windows were pretty crowded.

Some held up mobile phone numbers in large print – the detainees are allowed phones to contact their lawyers and others over their immigration cases – and we were able to hear their voices which were relayed to the PA system. We could also hear them shouting, though it was hard to make out what they were saying.

Speakers standing on a ladder could see and be heard by the women inside, and most of those who spoke were former detainees at Yarl’s Wood or other detention centres. Mabel Gawanas who was held inside there for a day under 3 years was able to speak to her friends still inside.

*Between speeches there was more noise, and the samba band played.*

Also speaking was a woman released only a few days earlier who thanked MfJ and greeted her friends still inside.

I commented “‘China’ , ‘China’, ‘Release Us’, ‘We Need Freedom’ , ‘5 Months In No End In Sight’ , ‘Release’. None of these people should be locked up. There is no good reason to lock any of them up. Some need help and protection. All need to be treated as human beings, not pawns in a numbers game to satisfy the racist right.”

Other former detainees spoke, including some others recently release and this man who had been held in three different detention centres.

And on the hill people held their banners and the protest continued.

It was mid-November and the light was beginning to fall and the protest was to end shortly. I was getting cold and decided I had to leave, and pushed my bike back to the road for the ride back to Bedford station. Fortunately apart from one short steep hill it was mainly downhill.

Many more pictures on My London Diary at Shut Down Yarl’s Wood 12.

Flickr – Facebook – My London Diary – Hull Photos – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photos

Stanford-le-Hope, Corringham, Fobbing and Vange – 2005

Stanford-le-Hope, Corringham, Fobbing and Vange: On Thursday November 17th 2005 I took my Brompton folding bike on the train to Waterloo, cycled from there to Fenchurch Street station and then took another train to Stanford-le-Hope, a small town in Essex east of Tilbury. For some years I’d been photographing on both sides of the River Thames in Kent and Essex, but this was an area I’d yet to explore.

Much of the area is marsh and there are few roads, but it is also the site of Coryton and Thames Haven oil terminals.The building of London Gatway Port began there three years later and it opened in November 2013, “a fully integrated logistics facility” located 30 miles east of London, “able to handle some of the largest container ships in the world.”

I wasn’t able to access the oil terminals but could see them from a distance both on this ride and on other rides I made to Canvey Island.

Below is what I wrote about the ride in 2005:

We had some fine weather in the middle of the month, which got me out on my bike again to take a ride around the north side of the Thames estuary, from Stanford-le-Hope – where Joseph Conrad lived and wrote for a couple of years along to Corringham village, then on to Fobbing and past Vange marshes to Pitsea station.

The first miles were on low-lying farmland, with the skyline dominated by the oil tanks and refinery at Coryton (named for the Cory brothers who bought the site in 1923). The old village at Corringham is on a low hill, and parts remain very picturesque. Fobbing has some more serious hills, its main street falling sharply from the church down to the marshes. I took the bike a short way on the footpaths across the marsh, but it wasn’t a suitable surface for riding.

Large-scale development is expected in the area, as the former Shell Haven site, just to the west of Coryton, is to become a large container port, London Gateway.

In the recreation ground at Fobbing is a memorial arch. In May 1381, a tax collector, Thomas Bampton, came to the village to demand unpaid poll tax from the peasants of Fobbing, Stanford and Corringham; his demands were so unreasonable that this caused a riot and the villagers threw him out.

By the following day, three of Bampton’s men had been killed and the revolt was spreading through Essex and further afield. News doubtless travelled across the river to Kent, where John Ball had earlier been arrested for his radical views, and Kent peasants also revolted. The arch was erected for the 600 anniversary in 1981. [More about the 1381 Great Rising or Peasant’s Reevolt on Wikipedia]

*Fobbing churchyard and view towards Southend*

North of the village, Marsh Lane is a bridleway leading out onto the marshes. There had been rather too much rain recently to make cycling along it easy, with large puddles and tractor-churned mud. After around three quarters of a mile, the track became just a grassy footpath and I turned round and made my way back up to the main road on the higher ground overlooking the marsh. [My Brompton soon becomes unrideable on very muddy ground, with mud between the mudguards and tyre locking the wheels – and a difficult job to scrape out.]

Vange is now very cut-off from its marshes, both by the railway line and the A13 road. I’d hoped to explore the marsh a little more, but when my front tyre got a puncture decided to make directly for Pitsea station and the trains home.

More pictures from the ride on My London Diary.

Flickr – Facebook – My London Diary – Hull Photos – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photos

More City of London Panoramas – 1994

More City of London Panoramas: This is the final set of picturesI’ll post from those I made while working on a personal project on the City of London in July 1994. Of course I took many which I’ve not digitised, spending several days walking the City and making over 300 exposures. The camera I used makes negatives on standard 35mm film which are wider than normal and a ’36 exposure’ film only gets around 20 or 21 panoramic frames. Film loading is also trickier as the film has to go around a curve.

Each exposure took a few minutes to select a viewpoint, set up my tripod, level the camera, use a handheld lightmeter to check exposure and finally press the cable release. Most of those not uploaded are similar to those I have posted with just minor changes to the view.

*London Bridge Walk, Tooley St, Borough High St, Southwark, 1994, 94-711-52*

Not quite in the City, but made as I made my way from London Bridge Station to London Bridge along London Bridge Walk. The road in the background is Borough High Street which leads on to London Bridge and the City boundary is in the middle of the river. You can just see the pinnacles on the top of the tower of Southwark Cathedral.

After the operation of the Waterloo & City underground line from Network South East to London Underground in April 1994 I could no longer use my ‘London Terminals’ ticket on this route, and my cheapest journey became to go to London Bridge on this and walk across to the City.

This is one of a few pictures I had digitised but missed when I was uploading these images to Flickr.

*High Walk, Wood St, City, 1994, 94-713-42*

Another exposure from the highwalk at Wood Street, leading south along the east side of the street away from London Wall. In the centre of the picture is the City of London Police Headquarters, with two white police vans at bottom right. Steps lead down from the walkway to Wood Street but the highwalk also continued straight on at extreme left – though with more steps.

In the centre of Wood Street at right is the tower of St Alban Wood Street. The medieval church was destroyed in the Great Fire and rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren. The church was largely destroyed in the Blitz in 1940. The tower remained and was Grade II* listed in 1950 and is now a private house; the remains of the rest of the church were demolished in 1965.

*Lower Thames St, King William St, City, 1994, 94-711-12*

Again on my way from London Bridge Station to the centre of the City, this is made from where London Bridge joins to King William Street and goes across Lower Thames Street. You can see a highwalk bridge going across Lower Thames street a couple of hundred yards to the east, still there in 2025.

Until around 1970 Thames Street was a fairly narrow street, just wide enough to allow a single lane of traffic in both directions. It was then turned into a major road and divided at London Bridge into Lower and Upper Thames Street. At the left you can clearly see where older buildings were cut through to widen the road.

The heart of the City. I made the picture close to the corner of Mansion House Street and Princes Street with the Underground entrance on the corner. At left is a corner of the Bank of England and the main modern building towering above it is the Stock Exchange Tower, home to the Stock Exchange until 2004.

Towards the centre is the Royal Exchange, I think then still home to the International Financial Futures Exchange rather than just an upmarket shopping mall. Two buildings full of banks and insurance companies book-end Hawksmoor’s St Mary Woolnuth and at the extreme right is the edge of the Mansion House with a gilded lamp on its steps.

*Milton Court, Silk Street, City, 1994, 94-713-21*

Another section of highwalks ran from close to Moorgate Station to the Barbican Estate and these last four pictures show sections of this, which could also be accessed from Ropemaker Street. This northern section has now been lost.

Milton Court was designed by Chamberlin, Powell & Bon and built as a part of the Barbican development in 1959 for various City services – “a fire station, Coroner’s Court, mortuary, office of weights and measures and a civil defence school.”

It was arguably London’s most outstanding single post-war building and English Heritage wanted to list it in 2001, but the government’s Department of Culture, Media and Sport objected and in 2007 Secretary of State James Purnell granted it immunity from listing. In a sad act of cultural vandalism this remarkable building was demolished in 2008.

*Milton Court, Silk Street, City, 1994, 94-713-12*

The building which replaced Milton Court was also given the same name but is a much more bland modern structure. The bridge which linked to the northern section of highwalk disappeared.

The new 115m tall Milton Court is described on its builders Sir Robert McAlpine web site: “Climbing to 36 storeys, Milton Court redefines luxury living in the Square Mile. In addition to a graceful residential tower, the development is home to a spectacular new annexe to the Guildhall School of Music & Drama.” But to me it looks like just another tall city office block.

*Highwalk, Ropemaker St, City, 1994, 94-715-52*

This enclosed section of highwalk ran from Ropemaker Street to the bridge across Silk Street to the Speed Highwalk still there along the north side of Speed House.

*Ropemaker St, Islington, City, 1994, 94-715-32*

Remarkably I think none of the buildings in this picture looking east along Ropemaker Street has ssurvived. Even the building at left, Ropemaker Place, a 60m high block which I photographed while it was being built in 1986 and was completed in 1987 and which I thought was one of the more attractive modern buildings in (or rather a few feet outside) didn’t last long and was demolished only 18 years later in 2005.