>Re:PHOTO Peter Marshall - Thoughts on Photography

Air Pollution, Lambeth Libraries & Aleppo – 2016

Air Pollution, Lambeth Libraries & Aleppo: Saturday 30th April 2016 was a day that illustrated the diversity of protests in London. Cyclists staged a die-in outside the Dept for Transport against killer air pollution, campaigners in Lambeth demanded the council scrap plans to close ten libraries and Syrians and otheers called for an end to Russian and Syrian air strikes on Aleppo.

Stop Air Pollution Killing Cyclists

Dept of Transport Air Pollution, Lambeth Librariess & Aleppo - 2016

Air pollution in London is a serious problem with pollution often above legal limits, mainly because of exhaust gases and particulates from traffic on our congested streets.

Air Pollution, Lambeth Libraries & Aleppo - 2016

Studies say that this causes the premature deaths of over 9,500 Londoners each year, as well as many more living in suffering from lung diseases, heart problems, cancers, asthma, emphysema and lung infections.

Cyclists are particularly at risk, breathing in large amounts of dirty air as they ride, though of cause the pollution affects us all. This protest was organised by ‘Stop Killing Cyclists’ who say the Tory government had stopped progress on making London’s air cleaner.

Air Pollution, Lambeth Librariess & Aleppo - 2016

The campaigners who staged the die-in on Horseferry Road demanded fair funding for cyclists to make riding a bike in London safer with more segregated routes and safer junctions to encourage more people to ride rather than drive. As well as resulting in less traffic the exercise would also improve health.

They called for all non-zero emission private cars to be banned now from the city on days were the pollution levels were expected to be above EU safety levels, for all diesel vehicles to be banned in the city centre within 5 years – and all petrol powered vehicles within 10 years, as well as regular ‘car-free’ days in London and other major cities.

To stop the killing of children and other pedestrians they called for residential areas to become living streets Home Zones, getting rid of dangerous and polluting through routes and for a national programme of pedestrianisation of city, borough and town centres.

They also wanted councils to be allowed to limit the number of private hire vehicles and to promote the serious use of pedicabs – currently only fleecing tourists in the city. The protest came in the run up to local elections, including for the Mayor of London, and the candidates were asked to respond to these demands. Only the Green Party candidate Sian Berry (who took part in the protest) really responded positively.

More at Stop Air Pollution Killing Cyclists

Save Upper Norwood and all Lambeth Libraries

Upper Norwood

To save money Lambeth Council was planning to close or end funding to five of its ten libraries, with staff losing their jobs.

There were strikes by library staff and a ten-day occupation of the Carnegie Library in Herne Hill.

Upper Norwood Library on the Croydon/Lambeth border and jointly funded by the two boroughs was being handed over to the Upper Norwood Library Trust to run as a community hub. Pressure from protesters has led to the council agreeing to one member of staff for a transitional period, but the library then had five professional staff.

Save Upper Norwood and all Lambeth Libraries

Save Aleppo, Stop Airstrikes

Russian Embassy, Kensington

*Many of the protesters had Syrian Freedom flags*

Protesters from the Syria Solidarity Campaign came to protest after bombing raid on the Al-Qudus hospital in Aleppo the previous Wednesday night had killed tens of civilians including children and three doctors.

The hospital had a policy of only treating civilians and among those killed were the last paediatrician and the last dentist in Aleppo. The air raid also targeted the building used by civil defence volunteers.

Across the street from the private road housing the Russian Embassy they called for an end to Russian and Syrian air strikes, for an end to the Assad regime and for Putin to get Russian forces out of Syria.

Save Aleppo, Stop Airstrikes

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Darfur – International Day of Action – 2007

Whitehall, Sunday 29 April, 2007

Darfur – International Day of Action: There have been protests in London against the continuing bloodshed in Sudan in recent months and the situation there is increasingly desperate. But as Wikipedia points out, there have been civil wars in Sudan “intermittently ongoing for more than 70 years“.

The War in Darfur began in 2003 with two groups, the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) fighting against the Sudanese government of Omar-al-Bashir. They accused him of ethnic cleansing against non-Arabs in Darfur, and his response was to ramp up a campaign of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.

International Day of Action for Darfur: London © 2007, Peter Marshall

One of the major forces on the government’s side was a militia group, the Janjaweed and this has since developed into a coalition, the Rapid Support Forces, which is now fighting the Sudanese Army. The Holocaust Encylcopedia states “Between 2003 and 2008, armed conflict and targeted killings in Darfur caused about 300,000 civilian deaths and displaced about 2.7 million civilians.”

The Sudanese government and the JEM signed a ceasefire agreement in 2010, although this was soon violated by government forces and the fighting continued. After the Sudanese Revolution of 2018 which led to the removal of al-Bashir from power in April 2019 there was a peace process that lead to a peace agreement in 2020.

Unfortunately conflicts continued in Sudan and in 2023 resulted in a still continuing civil war between the RSF and the Sudanese Army. By February 2026 more than 40,000 people had been killed, with aid agencies suggesting a much higher figure. Again according to the Holocaust Encyclopedia “The violence has led to the displacement of more than 12 million people, or one in three Sudanese. Nearly half of the population lacks access to adequate food, and famine has been declared in the Darfur and Kordofan regions.”

In 2007 I wrote:

“Sunday was the International Day Of Action For Darfur, and although the demonstration in London was a relatively small one – perhaps a thousand people – the organisers had really managed to capture media attention. While anti-war or other marches of this size or even 50 times larger don’t usually even rate a mention, this was a lead item on the morning’s radio news – and listeners were even perhaps uniquely told when and where it was happening.

I don’t begrudge the publicity in any way. The situation is a world scandal and disaster and one that the nations are avoiding effective action on. As the posters, and the hour-glasses large and many small insist, time is running out, the blood is running out and time is up for Darfur.

“It’s just a shame that the media in general choose to turn their backs on other events. But today you could hardly move for TV cameras and photographers from what used to be Fleet Street. those freelances who cover the other demonstrations, small and large, that the papers and TV don’t want to know about were also there of course.

“For me the most interesting aspect of this actual event was the arrival of the group of students and others who had marched from Oakington detention centre near Cambridge to raise awareness about Darfur (and about refugees held there who are from Darfur.) By the time they arrived, most of the media had left. Perhaps they were too much like ordinary demonstrators (and too much like those cyclists who came from Faslane earlier in the month to publicise the treatment of Mordechai Vanunu.)”

More pictures on My London Diary.

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Workers Memorial Day, HS2 Protest – 2014

Workers Memorial Day, HS2 Protest: Every year since 1989, April 28th has been International Workers’ Memorial Day, and on Monday 28th April 2014 I once more attended the event commemorating this at the statue of the Building Worker on Tower Hill in London, later going to Parliament Square where protesters called on MPs to vote against the HS2 Bill being debated in the House of Commons.

Workers Memorial Day

Tower Hill

One of the more hazardous industries in the UK is construction, and the annual Workers Memorial Day points this out. There had been over 50 deaths on construction sites in the previous year and the rally place around a coffin with boots, work gloves and hard hats.

Workers Memorial Day, HS2 Protest - 2014

A TUC report published for the day, ‘Toxic, Corrosive and Hazardous: The government’s record on health and safety‘ pointed out that since the coalition government came to power in 2010 it had “drastically cut Health and Safety Executive (HSE) inspections, cut funding to the HSE by 40 per cent, blocked new regulations and removed vital existing protections, prevented improved European regulation on health and safety, cut support for employers and health and safety reps, seen local authorities reduce their workplace inspections by 93 per cent, and made it much harder for workers to claim compensation if they are injured or made ill at work following employer negligence.”

The government was now planning to exempt many ‘self-employed workers’ from health and safety protection – despite them being twice as likely to be killed at work than other workers.

This attack on health and safety, carried out under the title of ‘reducing red tape’ also played an important role in providing the environment which allowed the disastrous fire at Grenfell Tower.

The theme for the 2014 events from the ITUC, the global union body coordinating the event worldwide, is ‘Protecting workers around the world through strong regulation, enforcement and union rights’ and it encouraged unions to use the slogan, ‘Unions make work safer’.

There were speeches including by Gail Cartmail, Assistant General Secretary of Unite, Tony O’Brien of the Construction Safety Campaign and Jerry Swain Regional Secretary for UCATT’s London and South East Region, after which wreaths and flowers were laid at the base of the statue by UCATT, Tower Hamlets Mayor Lutfur Rahman and Liliana Alexa who founded the Battersea Crane Disaster Action Group after her son Michael was killed by a falling crane as he walked past a building site near his Battersea home.

The event ended with the release of black balloons, for the 50 workers killed in the last year and a period of silence around the coffin with its boots, hard hat and work gloves and a hard hat for each one of them.

More pictures from Workers Memorial Day

Stop HS2 Rally at Parliament

Old Palace Yard, Westminster

HS2 is generally seen now as an expensive disaster, failing to achieve its aims and becoming something of a white elephant. It doesn’t go to where it was intended and will have to run rather slower than planned.

Despite the plans to run to Manchester and Leeds having been dropped the scheme has had a massive increase in costs. It still remains doubtful if it will ever actually reach its intended destination in London, Euston or simply serve its temporary terminus at Old Oak Common, six miles out in the middle of nowhere very much, where it will largely rely on a connection to the Elizabeth Line.

The project was almost certainly doomed from the start in 2009 under Labour, but its position was worsened by decisions by each successive government. There are various detailed studies of where it went wrong on-line, including by Graham Winch of the Productivity Institute.

The London to Birmingham section we may one day get was only a minor aspect of the original scheme and a part that offers relatively little gain – nobody really needs to get to Birmingham 20 minutes faster. Its route was poorly chosen and bound to result in the kind of local opposition that has greatly put up costs, and the whole project was severely over-specified – and in a way that makes it incompatible with the existing network.

Others, such as High Speed UK have developed much more coherent plans for the future UK rail network which governments have refused to consider seriously – and were one of those supporting and speaking at this protest. Their plans in 2014 would have avoided “damage to the Chilterns by following the M1 and would be 25% cheaper than HS2, while offering time savings on average of 40% for most intercity services – not just those on the high speed route.“

This was a relatively small demonstration with perhaps a couple of hundred people, but a colourful one, with a large inflatable white elephant and a couple of bears with a very large rail ticket about the £50 billion rip-off of HS2. There were speeches including from several MPs and campaigners.

More at Stop HS2 Rally at Parliament.

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Ealing Hospital, Free Shawki Omar, Hizb ut-Tahrir – 2013

Ealing Hospital, Free Shawki Omar, Hizb ut-Tahrir: On Saturday 27th April 2013 I made my way to Southall Park for the rally at the start of a march to save A&E departments at hospitals in West London, then went into central London. Outside the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square I met and photographed the wife and daughter of Shawki Ahmed Omar, arrested in Iraq in 2004 and still held and tortured there. Finally I attended a rally and march up Brick Lane by the now banned Islamic political party Hizb ut-Tahrir calling for he replacement of the Awami League government of Bangladesh by an Islamic caliphate.

Save Ealing Hospital & the NHS

Southall Park, Southall

A&E departments at Charing Cross, Hammersmith, Central Middlesex and Ealing Hospitals were under threat of closure in a move that would greatly reduce cover for around two million people in West London, leaving three large London Boroughs without a major hospital.

Local councils were firmly opposed to the closures along with the whole community. Public transport in the area is relatively poor (as I found getting to Southall) and roads are often extremely congested so the closures would lead to dangerous delays for those needing urgent treatment.

Ealing Hospital, Free Shawki Omar, Hizb ut-Tahrir - 2013

Among speakers at the rally were Councillor Julian Bell, the Leader of Ealing Council, other local councillors who have led the opposition to the cuts and the two local MPs, John McDonnell from Hillingdon and Virendra Sharma, MP for Ealing Southall, as well as representatives from some of the many faith groups in the area.

The proposals were widely seen as part of a move towards increased privatisation of the NHS as well as wanting to sell off much hospital owned land for housing and other development.

Largely as a result of the huge local opposition, the closure plans were reduced, but Central Middlesex Hospital and Hammersmith Hospital both closed in September 2014.

Save Ealing Hospital & the NHS

Lonely Vigil at US Embassy

Grosvenor Square

I called in briefly at the US Embassy to talk with Narmeen Saleh Al Rubaye, wife of Shawki Ahmed Omar, and their 7 year old daughter who were on one of their repeated protests calling for his release.

They stood quietly in front of the embassy with posters showing his injuries from US torture in Iraq after his arrest in 2004. Omar, born in Kuwait has dual Jordanian/US nationality. Despite legal attempts in the USA to free him, when the USA left Iraq they handed him over to the Iraq authorities.

Omar began a hunger strike in Al Karkh prison on February 4th 2013, protesting the ill treatment and torture of himself and fellow detainees. You can read more about him in my post on My London Diary.

Lonely Vigil at US Embassy

Hizb ut-Tahrir protest Bangladeshi Regime

Altab Ali Park and Brick Lane

Islamic political party Hizb ut-Tahrir (banned in the UK in 2024) held a rally and march in Whitechapel, an area of London with a large Bangladeshi community against the government led by Sheik Hassina in Bangladesh.

The reject all current governments of Muslim nations and call for their replacement by an but were also protesting against anti-Muslim measures Sheik Hasina has introduced in Bangladesh and the return of Rohinga Muslim refugees to Burma where they are discriminated against and persecuted.

They also protested against the corruption in Bangladesh which was responsibel for the deaths and injury of workers when the Rana Plaza factory building collapsed three days earlier. The search for survivors was continuing when this protest was held, only ending on 13th May, when the confirmed death toll was 1,134 and around 2,500 injured had been rescued.

There were around a hundred Muslim men at the protest, and around half that number of women in a separate group a few yards away. Only men spoke at the rally, though some of the women did hold placards. After the rally the protesters marched up Osborne Street and Brick Lane past the mosque where I left them.

Hizb ut-Tahrir had been banned in Bangladesh in 2011, alleged to have been involved in a failed coup attempt. When New Labour were in power, Tory leader David Cameron urged them to ban the UK group, but a review then and in the early days of his coalition government concluded that they were a non-violent group with insufficient evidence to justify a ban, and that “a ban may do more harm than good and could have serious implications for freedom of speech and assembly in the UK.”

Nothing had really changed when they were banned in January 2024 following a protest against Egypt and Israel following Israel’s attack on Gaza, except for a failing Tory government venting hate on anyone seeming to support the Palestinian cause. Something that was continued by Labour in banning Palestine action.

More on My London Diary at Hizb ut-Tahrir protest Bangladeshi Regime.

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Bexkleyheath & Crayford – 1994

Bexkleyheath & Crayford: I spent several days in mid-August in Bexley in south-east London visiting Bexleyheath, Crayford and Barnes Cray and some of the areas around, and returned to the area the following month. I think all the pictures in this post were made in August.

Crayford obviously gets its name from a ford over the River Cray, the major tributary of the River Darent which it joins not far from here and short distance from where this flows into the Thames. Its name is thought to mean a fast flowing stream and it powered an number of mills on its route – including a paper mill at Crayford. The tidal creek is still navigable from the Thames to Crayford, and was apparently canalised in 1845. There were still barges serving the flour mill in the 1980s.

Crayford, Bexley, 1994, 94-812-34 — *Crayford, Bexley, 1994, 94-812-3*4

Crayford, Bexley, 1994, 94-812-35 — *Crayford, Bexley, 1994, 94-812-3*5

Taken through the links of a fence.

*The Frontier Post, Bar & Grill, Bexleyheath, Bexley, 1994, 94-812-21*

*Spitfire Hall, Air Training Corps, Swaisland Drive, Crayford, Bexley, 1994, 94-812-11*

*Sainsburys, Petrol Station, Roman Way, Crayford, Bexley, 1994, 94-812-12*

I returned to Crayford and Barnes Cray the following month, making a number of colour panoramas as well as black and white picture pictures which I’ll post at some time later – or you can find them in my Flickr albums for 1994.

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More Thames Path – 2011

Charlton to Belvedere

Charlton to Belvedere: On Monday 25 April 2011 I went with my wife and elder son on a walk from Charlton Station to Belvedere. They walked but I rode on my folding Brompton bike as I was still suffering from plantar fasciitis and walking any distance became too painful.

As a cyclist any pressure is on the ball of the foot, with no weight at all on the heel and arch where the pain can be intense. Gel insoles help a little for walking and I was still managing to photograph events, but longer – and faster – walks were still completely out of the question for me.

I’d been to see my doctor who was sympathetic and told me that physiotherapy might help, but given the waiting list for appointments the pain would probably have gone away before I got one. But there were exercises that could help – and after I had spent a few months rolling a baked bean tin back and forth under my heal while having breakfast the pain did eventually go away.

The bike was a great idea. Linda and Sam were fast walkers and intent on getting to our destination, while as a photographer I kept stopping and sometimes wandering a little to one side to get into the right position to take pictures. Then I would see them a couple of hundred yards ahead and would need to run to catch up. So much easier on the bike.

I took advantage of my bike to make some longer than normal diversions, at one stage cycling down a road to reach the river where there was no riverside path but riverside steps. I had a scary moment here, walking out on a ledge to get a better view I lost my balance and began to shake uncontrollably in front of a 10 foot drop onto the concrete steps and rubble of the foreshore. Fortunately I managed instead to grab hold of a rail behind me and after holding it for a few seconds steady myself enough to edge back to safety. I was only too aware of a history of photographers falling to their deaths while ‘getting a better view’.

Eventually I stopped shaking and was able to get back on my bike and hurry after the others. And no, I didn’t tell them what had happened and they still won’t know about it unless they read this.

*We were on the John Burns, named after the great trade unionist and Labour politician who called the Thames ‘liquid history’.*

At Woolwich we took a ride across on the Free Ferry. Folding the Brompton I could walk past the ‘No Bicycles’ sign and go below deck with the others. I’d hoped we could return by the tunnel, but it was closed so we had a short walk in North Woolwich and a second ferry ride.

*Coming back to Woolwich I kept on the vehicle deck. Bikes get to ride off before the cars.*

When the Thames Path was declared a National Trail and then opened in 1996 it ended at the Thames Barrier. Our walk in 2011 began at Charlton station so only the first short section was on that and beyond we were walking the Thames Path Extension. I had previously walked all of this route, and further on as far as Cliffe. If you have the stamina you can now continue all the way to the Isle of Grain though a bike would really be a good idea. Perhaps one day I’ll do it.

*The Royal Arsenal site, once an official secret is now a tourist destination, complete with various sculptures, including Peter Burke‘s Assembly*

*There are glimpses of the river and these waste transfer barges though trees and over bushe and Beckton on the opposite bank*

*One of the larger tributaries of the Thames is the treated outfall from Beckton sewage works at left. close to Barking Creek*

*Waste incinerators and the Bazalgette pumping station*

*The Romanesque Crossness Southern Outfall Works opened in 1865, pumping sewage out when the tide would take it seawards*

*Part of the more utilitarian 1950s sewage treatment plant at Crossness*

*The 1998 sludge incinerator, an elegant swan-like metal structure*

*Looking downstream to silos at Rainham*

On this ‘walk’ I gave up here and cycled to Belvedere station to get home for a meeting in the evening, while the two walkers continued to the Darent and then walked back to Slade Green station.

Many more pictures on My London Diary from the walk and the ferry at More Thames Path.

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Point Pleasant and the Thames – 1990

Point Pleasant and the Thames: Continuing my walk on Sunday 4th March 1990 had begun at Clapham Junction in Battersea with St John’s Road & East Hill, Battersea – 1990 and the previous post to this was Yet More Wandle.

*Prospect Cottages, Point Pleasant, Wandsworth, 1990, 90-3c-43*

I get a fleeting view of these cottages as my train goes past between Putney and Wandsworth Town at ‘Point Pleasant Junction’ which still connects the National Rail lines with the District Line to Wimbledon. The bridge over the lines was closed in 1987 as unsafe and partly demolished, though the piers remain and the remaining link made bi-directional. It is now only used by excusions and some empty trains – but I was on a train that took this route during an emergency deviation quite a few years ago.

I don’t know how Point Pleasant got its name, though it seems to date back as long as the street existed. Perhaps it was simply lead to a pleasant view of the River Thames.

I think these cottages are present on the earliest maps of the area I have seen from the early years of the 19th century, though its hard to be sure and they may have replaced earlier cottages on the site. Surprisingly the 14 cottages do not appear to be even locally listed.

*Works, Point Pleasant, Wandsworth, 1990, 90-3c-44*

But Point Pleasant was long an industrial area. According to Ediths Street’s Edward Barker set up an ironworks here in 1634 making small articles such as frying pans and to have been a major arms supplier to the Civil War. His site was sold to Gatty and Waller in 1771 and they set up a chemical works distilling vinegar and producing other chemicals.

The Union Brewery opened here in 1820 and closed in 1920. Richard Seligman set up the Aluminium Plant and Vessel Co. a specialist aluminium welding business, on part of the brewery site in 1920 and his works eventually covered most of Point Pleasant, moving out to Crawley in 1952. I think this factory, built in two stages, was a part of those works.

*Point Pleasant, Wandsworth, 1990, 90-3c-45*

Redevelopment of the whole area was just beginning in 1990, and although it started well – and even received a Housing Design award in 2005, later developments have been considerably higher and far less sympathetic.

*Prospect House, Point Pleasant, Wandsworth, 1990, 90-3c-32*

There is one Grade II listed property in the area, this house built for a local businessman in 1805-6 who probably did enjoy a pleasant view. It is listed as an excvellent example of domestic Georgian architecture. Just down the road is a locally listed pub which I failed to photograph or to visit. Then I think it was then a Watney’s pub, The Foresters Arms, but shortly after, when its resident cat went missing and then returned was renamed ‘The Cat’s Back’. Taken over by Harvey’s in 2011 it is now apparently a pub worth visiting both for the beer and its now quirky interior. Perhaps time for me to revisit Point Pleasant!

*River Thames, from, Wandsworth Park, Wandsworth, 1990, 90-3c-34*

The riverside view downsteam from close to Point Pleasant. Certainly interesting but I don’t think I would describe it as pleasant. Moorings now obscure much of the view.

*Oil Storage tanks, Osiers Rd, Wandsworth, 1990, 90-3c-35*

The Shell Oil terminal on Osiers Road, an area marked on old maps as a marsh with tidal channels on the corner of the River Wandle and River Thames. Doubtless before Shell it had willows, perhaps harvested for wicker baskets etc.

The site is now crowded with much taller blocks of flats, including a 21 storey tower, with 275 homes. At least it no longer reeks of oil, though I think I could still smell it faintly when I walked around the new riverside path here shortly after it opened.

Still one more set of pictures from this long walk to come.

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St George, Armenian Genocide & Congo – 2011

St George, Armenian Genocide & Congo: On St George’s Day, 23 April 2011 I found little celebration taking place in Lcndon but mad3e a few pictures before photographing an Armenian march calling on our government to officially recognise the Armenian Genocide, then a protest over human rights violations in the Congo.

St George’s Day in London

Westminster

St George, Armenian Genocide & Congo:

I found it hard to find much celebration of St George’s Day in London in 2011. He had become the patron saint of England in the Tudor era, but had been almost forgotten by the Royal Society of St. George was founded in 1894 to try and revive the tradition.

But it was not until the 1990s that we saw much revival, with the English football team and right wing political groups widely adopting the St George’s flag, preciously mainly the preserve of miniscule nationalist political groups. The Royal Society of St George was joined by English Heritage in promoting the idea.

I photographed the Royal Society of St George event at Covent Garden in 2005, but it was only in 2010 that London Mayor Boris Johnson hosted the first celebration in Trafalgar Square. Before these there had of course been celebrations in various pubs around London, soemtimes rather right-wing events. In 2016 I photographed two rival St Georges in the same pub in Southwark.

But it was the then Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn who was the first major leader to make a promise in his party manifesto. Had his 2017 election campaign not been sabotaged by the right wing in his party, today would now be a Bank Holiday.

The 2011 celebrations in London seemed very limited. There was a parade marking the 150th anniversary of our military cadet units (though as I note in My London Diary this was rather premature for the air cadets.) And later I went to Trafalgar Square for the Mayor’s official celebrations and was very unimpressed.

St George’s Day in London

Recognise The Armenian Genocide

Oxford St to Downing St

Between 1915 and 1923 the Turkish authorities killed around 1.5 million Armenians, around 70% of Turkey’s Armenian population in a deliberate attempt to rid Turkey of people who did not fit in with their desire to create a homogeneous Turkish nation. Armenians have a strong national identity, centred around their Christian heritage which did not fit well into a largely Muslim Turkey.

The genocide began on 24 April 1915 when Turkish authorities arrested and murdered around a thousand leading members of the Armenian community in Constantinople. They then killed the roughly 300,000 Armenian conscripts in the Turkish Army.

This was followed by “mass killings, deportations and death marches of women, children and elderly men into the Syrian Desert. During those marches, many of the weak or exhausted were killed or died. Women were raped. The deportees were deprived of food and water. Starvation and dehydration became commonplace.”

Turkey still refuses to admit to the genocide, and insists that the deaths were the result of a civil war. But it was a ‘war’ against a people who had no weapons and no organisations to fight and were simply slaughtered because they were Armenian.

The term ‘genocide’ did not exist at the time and was coined by Raphael Lemkin who described it as “The sort of thing Hitler did to the Jews and the Turks did to the Armenians.” One of the first resolutions proposed by him and passed by the UN was ‘The Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide’.

The annual march in London calls on the UK Government to officially recognise the Armenian genocide – as the UN Commission on Human Rights and many countries around the world have done, including France, Germany, Italy and others of our European neighbours. It’s hard to understand why we have not done so, though successive UK governments have taken the line it is a matter for international courts to decide, not governments. But others think that trade issues are the real reason.

More about the march and the reasons behind it and about “Hrant Dink (1954-2007) ‘The 1,500,001st Victim of The Armenian Genocide'” on My London Diary.

Recognise The Armenian Genocide

Congolese Protest in London

Great Portland St to Downing St

The International Congolese Rights organisation (ICR) were marching from the Congolese Embassy in Great Portland Street to Downing St calling attention to human rights violation in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and asking the UK Government to put pressure on President Kabila to hold elections or resign.

Formed in 2004 to defend the defend the rights of Congolese citizens living in the UK the ICR as held a number of demonstrations aimed at exposing the systematic violation of human rights in the DRC aimed at getting the UK and the international community to take action.

Ever since the end of colonial rule in the former Belgian Congo there has been fighting in the Congo. The DRC has vast mineral resources, probably “the richest of any country in the world, including 80% of the world’s cobalt reserves, and between 65-80% of coltan, the mineral from which tantalum capacitors, vital for mobile phones, games consoles, computers and other electronic devices.” It also has large amounts of copper and is the world’s second largest diamond producer. A large proportion of its trade is now with China.

Despite these resources, the DRC remains the second poorest country in the world, with almost three quarters of its 124 million people in extreme poverty as a result of its underdevelopment in the colonial era and the war and political turmoil since independence.

The main banner of the protest stated ‘David Cameron – Why Are So Quiet On 8 Million Deaths in D. R. Congo?‘ and people carried placards about the suffering in the country including the killings and the widespread use of rape as a military and political tactic.

They called for elections and for DRC President Joseph Kabila to step down and to face trial at the International Criminal Court.

Congolese Protest in London

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National Housing Demo, London 2026

National Housing Demo, London: Last Saturday, 18th April 2026, I photographed the National Housing Demonstration which began with a rally in Soho Square.

In the years after the end of the Second World War, Britain began a concerted effort to address the housing problems. Money was short but succesive governments did all they could to address the problems of old, poorly built slums thrown up in the nineteenth century as industrialisation caused a huge population surge in our cites and large towns.

During the war, Churchill’s government had laid plans to build 500,000 prefabs, “with a planned life of up to 10 years, within five years of the end of the Second World War”. And from 1945-51, 1.2 million new houses were built including around 150,000 prefabs.

For many of the 1.2 million families moving into these new properties it was the first time they had their own bathrooms and toilets, no longer sharing often rather primitive facilities with neighbours in multi-occupied and overcrowded properties.

London, UK. 18 Apr 2026. ‘Labour is in Bed with Landlords’

There were new towns and local authorites were encouraged to build council housing, although under the Conservatives the emphasis altered in the 1950s to providing “welfare accommodation for low income earners” rather than meeting more general housing needs. But under MacMillan as Housing Minister they still aimed to build 300,000 homes a year.

Mistakes were made. It was also largely when the Conservatives were in power that we saw a huge shift towards building high-rise, and in particular to system-built blocks. Some of the best of these are now largely privately owned and expensive flats, but others, often because of shoddy building practices have had to be demolished.

Increasingly Conservative policies changed to encouraging home ownership rather than municipal provision of low-cost accomodation. And the final death blows came under Thatcher, who prevented authorities from using local tax money to build new housing and serverely reduced local housing stocks with the ‘right to buy’ – and added final cruel twist by refusing to allow them to use the money from sales to build. Right to buy also meant councils many of their larger and more desirable properties.

Thatcher’s policies resulted in an increase in the waiting lists for council accommodation and meant that councils had to take desperate measures to try to rehouse those they had a statutory obligation to – resulting in a huge increase in the use of often sub-standard temporary accommodation often far away from their local areas, and in people being rehoused with little security in poor private flats.

New Labour did little if anything to improve things, except for property developers. In London and elsewhere we have seen a succession of well-built council estates with years of life being allowed to deteriorate and then, rather than being refurbished at relatively low cost, being demolished and replaced by developers working with councils largely as high-cost private developments with little social housing.

Although there were a few examples of succesful regeneration, most have been disastrous for their former residents, priced out of their local areas, with those who had bought their properties sometimes being seriously defrauded.

Many of these regenerated estates are now full of empty homes owned as investments by overseas buyers, buying them simply to profit over a few years from the increasing house prices in the UK and in cities including London in particular.

Under the coalition government and succesive Tory governments the housing crisis has continued to grow, with rents in London skyrocketing. And bit by bit the security of tenure that council property used to provide has been whittled away. So far the Labour landslide has changed nothing.

There are some simple policies the protesters were calling for that could help. There are huge numbers of properties that are long-term empty and there could be greater powers of compulsory purchase. There could be changes to make it possible for local authorities to maintain and refurbish existing estates and build more social homes. We could stop getting estate agents and developers to dominate our housing policies for their own benefits.

Part of the housing problem is that too many of our MPs are themselves landlords and have opposed attempts to improve the conditions of tenants, watering down legislation. But perhaps the largest need is for a change in the way we think about housing, seeing it as an asset rather than a home. The whole idea of the ‘property ladder’.

Many more pictures from Saturday’s protest in my Facebook album National Housing Demo.

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Christian Aid, Mordechai Vanunu & Mass Lone Demos – 2007

Christian Aid, Mordechai Vanunu & Mass Lone Demos. My photography on Saturday 21st April 2007 began with a small event close to home with music and tree planting celebrating 50 years of Christian Aid. I then rushed into London for the start of the Mass Lone Demo initiated by Mark Thomas as a protest against SOCPA, the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act which greatly restricted the right to protest in the area around Parliament.

After a short while there I travelled to Hackney where cyclists, some who had begun at the Faslane nuclear submarine base on the Clyde, were beginning the final leg of the Vanunu Freedom Ride. After they had set off I returned to take more pictures of the Mass Lone Demo, then took the tube to meet the cyclists again close to the IsraelI Embassy in Kensington.

Below is what I wrote in 2007, with the usual minor corrections and links to more pictures from the day on My London Diary.

Christian Aid: Tree Planting – Celebrating 50 Years

Staines, Middlesex

Saturday was another beautiful day, sunny, warm but not too hot, and the quintet with a fine singer created a mellow atmosphere as we gathered to plant two apple trees to celebrate 50 years of Christian Aid. the music included several of my Ellingtonian favourites, there were some interesting home-made cakes, and it was great to relax for a while in the sun.

Christian Aid, Mordechai Vanunu & Mass Lone Demos - 2007 — *One of the 2 apple trees planted at Staines to celebrate 50 years of Christian Aid gets watered in.*

The trees were given and planted by Colin Squire of Squires Garden Centres, and as he commented, the Cox’s Orange Pippin was an appropriate choice, as not only is it a fine apple, but was first grown by Richard Cox just three miles away at Colnbrook in 1830.

The two trees are in a public area, and we hope that in years to come the public will come and help themselves and enjoy their crop.

More pictures from the event on My London Diary.

Mass Lone Demos – the BIG one

Westminster

Mark Thomas’s latest twist to the Mass Lone Demo was for demonstrators to set out a list of 20 demonstrations they would eaach hold in the SOCPA area on Saturday and to apply for permission for each of them. He was aiming for 2000 demonstrations (and hoping for an entry in the Guinness Book Of Records.) The police figure for the number of demonstrations that permission was applied for was 2,486, but it was actually quite hard to find many of them.

I’d hoped to photograph people at such highly desirable sites for demos as the Mothers Union, the Adam Smith Institute and the Embassy of the Republic of Slovenia, but nobody was there when I looked. However I did find a few, [and also some Kurds who were not part of the Lone Demos] but unfortunately had to miss the final event to get to Kensington.

Mass Lone Demos – the BIG one

The Vanunu Freedom Ride Reaches London

Hackney and Notting Hill Gate

Mordechai Vanunu told the world about Israel’s nuclear weapons – still denied, still secret and still not subject to any international inspection. He worked on the program for 9 years until 1985, and in 1986 blew the whistle, talking to the press. Days later he was lured to Italy and kidnapped from there by the Israeli Secret Service. Convicted of treason in Israel he spent 18 years in jail, 12 of them in solitary.

Released in 2004 he has been under severe restrictions on movement, who he can meet and what he can say. He would like to leave srael but it seems likely he will be sent back to prison. The ride demanded his freedom, the setting up of a nuclear-free Middle East as well as freedom for Palestine.

The riders started at the Faslane base to the west of Glasgow where daily demonstrations are taking place outside the base of the ridiculous UK nuclear deterrent (ridiculous to have it, and in no way independent as we need us permission to use the weapons.) The ride stopped at many places on the way to demonstrate and hold meetings, including Menwith Hill spy station and Lakenheath USAF base.

*A rally at the end of the ride at Notting Hill Gate, not far from the Israeli embassy*

They were met at Hackney Town Hall by members of Hackney & Islington CND and CNF vice-chair Sophie Bolt. From Hackney they cycled on via Downing Street to Kensington, where there was a rally at which Jeremy Corbyn MP, Kate Hudson, CND chair and Louise Richards of War On Want were among the speakers.

The Israeli embassy in London is on a private street with security lodges at each end. cyclists are not allowed in the street, and demonstrations are certainly not tolerated.

Vananu Freedom Ride at Hackney and Kensington.

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