Borough Market & Apprentice Boys: On Saturday 21st October I went to the 250th anniversary celebrations at Borough Market and then to a march celebrating the closing by apprentices of the gates of Derry to the forces of King James II in 1688 which led to the siege of Derry the following year. Here are my accounts of both events from My London Diary in 2006 with a few minor alterations to make them more readable and links to more pictures on the site.
Borough Market: 250th Anniversary – Southwark
Borough Market started with the Romans a couple of thousand years ago, and around a thousand years ago was thriving on and around London’s only bridge across the river Thames. In the next few centuries it moved a little south into Borough High Street, and in 1550 received a royal charter, although like all London markets it was under the control of the City of London.
Increased congestion in Borough High Street lead to the first of nine Acts Of Parliament about the market’s activities in 1754, which moved it out of the road a few yards west to its present site. The agreement with the city authorities, which established the new market was made 250 years ago in 1756. Every year the Lord Mayor of London visits the market and collects fruit for the poor. It is now the only remaining wholesale and retail market in London.
The market is now officially a charity, but has always existed to support the residents of St Saviour’s Parish. Any surplus made by the market now goes to Southwark Council and the residents of the former parish get a rebate on their council tax.
The Worshipful Company of Fruiterers have also been celebrating the 400th anniversary of their Royal Charter in 1605. They had been inspecting (and levying duty) on London’s fruit and veg since 1292 or earlier, and received ordinances in 1463.
Until recently, Borough Market was a wholesale market, but its small size and transport problems meant that ten years ago it was almost empty and in a very poor state. Since then it has grown as a retail site for high quality food and drink, with many small specialist suppliers, as well as other small businesses. Two small parts of the site have been sold to provide money to rebuild and improve the market.
The Lord Mayor arrived with a small guard of pikemen and there were a few speeches. The fruiterers provide fresh fruit for a number of shelters for the homeless. The Lord Mayor and his party then toured the market, which had some fine displays of produce as well as its normal superb foods.
The Apprentice Boys Of Derry is a protestant organisation dedicated “to maintaining the spirit of liberty” displayed by the 13 apprentices who closed the gates of the city to the approaching army of the Catholic King James II in 1688. He demanded that the city surrender, receiving the now famous reply “No surrender!” The association which now organises parades to commemorate this was founded in 1814.
As well as in Derry itself, there are Apprentice Boys Clubs around the world, and each year there are several marches in London. At times their marches by or through largely Catholic areas have been extremely contentious, and the banning of their Portadown march in 1986 led to serious riots. Recent events in today’s calmer climate have caused fewer problems.
The march started near Victoria Station and went through Parliament Square to the Cenotaph in Whitehall where a wreath was laid. I left them at Trafalgar Square, on their way to a service at the Independent Congregational Church in Orange Street, behind the National Gallery, followed by a social evening.
Sack Parliament on Monday 9 October 2006 was more a demonstration by police of their determination to protect the status quo following protests earlier in the year and the continuing saga of the Parliament Square peace protest which had led to their performance being criticised by politicians and our largely right-wing press than any real protest by the few who had come to protest against the increasing restrictions on our freedom to protest.
It was Brian Haw’s permanent peace protest in Parliament Square which led to the Labour Government including in the Serious and Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 severe restrictions on the right to protest in a large area around Parliament and giving police new powers to control protests.
Media frenzy about this protest was whipped up in the days before at least in part by police briefings, and the police clearly saw this as an opportunity to demonstrate that they could control events such as this. I wrote and published an unusually long piece on My London Diary about the event – reproduced here with some minor corrections.
Sack Parliament on Monday 9, and event to mark the return of MPs to Westminster, was of course only ever an amusing idea rather than a serious chance of a Ukrainian-style Orange Revolution. As the large press turnout showed, it was one that had caught the attention of the media (Mondays perhaps tend to be slack) but unfortunately not that of the demonstrating classes.
It got off to a bad start with the planned ‘Critical Mass’, which failed to gather more than a handful of cyclists. Heavily outnumbered by the police bike posse, they faded away, a couple cycling down the side of the National Theatre and the other 3 or 4 carrying their bikes up the steps to Waterloo Bridge.
At Parliament Square, things were little better. At the advertised start time, apart from the normal Parliament Square Permanent Protest there were perhaps 25 demonstrators and rather more press, along with what must have been around a thousand police, counting those sitting in vans around the area as well as the impressive number standing around.
Twenty minutes later the numbers had been more than doubled, mainly by the arrival of a group dressed largely in black. And soon after they made a charge at the police line into the road towards the Houses of Parliament.
From the start it seemed a pointless gesture. The line held, and pushed them back, and soon the two sides were standing a few feet apart and glaring at each other. After a few more attempts to push through the police, the demonstrators ran back onto the grassed area of the square where they were surrounded by a cordon of police.
One of the photographers, an NUJ member I’d been talking to a few minutes earlier, was apparently pushed by police as they rushed the demonstrators. He fell and received a neck injury which left him with no feeling from the waist down. Police medics were on hand to give him first aid and to call an ambulance. Later I was pleased to hear he had been allowed home from hospital, and the injuries were apparently less serious than we feared.
I was inside the cordon to start with, but the police made no attempt to stop me as I decided to walk out, not even asking to see my press card (they had checked it earlier.) Around the square, small teams of police were rounding up anyone looking vaguely like a punk or a hippy and dragging them inside the cordon. Some of those they picked on seemed genuinely to have no connection with the protest. Eventually there were perhaps around 150 in there, including quite a few press, along with a few who clearly had little idea what the whole thing was about.
Apparently others who looked like possible demonstrators were stopped and arrested in Whitehall, or turned back on other roads approaching the square.
Outside the cordon, the normal demonstrations in the square went on, with the occasional interruptions by the police, nit-picking about where the demonstrators are allowed to stand and being largely ignored or abused.
Occasionally there were scuffles inside the cordon as demonstrators made an attempt to breach the police line, or police teams moved in to grab individuals. There were also occasional arrests around the square, including some of those who protested loudly they were simply bystanders.
At 14.13, roughly 40 minutes after the protesters had been imprisoned in the cordon, Police Superintendent Peter Terry (responsible for the taking away and destruction of most of Brian Haw’s property from the square and alleged by demonstrators to have lied in court) read from a handwritten statement telling the protesters that they were being detained in the square because he believed that their continued presence in the area would lead to a serious breach of the peace!
Around 15.00, police began to distribute notices to those outside the cordon warning them “we believe that you may be, or are about to be, involved in a demonstration located within an area subject to the provisions of the Serious and Organised Crime and Police Act 2005” and moving press and spectators well back from the cordon. There seemed to be little chance of getting further photographs, so I went to get on with work elsewhere.
According to a press report later in the evening, there were 38 arrests made. Those caught in the cordon who were not arrested at the event were apparently required to provide evidence of identity and address before being allowed to leave. SOCPA continues to be a blot on human rights in this country, and this protest, despite its apparent pointlessness and lack of support has underlined this point.
I’m one of a generation who grew up believing in British justice and a sense of fair play. We were rightly appalled at those countries where protest was banned, and demonstrators could be arrested. It sickens me to see this happening in front of what used to be a powerful symbol of freedom, the Houses of Parliament.
In 2007 the Labour Government, then led by Gordon Brown began a consultation about managing protest around Parliament which looked at different ways of imposing restrictions and those in SOCPA were repealed in the coalition’s by the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011. But they were replaced by giving police new powers to control a wide range of activities in the area.
Even more draconian powers allowing police to restrict protests across the UK cane into force under the Tory Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 which seriously impact free expression, freedom of speech and the right to protest in the United Kingdom, and further powers and increased sentences for protesters were enacted by the Public Order Act 2023. We now have non-violent protesters serving lengthy jail sentences, with a Labour government which appears to be in no hurry to repeal these repressive police state laws.
St Michael, Gorillas, Pearlies & Urban Golf: Sunday 24th September was an unusual day for me, at times verging on the surreal as you can see from the pictures and the text below, a slightly corrected version of what I wrote at the time on My London Diary.
When I got up Sunday it poured with rain. What with that and the replacement bus service instead of trains, I almost stayed home, but I was glad I didn’t. By the time I arrived at Turnham Green, the sun was shining and four St Michaels were laying into a single angel with their plastic swords.
This was the Patronal Festival of the Anglican Church of St Michael And All Angels, a part of Bedford Park, the first garden suburb, begun in 1875. The event was complete with a not very fierce looking dragon and a colourfully dressed set of clerics and choristers.
From there I rushed off on the District Line to photograph gorillas running through the centre of London. This was raising money for the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund which helps to save the world’s last remaining gorillas from poachers, civil war, human disease and deforestation.
Running 7km in a gorilla suit isn’t my idea of fun, and by the finish the contestants – even those who had taken off their masks for the run – were swimming in sweat inside their costumes as they tucked into the free bananas and fruit smoothies.
Things were a little more sedate at the Guildhall for the annual Pearly Kings And Queens (or Costermongers) Harvest Festival. As well as the pearlies and what looked like a pretty full set of inner London Mayors, along with a few donkey carts and a produce lorry there were people in various iinterpretations of Victorian dress, Chelsea Pensioners, and others of a vaguely traditional London character. The fairground organ looked good, although its music soon palls.
A colourful note was added by Donna Maria’s Maypole Dancers. Donna Maria was apparently a London May Queen having served her time in one of the South-east London realms. She revived maypole dancing with her group of girls dressed in flower costumes who give demonstrations at many events each year.
The golfing event of the weekend was not of course the Ryder cup (where Europe were thrashing the USA) but the Shoreditch Urban Open Golf Tournament. 18 holes covering most of Shoreditch between the City Road and Great Eastern Street make it the only par 72 urban course in the world.
There are certain local rules that the Shoreditch Golf Club imposes, with the biggest change from the normal game being in the balls, which are considerably softer and lighter, to avoid damage to property and persons. Probably the greatest risk to both players and spectators (and photographers) were in the generously available free drinks thanks to the sponsors Jameson.
It was a nice afternoon, with a lot of people having fun, mainly watching the golfers. Some of the players looked very professional, a few even played as if they were, though I was please to see others obviously holding a club for the first time in their life. The caddies included some considerably more glamourous than you’d see at St Andrews.
The course seemed well-planned, with a pub or bar more or less at every green (and a few in-between.) I’m surprised there weren’t more golfers taking advantage of the opportunity, as this must be the best course in the country (or at least in the City.)
Streatham, Spain and Guantanamo: Three events in London on Saturday 15th July 2006, a festival, a commemoration and a protest.
Streatham Festival Children’s Parade – Streatham
Streatham Festival held it’s first ever Children’s Parade, children working with artists from Arts Community Exchange and Kids’ City to create sculptures, banners and puppets for all to see.
The parade was led by drummers Ancestral Hands and a cycling stilt-walker brought up the rear as it went along Streatham High Road to St Leonard’s Church.
One of my pictures from this parade was used in the remarkable The Streatham Sketchbook by Jiro Osuga and Mireille Galinou with photography by Torla Evans which was published in 2017 by Your London Publishing. Still available, this was described by Graham Gower of The Streatham Society as “superb and one the best books to be published on Streatham as a place – if not the best.”
International Brigade Commemoration – Jubilee Gardens, Waterloo
I’ve attended and photographed a number of the annual commemorations of those who went to fight the fascists in Spain in 1936-9, but this 2006 event was the most memorable. Here’s what I wrote about it in 2006.
Jack Jones
Several hundred people attended the annual commemoration at the International Brigade Memorial in Jubilee Gardens London Organised by the International Brigade Memorial Trust on Saturday 15 July.
Bob Doyle
Between 1936 and 1939 over 35,000 men and women, from more than 50 countries, volunteered for the Republican forces. Of the 2,300 who came from Britain, Ireland and the Commonwealth, over 500 were killed.
Sam Lesser
Volunteers came largely from working class areas across the country. most were members of communist organisations or otherwise active in the trade unions and other socialist bodies, and their average age was 29.
Jack Edwards
Seventy years later there are relatively few still alive and active enough to attend the commemoration, but it was good to see seven there. They were Jack Jones who chaired the event, Sam Lesser who spoke and read, as well as Bob Doyle, Paddy Cochrane, Lou Kenton, Jack Edwards and a surprisingly spry Penny Feiwel. As usual there was a reading of the names of those known to have died since the previous year’s meeting.
Penny Feiwel
Rodney Bickerstaff’s address raised the problem of keeping alive the memory of those who responded to the call to help the Spanish republic, but attendances at this annual event seem to have increased over recent years.
Lou Kenton
There was certainly more media interest than on previous occasions, in part because of the attendance of the Spanish Ambassador and his wife, reflecting the increasing interest from Spain; he also gave a brief speech. As was pointed out, it would have been nice to have a representative of the UK government also present.
Paddy Cochrane
As usual, the event concluded with the singing of the ‘Internationale’.
The National Guantanamo Coalition had called for a national demonstration in London to protest the deaths of three Guantanamo detainees earlier in the month.
A group of protesters, mainly from the ‘Save Omar Deghayes’ campaign, but also representing other organisations, walked across London from Marble Arch to the new Home Office building in Marsham Street to hand in the petition calling for an independent enquiry into the three recent deaths at Guantanamo. The petition also calls for the immediate sending of all detainees to countries where their basic human rights would not be abused, an immediate closure of Guantanamo and other prisons where those held were denied proper legal process and for proper access to detainees by family and medical personnel.
It was a long, hot and dusty trek across London, particularly tricky for those with pushchairs as we navigated the Hyde Park subways, and we were all glad to arrive (thanks to helpful directions from the police) at the Home Office. The front of the building was like an oasis, shade, green grass, water and trees.
The police did make us get off the grass and also made some effort to stop the display of placards and banners, but most of these remained visible. They had also attracted some attention from the crowds around Buckingham Palace as we passed by.
Laburnum Street Party, Haggerston: The street party on Sunday 2nd July 2006 was one of the more enjoyable events I photographed, and was a part of a long-running local campaign to get the Haggerston Baths re-opened.
The baths which have their front entrance on Whiston Street ande back onto Laburnum Street were first opened with great pomp and ceremony in June 2004 by the Mayor of Shoreditch. Hackney Citizen’s 2017 article has a great deal of information on this and all the later developments.
At the time less than one in 20 houses in the area contained a bathroom, and as well as a 30.5 metre swimming pool there were 31 cubicles with baths (first class and second class though I’m at a loss as to the difference) supplied with hot and cold water and a laundry y where people could bring their clothes to wash in a trough before putting them through a mangle before taking them home to dry on a washing line.
The baths, designed in a Wren style by leading pubic baths architect A W S Cross were built with the best materials and designed to last. The insistence on them being built to the highest standards resulted in them costing almost twice the original figure, almost £60,000.
The baths were damaged by bombing in the Second World War but soon reopened and were considerably modernised in 1960 and in the 1980s when the pool was reduced in length to 25 metres.
The building was Grade II listed as “a unique and important part of Hackney’s heritage” in 1988. But the London Borough of Hackney appeared not to appreciate it, and funding cuts for local government under the Tories led to “more than a decade of neglect and poor maintenance by Hackney Council” and in February 2000 the baths were closed “temporarily” for health and safety reasons. They were at that time Hackney’s main swimming pool.
A strong local campaign began for the reopening of the baths, and as a part of this the Haggerston Pool Community Trust held the first Laburnum Street Party was held on 26th June 2004, the 100th anniversary of their opening.
Hackney was short of money to make the repairs partly because of the disastrous Clissold Leisure Centre, begun in 1996 with a budget of £7m. The plans were updated when Sport England became involved to £11.5mm but had increased to £34m when it opened 3 years late in 2002. Less than two years later it was closed on health and safety grounds finally reopening in late 2007 by which time the cost had increased to £45 million.
In 2009 it looked as if the pool was to be refurbished and reopened as a result of the local campaign when the Department for Children, Schools and Families announced a £5m grant towards the cost – which thanks to continued neglect of the building had by then increased hugely from the original £300,000.
But the financial crash led to Hackney abandoning the £21m scheme for turning the pool into a a Health and Wellbeing Centre in 2009. The Haggerston Pool Community Trust continued to look for backers for the restoration but Hackney Council in 2015 “asked developers to come forward with expressions of interest in restoring the building and bringing it back into public use. The winning developer will have to cover the cost of the work and then pay the Council rent for an annual lease.”
“Of those parties who expressed an interest ten developers went on to make formal proposals. Of these, three were shortlisted based on an earlier consultation where residents were asked what facilities and uses they would like to see on the site. One developer pulled out, leaving two proposals.”
Neither of these included a swimming pool and the council site tries to explain why, though I think the answer is simple – it would not make enough money for the developers when they leased it. On the web site of the chosen developer Castleforge you can see an impression of what the baths could look like in 2024. It seems a horrible end to what began as a very impressive municipal investment to improve the lives of local people.
Sheep Drive Across the Thames: The sheep drive from Southwark Cathedral to Smithfield Market on Saturday 17 June, 2006 organised as a part of the London Architecture Biennale and if not really leading the sheep, accompanying the sheep over the Millennium Bridge were architects Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano in Biennale “Trust me, I’m an architect” T-shirts as well as Freemen from the Butcher’s Company.
The right dates back to the establishment of Freemen of the city, and was first recorded in 1237. Freemen were allowed to drive their sheep across London Bridge – then and for many years the only bridge across the River Thames – without paying the normal Bridge Toll, giving them an important commercial advantage when taking sheep from south of the river to the Wool Exchange or Smithfield Meat Market.
It wasn’t just sheep but applied to any livestock such as cattle, pigs, chickens, ducks, geese although some of these might be difficult to drive, and so far as I’m aware there have been no modern revivals involving anything but sheep.
Freeman also gained other important privileges, such as immunity from being taken to serve on ships by the press gang and being allowed to carry your sword drawn against muggers when walking around the City.
In 2006 there were no signs of the press gang and I didn’t see any of the Freemen present carrying swords. Nor were any convicted of murder or treason and allowed to claim the rather doubtful privilege of being hung by a silk rope.
So far as I’m aware first modern revival of the sheep drive came during the Millennium celebrations when the Lord Mayor Sir Clive Haydn Martin arranged for the driving of some pedigree sheep across London Bridge by some members of the Livery Companies – though carefully avoiding the two who might have sheared or slaughtered them, the Woolmen and Butchers.
The London Architecture Biennale in 2006 made use not of London Bridge, but the pedestrian Millennium Bridge and this was certainly the first sheep drive across this, fortunately long cured of its initial wobbles, though I did rather wonder if the event might exceed its design loadings. This was perhaps why the police insisted on holding up spectators until the flock had cleared the bridge, much to the annoyance of me and the other press who felt a Press Card should have let us through.
Since 2006 there have been more sheep drives – in 2008 by World Tradeers and in 2009 for the 800th anniversary of Old London Bridge, by the City whose then Lord Mayor David Lewis was the grandson of a Welsh sheep-farmer. And in 2013 it became the Great Annual Sheep Drive organised for Freemen of the City by the Worshipful Company of Woolmen, held on London Bridge in September (though in recent years on Southwark Bridge.)
In 2006 around 30 sheep had brought to a pen at Southwark Cathedral by farmer Andrew Sharp who was a stallholder in Borough Market, and came with several shepherds to help and was also aided by members of the clergy including the Bishop of Southwark, Tom Butler.
Also facing the cathedral were a small and noisy crowd of animal rights protesters. As I commented, “here the sheep were being treated well, by people who so obviously cared for them. You can’t be a successful sheep farmer without having a feeling for and and understanding of them and a dedication to care for them.” Probably for the sheep the most disturbing thing of their day out in London was the shouts of the protesters.
I took pictures of the start of the procession and then of the flock and those accompanying it as far as the south end of the Millennium Bridge. Some of the protesters had followed as well. Police then stopped everyone then behind the sheep of while the crossing continued. A few minutes later we were allowed to proceed and I caught up with the sheep as they reached St Paul’s Cathedral and walked with them to Smithfield Market.
The drive ended in Smithfield, with the Sheriff of London opening the Bartholomew Fair by cutting a number of pink ribbons. I took a few pictures around the fair, and of the flypast taking place for the Queens official 80th birthday before going to St John’s Wood where mounted soldiers were coming back to barracks with a gun carriage before joining a guided tour around the trees in the area.
More pictures from the Sheep Drive as well as the other things I photographed on the day beginning here on My London Diary
Asylum and Vauxhall to Battersea: I don’t often look back at posts from the early years of My London Diary for several reasons. Before I redesigned the site some time in 2008 there were no links to individual stories which makes linking to them trickier, and the stories and pictures come at different positions down the monthly page. Also in the early years I wrote entirely in lower case, something I now find an annoying affection. And back them the software for converting raw digital images wasn’t quite as good and the images are sometimes a little lacking in colour quality.
So here I re-present my post for Monday 10th April 2006 in a more convenient fashion. I’ve updated the text to conventional capitalisation, corrected a few spellings (back then I wrote in software without a spell-checker) and made a few minor changes to make the text easier to follow. The pictures – both those in this post and the larger number I link to on My London Diary are exactly as posted in 2006. Communications House was demolished in 2013-4 and new offices erected on the site which is now home to a number of businesses but no longer used by the Home Office.
Against Detention and Deportation – Communications House, Old Street
If you are an asylum seeker in Britain you have to sign on regularly at one of the Home Office locations. When you enter the doors of Communications House next to Old Street station (or any of the other locations) you cannot be sure that you will ever come out. Despite the regulations, some asylum seekers have been bundled onto planes and flown back to the country from which they have fled, others have found themselves banged up in detention centres such as Harmondsworth for years with no trial or appeal.
On Monday 10th April 2006, various groups including the All African Women’s Group, African Liberation Support Campaign Network, Payday Men’s Network and Women Of Colour formed a line along the front of the building over the lunch hour to protest and hand out flyers about the unfair treatment of refugees and asylum seekers.
This was a part of a global action demanding justice and proper legal rights for asylum seekers and others without proper legal documentation, calling for an end to racist discrimination and inhumane policies.
New Flats Along the Thames – Vauxhall to Battersea
I had to leave for a little business elsewhere, then took advantage of the decent weather to take a walk along the Thames from Vauxhall to Battersea on my way home. As you can see I walked a little along the south bank, then back to Vauxhall Bridge to go along the north bank. Later I went on both banks between Chelsea Bridge and Battersea Bridge.
What was not long ago a totally industrial reach of the river is now largely lined by expensive riverside blocks of flats. St Georges Wharf is on the site of the Nine Elms Cold Store, and is now largely finished except for a tower whose slim 181 metre cylinder will soar far above the 72 m of the existing flats.
Along Grosvenor Road on the north bank are Rivermill House, the Panoramic, Crown Reach, and a survivor from the past, Tyburn House, followed by Eagle Wharf, with Eagle House and 138.
One minor gain for the public from this is increased access to the riverside, with new developments having a public footpath on the bank. But when soon all you will be able to see is the flats on the other bank, this perhaps isn’t a great gain.
In Pimlico there are often great contrasts between council or Peabody estates and millionaire apartments across the road on the river side, and some pricey stuff in some of the squares. A few yards makes a huge difference in price – and the newer buildings have often blocked the views some council tenants used to have of the river.
William Huskisson, Statesman 1770-1830. The main claim to fame of this MP for Liverpool was the he was the first to be killed in a railway accident, when knocked down by ‘Rocket’ during the opening ceremony of the Liverpool & Manchester railway on 15th September, 1830. Pimlico Gardens
Across the river are views of Battersea Power Station, gutted and largely left to decay by various developers over the years, roofless. Despite their efforts it still stands, its brickwork and four tall chimneys dominating the area.
The waterworks building on the north bank is also still there, and next to it around the canal a new Grosvenor Waterside is nearing completion.
Across Chelsea Bridge, between it and the power station is Chelsea Bridge Wharf, another huge development. Its a relief to be able to walk across the new bridge under Chelsea Bridge into the peace of Battersea Park with its Peace Pagoda. Next to Albert Bridge is a small wild area that looked very spring-like in some dramatic light under grey clouds.
There are more new flats and offices past Albert Bridge, including Foster and Partners building. It’s stunning close to, but seen from across the river is rather disappointing. Their Albion Riverside next door is a futuristic structure, like some vast mothership landed on the riverside, a fungus from which spores are doubtless emerging to colonise the country.
Notting Hill Carnival 2006: On Monday 28th Aug 2006 I went to photograph Notting Hill Carnival, working with both black and white film and digital colour. In most of my carnival pictures I’ve concentrated on the people attending the event rather than the costumes and I did so on this occasion with the black and white, but for the colour I decided to mainly photograph those taking part in the carnival as the pictures here show.
Rather unusually my August 2006 page only starts on Friday 25th, when I went to Greenhithe & Swanscombe Marsh. I’d been away from London most of the month, holidaying with friends in Kent, visiting Paris and staying with family in Beeston and decided it wasn’t appropriate to post pictures from these locations on My London Diary.
In 2006 I went on both Sunday 17th, the Children’s Day and the main carnival event on the Monday, but the pictures here are all from the Monday. You can see those from Children’s Day on a link from the August Page of My London Diary.
I’ve always had a fairly elastic definition of London, and it stretched some way out along the River Thames both upstream and down, and also taking in the London Loop, a section of which I walked with family the following day.
Sunday had been a busy day too. Notting Hill only really gets going after lunch, so I had time to go to East Ham in the morning for the Sri Mahalakshmi Temple Chariot Festival and then call in at Bromley-by-Bow and walk to Stratford and photograph again the Bow Back Rivers before going to Children’s Day.
So I think I was probably fairly tired by the time Monday came around, having done rather a lot of cycling and walking over the past three days, as well as taking a great many pictures.
As I pointed out, it was “two years on from when I last photographed the event.” The previous year I had “tried to go, dragging myself to the station with a knee injury, but the pain was too much to continue. This year my knee held out, though I was glad to sink into a seat on the Underground at Latimer Road at the end of the day.“
I also wrote “when I’ll get round to processing the film is anyone’s guess” and the answer was not for a very long time – and then I sent it away for processing rather than do it myself. By 2006 I had almost completely committed to digital for its many advantages and this was one of my final flings with film. The “more pictures soon” with which the piece ends was an aspiration never fulfilled online and I’ve yet to print any of the black and white pictures.
Perhaps the reason for this – and why I probably won’t get to Carnival this afternoon – is “because I’m getting older … I didn’t get the same buzz from this year’s event as in previous years, though most of the same things seemed to be around. perhaps there lies the problem; most of them did seem to be the same.”
But Notting Hill Carnival is still one of London’s great spectacles – and a great fashion show on the street. If you’ve never been it’s very much worth attending.
I’d missed Carnival in 2005 for the first year since 1990. I’d tried to get there despite a painful knee injury a few days earlier, but had had to abandon the journey; the quarter mile walk from home to railway station ending with me collapsing in pain and deciding it just wasn’t possible.
Children’s Day 2006
By 2006 I had a considerably improved camera, the Nikon D200, still DX APS-C format (Nikon were still adamant it was all you needed) but with a hugely improved viewfinder and 10.2Mp. And a rather wider range of lenses, though for carnival I only took the remarkably versatile Nikon 18-200mm zoom (equivalent to 27-300mm). Looking at the full-size images its hard to fault the lens quality, though it had more distortion than prime lenses, but this was of no consequence for these pictures.
Notting Hill Carnival 2006
The other big change was in processing software. Pixmantec had brought out its ‘Raw Shooter’ software and it was streets ahead of anything else. So good that Adobe had just bought out the company as it couldn’t face the competition. Even though this gave them the Pixmantec raw processing engine it was some years and several versions of Lightroom later that reached a similar level.
Notting Hill Carnival 2006
As in most years I went to Notting Hill on both the Sunday – Children’s Day – and the Bank Holiday Monday for the Carnival proper. I’d photographed the Sri Mahalakshmi Temple Chariot Festival earlier on Sunday, as well as taking a few pictures around Stratford, so I didn’t arrive until after 2pm on the first day, and for some reason I only put a few of the pictures on My London Diary. But there are rather more from Monday, and I’d decided to concentrate more on the actual procession than in most earlier years.
Notting Hill Carnival 2006Notting Hill Carnival 2006
All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.
I’m not a big one for anniversaries and so on. But I’ve just noticed that today this is the 4000th post on >Re:PHOTO since I began this site on December 1st 2006. That first post has been edited since then to reflect the reason I began posting here, which was to provide an audience for my writing about photography (and also my photography.) I’d been writing professionally about photography on the web since 1999, and it was becoming clear that I was likely to lose my position before long – for the offence of writing too much about photography.
That first post was just an introduction to me, though a second post that same day was a short opinion about Paris Photo, which I’d attended the previous month. Here is its in full:
Paris Photo
Paris was full of photographs in November, and there were some great ones at Paris Photo. But there were things that were hard to take too. Large empty wastes of dollar-rich nothingness covering the walls of some galleries. Vintage prints pulled from some photographers waste-bins and awarded stupendous price-tags. I found it hard not to burst out laughing when a dealer came up to the person next to me and told her the price of one rather ordinary ’60s fashion print was 20,000 euros. A couple of years ago we would have though 200 rather steep, and 2000 definitely well over the top.
Still, all good news for investors, and for the minority of photographers who have a place on the gravy train. There were a few other photographers around, trying to talk to dealers, but this wasn’t the place for it. “Best if you e-mail us” they were politely brushed off.
The first day I had a panic attack of sorts as the place got more and more full of people, all there for the free opening party, and had to rush out and up from the bunker into the fresh air above. The next day things were better, less crowded, but still more a place for millionaires than photographers.
But fortunately, there was much more in Paris than Paris Photo.
Then there was a long gap, with my next post not appearing until May 2007, around the time I finally got the push. Most of those early posts were about things I would not have put on the commercial site I wrote for. >Re:PHOTO was and is my own personal site and I can say and write what I like without having to worry about upsetting editors or readers or maintaining the broad church approach which I had originally been hired to pursue.
Being entirely my own site also freed me from some other restraints. Although my articles and notes had ranged widely over photography across the world (another crime in my new editors’ views) I was unable to write about and promote my own work or that of my friends. Occasionally I did use one of my pictures, but mainly to illustrate some technical point, and these were very seldom of any real interest. The pictures in this post are all ones I took in the month >Re:PHOTO began at a protest in Dagenham against the racist BNP, none of which could be posted on the commercial site.
Politics was another area where I often had to restrain or moderate my views, though I think sometimes they were fairly apparent. But most of my photography at the time was highly political. And certainly at times I’ve treated readers here to something of a political rant.
Jeremy Corbyn photographer
>Re:PHOTO has changed over the years, and back in its early years I was still very constrained by the fact that most of those accessing it were doing so with relatively low bandwidth. So images were few and far between in those early posts, while today most have at least half a dozen.
Jeremy Corbyn speaking at Dagenham
There are also many more photography sites and photography blogs than 13 or 14 years ago, and I feel less need for me to discuss wider photographic issues here. I’ve also come to a stage in my own work where I’m increasingly re-evaluating my own photography from the previous century and thinking about its future as my own is drawing closer to a close. That virus has sharpened my own thinking, particularly as I’m in groups designated as vulnerable both from age and illness and has given me time to think and to scan old work. I’ve had to give up taking new photographs (except for a few during exercise bike rides and the odd walk close to home) and stay at home – and have put over 11,000 old pictures onto Flickr, a few of which I’ve shared here.
All of those 4000 posts are still available on this site – and you can find them by month in the archive list at right or by a search for particular topics. This feature has taken longer to write than it should have, as I spent some time reading my several posts about important photographers who were omitted from what I felt was a rather disappointing 2007 V&A show, ‘How We Are: Photographing Britain, along with some other things I came across.
All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.
