2007 | >Re-PHOTO

Bring All the Troops Home NOW – 2007

Bring All the Troops Home NOW: CND and Stop The War had called for a march to Parliament on 8th October 2007 to arrive when Gordon Brown was making his statement to Parliament on Iraq where British troops were still present having taken part in the US-led invasion in 2003.

They wanted to march to make clear that all UK troops should come back here now. The invasion of Iraq in 2003 had led to the fall of Saddam Hussein but had been made without any real thought for the future of Iraq – except for the profits which US companies hoped to make. Saddam’s civil and military administration which had united the country were simply removed rather than being put to use to keep the country running and chaos reigned. Iraq didn’t need foreign armies but needed real support to set up a new civil society and that had not been forthcoming.

Gordon Brown tried to ban the protest, using “Sessional Orders” to the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police for him to prevent the march under section 52 of the Metropolitan Police Act 1839. But CND and Stop The War made clear it would go ahead despite this.

On the morning of the march Prime Minister Gordon Brown – probably reacting both to huge public pressure and legal advice – lifted the ban, thus avoiding a huge burden on both police and courts. They might otherwise have ended with thousands of arrests – and cases which the courts would probably throw out.

Around ten years later the powers that the Brown government had attempted to use were officially recognised to no longer have any legal effect – something I suspect had been part of legal advice given to Brown in 2007.

Last Saturday, October 4th 2025, I again watched a protest by Defend Our Juries in defiance of the government’s proscription of Palestine Action under terrorist laws, with police arresting almost 500 people for sitting holding a piece of cardboard with a message supporting the banned group. Many of those arrested seemed to be elderly and some also disabled, though there were also younger people.

The protestersy presented no danger to public order – other than challenging the legally doubtful ban on the group who few outside the government and those making arms for sale to Israel who had been heavily lobbying for a ban – believe could be described as terrorists. And this is something to be shortly tested in the courts. And the arrests made the police look unfeeling and stooges of the government rather than a force acting with the consent of the people.

Perhaps our current Labour government should have learnt from the example of George Brown in 2007. Supposedly we are a nation where the police operate by consent – which was clearly not the case here – and the police should have made this clear to the government and simply ignored this and earlier protests by ‘Defend Our Juries’. Which would of course have made the action – with people coming on purpose to be arrested and waiting patiently for hours for it to happen – totally ineffectual. And we do after all we have many laws which people – especially motorists – break every day and the police ignore.

Defend Our Juries also protests against the practice by some judges in some courts to prevent those charged from making a defence of their actions and instructing juries that they cannot use their consciences in coming to decisions – both vital protections essential to a fair legal system. Actions introduced into our legal system because successive governments have been angered by the decisions reached by juries in some cases. But it should not be the job of our legal system to serve the government but to serve the people and these developments endanger the whole basis of trial by jury which protects us and our democracy.

Here’s what I wrote in 2007 about the march and rally on 8th October 2007. All the pictures in this post come the event and there are many more on My London Diary.

Brian Haw’s t-shirt summed up the disaster: “Iraq 2,000,000 dead 4,000,000 fled genocide theft torture cholera starvation” though there were a number of other crimes to mention, in particular the poisoning of so much the area for generations to come through the dumping there of so much of our nuclear waste in the form of ‘depleted uranium’ weapons.

I was surprised at the level of support for Monday’s demonstration, a day when many of the supporters of the campaign would have been at work, and I had expected hundreds rather than the three thousand or so who actually turned up. The government’s clumsy ban on the event, using 1839 legislation passed against the Chartists, drummed up support, and to such an extent that on the morning of the rally they had to climb down and allow the march and the lobby of parliament to proceed.

Later in the day, the success of the demonstration even became rather an embarrassment for Stop The War, who when I left around 4.30pm, two hours after the start of the march, were trying to help police in clearing the large crowd who were still blocking Parliament Street, Parliament Square and St Margaret St, urging them to move along to College Green. Later in the day a small group of protestors took down the barriers on the grassed area of parliament square, piling them up.

But the real embarrassment was for Gordon Brown, forced to climb down and allow democratic protest. Unfortunately he didn’t do the decent and sensible thing (and surely now inescapably the logical thing in the interests of both Iraq and Britain) and announce a speedy withdrawal of troops to be replaced by a real programme of support for the Iraqi people.

Although doubtless pressure from the police at the highest level was obviously vital in the decision to allow the march to go ahead, there were clearly a few officers in charge on the ground who weren’t happy.

As we went down Whitehall, they obstructed photographers trying to photograph the event quite unnecessarily – so obviously so that some of the officers actually carrying out the orders were apologising to me as they did so. And later in the day a few tempers flared and there were a few fairly random assaults on demonstrators.

It did seem an unnecessarily provocative move to bring back Inspector Terry, apparently the man responsible for much of the harassment of Brian Haw and the officer in charge at the 2006 ‘Sack Parliament’ demo last year (photographer Marc Vallée who was injured is now taking legal action against the Met, with the support of the NUJ.)

British troops remained in Iraq in a combat role until 2009, with smaller numbers there mainly involved in training until the final withdrawal in 2011. You can read more about my NUJ colleague Marc Vallée being thrown to the ground by police and his eventually reaching a settlement on the EPUK web site.

Many more pictures from the march and rally on My London Diary at
Bring All the Troops Home NOW.

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Al-Quds Day 2007

Al-Quds Day 2007: On October 7th, the second anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel I find myself thinking about the long fight by Palestinians since so many were displaced and dispossessed in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and the many thousands who since then have been killed by Israeli attacks.

And of course for those Israelis who have been killed – though in much smaller numbers – by suicide bombers, by rockets and during the October 2023 incursion or among the hostages, and including those Israelis killed by Israeli forces.

What we have seen since however is not a war, not self-defence but genocide, the bombing and deliberate starvation of the entire population of Gaza. It comes on top of years of siege with restrictions on essential supplies and of the bulldozing of people’s homes as well as the establishment of more and more illegal settlements across occupied Palestine.

And our country remains complicit, still supplying arms to enable the genocide despite government statements to the contrary, still labelling protests calling for peace as ‘hate marches‘ and still making false allegations about antisemitism while failing to deal with the real anti-Semites who plan and carry out attacks such at that we all condemn in Manchester.

Thinking about what to post here for today, I came across the Al Quds Day march which took place in London on Sunday October 7, 2007. It was I think only the second time I’d photographed the annual event and I didn’t write a great deal about it then.

I did mention that this event was begun in 1979 when Ayatollah Khomeni declared the last Friday in Ramadan as Al Quds Day, (al-Quds being the Arabic name of Jerusalem), an annual anti-Zionist day of protest. In the UK the march has generally taken place on the following Sunday and is a demonstration in solidarity with the Palestinian people, largely by Muslims though also by anti-Zionist Jews and some of the UK left (many of whom are also Jewish.)

In 2007 a mixture of groups came to demonstrate against the march, largely because of its links with Iran both from its founding and also as it was organised by the Iranian Human Rights Commision (Inminds) which is alleged to receive funding from the Iranian government. Unlike later years I saw no counter-protests by Zionist groups or individuals.

Back then many of the march carried flags of the Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and paramilitary group Hezbollah which emerged there after the Israeli invasion in 1982 and has strong ties with Iran. As well as running schools and hospitals and other social services it has also taken part militarily in opposing the various attacks by Israel on Lebanon.

Many Hezbollah leaders have been assassinated by Israel, some in what many describe as terrorist attacks. Until 2019 when its political wing was also proscribed the showing of the Hezbollah flag remained legal though contested in the UK.

As in earlier years the march ended with a rally in Trafalgar Square, though after 2008 the GLA refused to allow them to use the square, citing insurance problems.

Many more photographs of both the marchers and the rally and those who came to protest against the march on My London Diary at Al Qud’s Day March And Protest

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Autumn Equinox: The Druid Order, Primrose Hill – 2007

Autumn Equinox: The Druid Order: The Autumn Equinox was on September 23 in 2007, and as usual The Druid Order celebrated in with their ritual on Primrose Hill and I went to photograph it.

My photographs show the event from the preparations including a brief practice for a few on the hill top in normal clothing, and then their robing and preparation for the march up the hill and the various stages of the ceremony.

I had another event to attend elsewhere and had to rush off before they ended the event with a procession back down the hill, which I did photograph in other years. But I was on my way to a guided walk around ‘London Street Women’, statues on the streets of the City – you can also see pictures of them on My London Diary.

In this post I’ll stick with the Druids. I photographed The Druid Order both in the autumn at Primrose Hill and at Tower Hill for the Spring Equinox on quite a few occasions and in some I give a fairly detailed account of their history (they began early last century) and the more ancient traditions as well as of the various stages in the ceremonies.

Back in September 2007 my account was rather brief but earlier in the year I had written captions to the pictures of the similar Spring celebration which explained what I thought was happening at each stage.

Here is the piece I posted on the September 2007 page with the usual minor corrections:

The Druid Order has three public ceremonies each year, celebrating the Spring Equinox at Tower Hill, Summer Solstice at Stonehenge and Autumn Equinox (Alban Elued) at Primrose Hill.

I got there rather early, and found quite a few people enjoying the hill in their own way – including those who were running up it as well as others merely enjoying the panoramic view over london, as well as a group of half a dozen people in normal clothes practising a simple ritual of Peace To The Four Corners.

At least this told me I was in the right place, and I soon spotted a larger group gathering in under the trees a short distance away.

The ceremony followed the same pattern as in the spring, with a few minor differences.

I did have a small surprise, when i came across a rival druid, Jay The Taylor, the Druid of Wormwood Scrubs, part of the Loose Association Of Druids, who had come to celebrate the event in the Hawthorn Grove (not a feature marked on my map) and seemed surprised to see the other druids.

There are around 80 pictures from Primrose Hill on My London Diary, presented there in the order in which I took them, at Autumn Equinox – The Druid Order.

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Darfur and the Mayor’s Thames Festival – 2007

Darfur and the Mayor’s Thames Festival: On Sunday 16th September 2007 I went to London to photograph a march on an International Day of Action over the genocide which had been taking place on a large scale in Darfur since 2003, with around 300,000 civilians killed. My comments at the time are in italics below. After the end of the march I went to walk along the riverside wher the Mayor’s Thames Festival was taking place, though I found little actually happening.

Protect Darfur – International Day of Action

“Several hundred marched from the Sudanese Embassy in St James
to Westminster where a protest rally was held opposite Downing Street over the continuing failure of the international community to take effective action over Darfur.”

“Among the mainly African demonstrators were groups of Jews, concerned that, as in the 1930s, too many are happy to turn a blind eye to what is going on.”

The Sudanese government had earlier co-opted and armed the Arab Janjaweed militias against those opposed to it in Darfur and they created what the UN described as one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the world.

In July 2007 the UN and the African Union approved a the largest joint peacekeeping mission in the world UNAMID to the area, and over the years there were various peace agreements, but despite this conflicts continued and in 2023 a civil war broke out in Sudan between the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) (which developed from the Janjaweed) and the government’s Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) – and genocide returned to Sudan.

The BBC has an article, ‘Sudan war: A simple guide to what is happening’ about the renewed genocide and famine in Darfur and across the country which again the United Nations has called the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.

At the rally opposite Downing Street, demonstrators were asked to put on their blindfolds as a reminder that leaders around the world are refusing to see the problem in Darfur.

“I didn’t stay to hear all the speakers. The position of the rostrum made it hard to photograph, working directly into the sun behind the speakers’ heads from any available close positions, and photographs were not going to be of great interest.

The message on Darfur is clear, and the international community needs to take action.”

Many more pictures (too many) on My London Diary at protect darfur.

River Thames and the Mayor’s Thames Festival

“We were promised that Sunday was the end of our short, late summer, and I took a walk along the south bank of the River Thames from Westminster to Tower Bridge, among the crowds who had turned up for the Mayor’s Thames Festival.“

Nothing much exciting seemed to be happening while I was there (it seemed mainly a commercial opportunity for the very large number of stalls along the riverbank), but I then didn’t hang around for the procession and fireworks promised later.

I did take quite a few pictures which you can see at river thames and the mayor’s festival – and it looks as if I found it a little more interesting than my account suggested.

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DSEI March and a Tank – 2007

DSEI March and a Tank: On Tuesday 11th September 2007 I marched with protesters from Plaistow Park to Custom House were the largest arms fair in the world was being held, – it is still held every two years and is again taking place now. Then I went to the main entrance by the side of the Royal Victoria Dock to welcome the Space Hijackers, “an international band of anarchitects” who had promised to come with a tank to sell it at the fair as a protest.

Here, with some minor corrections, is what I wrote about the day’s events back in 2007, along with some of the pictures I took and links to where you can see more of my pictures on My London Diary.

CAAT March Against DSEi East London Arms Fair

One of the more scandalous events to take place in London is the DSEI (Defence Systems & Equipment International Exhibition) arms fair, held every two years since 2001 at the Excel Centre on the side of the Royal Victoria Dock in Newham.

Even if you are not a pacifist (and I’m not) it is a trade that has its sickening side, with arms sales to corrupt regimes who use them to kill, torture and deny human rights to their own people, as well as endless shady deals by arms dealers that end up with weapons traded there in the hands of criminals around the world – including some used on the streets of this country.

Britain also has a thriving business in implements of torture, which have been exposed as on sale in earlier shows here. The show also features all the other kinds of nasty devices used by police forces around the world to keep corrupt governments in power.

Of course our government claims to have an ethical policy so far as arms sales are concerned, but in reality it is more about making deals look clean on paper than really worrying about where the arms will end up and what they will be used for. DSEI isn’t just a UK show, it is the world’s largest arms fair – the 2005 show had over 1200 exhibitors from 35 countries present.

The Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) organised a peaceful protest against the fair with a march through Newham from Plaistow Park to a rally outside Custom House Station, as close as they were allowed to get to the Excel Centre. Around 150 people walked the 2 miles to the rally where they met around 50 others who had travelled there directly, and later they were joined by a group of ‘Critical Mass’ cyclists.

Unfortunately the police set up a long thin pen along the side of the road opposite the station, and would not allow speakers to use the small cycle-towed sound system. So the demonstrators were too spread out for many to hear the speeches, by local residents Len Aldis and Bill Perry, local councillor Alan Craig, Green Party Mayoral Candidate Sian Berry, CAAT’s Ian Prichard and comedian Mark Thomas.

The DSEI causes major disruption to the area, with millions spent on extra policing and a number of roads and paths being closed – including the very useful high-level bridge across the dock itself. But the very minor inconvenience of a slightly louder amplification for a few minutes was apparently out of the question. It was a decision that clearly indicated police priorities.

Normally the Royal Victoria dockside is open to the public, but this week the whole northern side was off limits as I found. I took a walk past the eastern end of the dock and then around to the dockside at Brittania Village to get a view of the Excel Centre and the military vessels moored alongside, including a Swedish Stealth Corvette, with odd profiles and jagged camouflage designed to reduce its visibility and radar and other profiles.

More pictures at CAAT March Against the Arms Fair

Space Hijackers Auction Tank at Arms Fair

*The ‘tank’ makes its way down Tidal Basin Road to the ExCeL entrance*

I was slowly making my way around the the Tidal Dock Basin Road which leads to the main vehicle entrance to Excel. The Space Hijackers had announced they would be bringing a tank to the fair, and this seemed to be the likely route they would take.

Police had earlier stopped their actual tank almost as soon as it hit the road for some so-called ‘road safety checks’, but the Space Hijackers had tank number 2 in reserve. I think it was strictly a converted Armoured Personnel Carrier, but still a very impressive vehicle. I was pleased to find my guess was right when it made its way down the road, led by someone on a bicycle.

No surprise, the police wouldn’t let it into the arms fair, but it was allowed to park by the side of the entrance and a party and auction took place.

When people began to leave the arms fair, the protesters were able to make a very visible and audible protest as they drove slowly by. At one stage the police helped by blocking the traffic for a while so they could get a better view of the protest.

Generally the police were unnecessarily restrictive, penning the protesters to one side of the road, and harassing press. That isn’t a genuine press pass one said when I showed my NUJ issued press card [from the UK Press Card Authority Ltd and recognised by the National Police Chiefs’ Council as showing me “a bona fide newsgatherer” who were trying to stop me doing my job], threatening me with arrest unless I got back behind the line of police.

The police FIT team did its usual best to stoke up the atmosphere with their intimidatory tactics – certainly something that gives photographers a bad name. It is hard to believe that those hundreds (probably by now thousands) of pictures they have of me – mainly with a camera obscuring my face – are of any great use in protection national security. [Later when I made a ‘Freedom of Information’ request they denied having a single image of me.]

*Communications centre inside the ‘tank’*

I’m not worried about being photographed – my appearance is pretty much public property since until recently a picture of me was viewed around a million times a month on the commercial site I used to write for.

I stayed until the tank had been auctioned, with some interesting bids but then had to leave to attend a meeting where my presence was vital. I was rather annoyed at having to walk an extra half mile or so to the station when police refused to let anyone use the direct route. There was really no reason or logic for this kind of minor harassment.

You can see much more about the event and also read more comments on the police harassment of journalists on My London Diary at space hijackers auction tank at dsei.

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Kingston Carnival 2007

Kingston Carnival: On Sunday 2 September 2007 I went to Kingston to photograph the carnival.

Kingston is a town I’ve visited fairly often over the years, though mainly just going through it or changing buses to meet friends or go to meetings elsewhere, but I’ve never really got to know. Its an ancient town, where Saxon Kings were crowned and the street layout in its central pedestrianised areas still follows much of its complex medieval pattern. It includes several pubs worth a visit.

Kingston (officially Kingston-upon-Thames) also has a fine museum where I was pleased to be a part of a show, Another London, in January 2007 along with Mike Seaborne and Paul Baldesare – which you can still see online. Among my 26 pictures which featured in it were three made in Kingston including two from the 2006 Kingston Carnival, as well as two from adjoining Surbiton.

The museum also has a permanent exhibition of Kingston’s most famous son, photographer Eadweard Muybridge, (1830-1904) best known for his pioneering studies of animal movement beginning with pictures of the racehorse Occident owned by the former governor of California, Leland Stanford made in 1878 using a line of 12 cameras triggered by strings the horse ran through.

His work had been interrupted earlier in 1875 when he was on trial for murder after having shot his wife’s lover. His lawyer pleaded insanity presenting evidence that he had bouts of unstable behaviour caused by a severe head injury in a stagecoach accident in 1860 and the jury acquitted him recording a verdict of justifiable homicide.

The centenary of Muybridge’s death in 2004 was celebrated in Kingston including by my late friend photographer Terry King whose re-enactment of Muybridge’s work using twelve 10×8 cameras at Ham Polo Club. Modern ponies apparently refuse to run through strings thinking they are an electric fence and a different method had to be found to trigger the special shutters attached to the cameras.

Kingston’s 25th Carnival takes place on Sunday 7th September 2025, and I might just go along again, though I don’t think I’ve been to it since 2007.

I didn’t write a great deal about it in 2007, but here it is:

“This year’s Kingston Carnival was a much more exciting event than last year’s but there was still a large rent-a-carnival aspect to it. Kingston is an ethnically rich borough, and although there was plenty of home-grown talent on display, particularly in the performances by youth from the borough, the procession was still dominated by out of town talent.

“It’s great to encourage diversity, but I think a borough carnival has a duty to promote its local expression rather more, even if it might mean – at least until it built up more – a rather less flashy display.

“Of course it was good to see a greater diversity among the ‘foreign’ talent that paraded past the rather dazed looking shoppers along Kingston’s pedestrian streets, including even some clog dancers from Croydon, along with Caribbean groups.

“Beeraahaar Sweet Combination, based in Stamford Hill enlivened the main parade, and the elaborate larger costumes from Paddington Arts arrived later to play their part.”

Many more pictures start here on My London Diary.

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John Bowden, Congo & Waterloo Carnival – 2007

John Bowden, Congo & Waterloo Carnival: I don’t think I wrote anything on My London Diary about the three events I covered on Friday 13th July other than some captions on the pictures. The case of John Bowden in particular is one that has considerable relevance now in the UK with increasing prison over-crowding and chaos, and the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo is ongoing now for over three decades, but there were dramatic developments earlier this year with now some negotiations between the warring parties.

International Day of Solidarity – John Bowden – Parole Board, Westminster

In an interview on Indymedia in 2007 John Bowden stated that he grew up experiencing anti-Irish “racism as well as extreme poverty very early on in life” and committed “serious anti-social acts” including burning “a factory to the ground when I was nine!” which led to him being “systematically brutalised and de-socialised to the extent where I became a complete outsider” by the ‘criminal justice system.

He stated that by his “early twenties I had already spent the bulk of my time locked away in various prison-type institutions and had accumulated a long criminal record, composed mostly of violent offences, which were becoming increasingly more violent.”

In 1980, aged 24, he was arrested along with others for the murder and grisly dismemberment of a man at a party in a flat in Camberwell and given a life sentence. In jail he took part in taking an assistant governor hostage after a prisoner had been murdered in the hospital wing – and this got him another 10 year sentence.

During his time in years of solitary confinement he writes “I actually began to discover my true humanity and experienced a process of deep politicisation which drew me closer to my fellow prisoners and oppressed people everywhere. From a brutalised and anti social criminal I metamorphasised into a totally committed revolutionary.”

In an interview in Novara Media in 2020 he states “I committed and devoted my life not just to the personal struggle against brutality but to a wider struggle against the prison system generally, and spent almost 40 years trying to organise and mobilise prisoners.” The views he expresses on prison in this interview should be taken to heart by those to reforming our criminal justice system to create a system that works with offenders to rehabilitate rather than further damage them and make re-offending virtually inevitable.

In 2016 the International Workers of the World founded the IWW Incarcerated Workers Organising Committee and he became a member.

You can see and hear Bowden in a series of short videos made for the Prisoner Solidarity Network on YouTube, Tour of the British prison estate.

While the others convicted with him were released over 20 years ago, Bowden was only granted parole in 2020, and only after taking the Parole Board to Judicial Review following their fourth rejection of his release.

It had become clear that his continued imprisonment was not because of any danger to the public “but because I was labelled an ‘anti-authoritarian’ prisoner with links to anarchist and communist groups on the outside, specifically Anarchist Black Cross and the Revolutionary Communist Group.”

International Day of Solidarity – John Bowden

No More Deportations to the Congo – Parliament Square

A group of UK residents from the Democratic Republic of Congo had come to demand an end to Britain’s racist laws and to end the harassment and detention of refugees and asylum seekers. They say all deportations to the DRC should stop as the country is unsafe.

There are just a few more pictures on My London Diary.

Waterloo Carnival – Lower Marsh, Waterloo

The first Waterloo Carnival took place in July 2002 as “a celebration of our community: our unity and diversity, history and future” and is backed by many locally based businesses and organisations including the Old Vic, Christian Aid and the local primary school where the procession formed up.

*Local residents pose with some of the marchers*

*From Lower Marsh the procession went through a council estate*

*It ended with a picnic and events on Waterloo Millennium Green.*

Many more pictures on My London Diary at Waterloo Carnival.

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Thames Gateway – Essex 2007

Thames Gateway – Essex: I didn’t write much about my bike ride in south Essex on 24th May 2007, though the pictures on My London Diary tell the story of my route. I began at Rainham on the edge of Greater London in the London Borough of Havering.

It wasn’t a linear ride but one where I went back and forth rather extensively exploring some of the areas.

Next came the village of Aveley, where the Old Ship has a pub interior “of Outstanding National Importance” but I didn’t go inside.

I photographed the Mar Dyke at North Stifford along with a number of houses, some thatched and cycled around the Stifford Green estate on site of Stepney Boys Home built around ‘The Tower’. This had been an approved school and then a community home until it closed in 1994.

Next came Chafford Hundred, an area where chalk was extensively quarried from 1874 until the last quarry closeed in 1976. In 1986 a proposal by Blue Circle Industries, West Thurrock Estates and Tunnel Holdings to build 5,000 homes on derelict land was approved and the first were completed in 1989.

Parts of the area were still in industrial use in 2007 and there is a nature park with extensive lakes and ditches.

From there I cycled a little deeper into Grays before going to Orsett Fen and Orsett and Horndon on the Hill which has a rather fine old pub I also didn’t go inside. Cycling and beer really don’t mix well with modern traffic.

There are more impressive ancient buildings, a reminder of the wealth that once came from the wool trade.

I made my way via Bulphan towards Upminster where I could use my railcard to start my journey home.

Here is the short text I wrote back in 2007 – with the usual corrections. The cost of the ticket I bought then is now £15.30 – an increase of around 9% above inflation – another of the costs of privatisation.

Thursday I bought an expensive ticket – just up from £6.60 to £7.90 – for a one-day railcard for Greater London from Staines, and put my folding bike aboard the train, changing to reach Rainham, Essex, (L B Havering) on the furthest edge of London from where I live.

Don’t let anyone tell you Essex is flat. O boring. Over a few hundred yards you can move from idyllic thatched cottages to post-industrial dereliction; from dramatic man-made scenery with lakes and chalk gorges to densely packed modern housing estates. From farms owned by city millionaires to council tower blocks.

Most of my winding route took me through Thurrock, one of the major growth sites of the Thames Gateway area.

There are many more images from this ride on My London Diary, beginning here.

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Strangers into Citizens March and Rally – 2007

Strangers into Citizens March and Rally: On Monday 7th May 2007 on the Bank Holiday, London Citizens, an organisatioin working for social change through ‘community organising‘ inspired by the US civil rights movement and earlier struggles in the UK by “the Levellers, the Abolitionists, the Chartists, early trade unionists like the match girls and dock strikers, and the Suffragettes” organised a march and rally to launch their ‘Strangers Into Citizens’ campaign, This called “for the mass regularisation of people without immigration status, who have put down roots in this country over years but are vulnerable to exploitation and hardship.”

I attended this, took photographs and published a post about it on My London Diary, which is a little hard to find and to connect with the pictures there. Here it is again with the usual corrections and a few of the pictures – with links to the rest.

Strangers into Citizens March and Rally

Westminster, London. Monday 7 May, 2007

Over the past years, many people without British passports had come to live in our country. Some of course had the right to do so as EU nationals. Many have claimed asylum, often refused for trivial reasons of paperwork or formalities even when people were clearly endangered in their home countries. Some claims drag on for years before a decision is made. Others have simply stayed on after studies or holidays, or entered the country without any permission.

Almost all of these people have one thing in common; they want to work and earn a living. Their work – often for very low wages at or below the national minimum – has helped to keep our economy buoyant, although in many cases they do not have the correct papers to work legally. They are thus open to exploitation and often unable to access medical services or even open bank accounts. One in 100 of those living in Britain is currently in this kind of limbo.

Many have lived here for years, paid their taxes and contributed to society in various ways – helping to run the parent teacher associations at their children’s schools, supporting local churches and mosques, volunteering for charities – as well as their work. Most of them will remain here – as the government admits there are just too many for them to be removed in any remotely civilised manner.

Not that it is civilised for the unfortunate few picked out by the authorities for a 4.30am raid, not given the opportunity to properly pack their belongings or say goodbye to friends and neighbours, taken to the airport and put on a plane back to a country where they may well face persecution for their political or religious beliefs.

This is a problem that needs a sensible, humane and pragmatic solution. Strangers Into Citizens have proposed one: – those irregular migrants who have lived here for more than 4 years should be given a 2 year work permit; at the end of this, provided they get suitable employer and character references, they would be given leave to remain indefinitely.

Although a great advance on the current treatment of these people it seems to me not to go far enough; too many would still be left out in the cold. It’s also a a one-off measure, and needs (as Strangers Into Citizens propose) to be a part of a wider package of fair treatment for those applying for asylum or immigration.

Since 2007 our political parties have shifted dramatically to the right, strengthening their already racist stances and now a new extreme-right party has gained significant votes in elections although still only having 5 MPs. At the last General election only the Lib-Dems and Green Party had more sensible and positive policies on migration.

So while the proposals by Strangers into Citizens seem sensible and humane – if rather limited – there seems to be no political possibility of them or anything like them becoming law.

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Southwark, Bermondsey & Rotherhithe – 2007

Southwark, Bermondsey & Rotherhithe: On Thursday 3rd May, 2007 I took a walk “south of the River” in Southwark, Bermondsey & Rotherhithe.

I was going to meet a few photographer friends in the evening, but when I’d finished lunch the weather looked so good and I had nothing vital to work on that afternoon so I took an early train to Waterloo, and then started to wander for the nexy three hours or so, taking a few pictures as I went.

Most of the area had been familiar to me since I began photographing London seriously back in the 1970s – some of my earlier pictures then were along parts of the riverside walkway much of which later in 1977 became part of the Silver Jubilee Walkway or later the Thames Path.

But I started away from the Thames on Southwark Street, turning down Redcross Way to the gates of Crossbones Graveyard, decorated with ribbons and strips of fabric in memory of the ‘Winchester Geese’, young women licensed by the Bishop Of Winchester to work within the liberty of the clink, where activities such as brothels, theatres (including Shakespeare’s Globe), bull and bear baiting were permitted to entertain gentlemen who were rowed across from the City.

The graveyard closed for burials in 1853, by which time there were thought to have been as many as 15,000 buried there, graves for those the church would not bury in consecrated ground, including many of the prostitutes and their young infants, but latterly many too poor to afford a proper burial. In 2007 much was still a building site but now there is a memorial garden there.

I continued in Southwark past the Charterhouse-in-Southwark Mission, on the corner of Crosby Row and Porlock St – demolished in 2011 to build affordable housing and along Long Lane to Bermondsey.

Years earlier I had written and published a folded A4 leaflet for an industrial archaeology walk around here, printing and selling several hundreds of copies on my dot-matrix printer which were used for a number of guided local history walks around the area, particularly those led by now the late local historian Stephen Humphrey. You can still download a free PDF, West Bermondsey – The leather area though parts of it are now out of date and the dot-matrix pictures are primitive but still recognisable.

I found quite a few buildings of interest in Bermondsey Street, I think all I’d photographed on previous visits, but some only previously in black and white. And some other things I had photographed, particularly in some of the alleys off the main street were either gone or changed completely, now tidily gentrified.

*The view of Tower Bridge I took from here is now blocked by buildings*

I came back to the river – or one of its creeks, St Saviours Creek at Dockhead, often said to be the mouth of the River Neckinger. It was probably never that though possibly of a very minor destributary with the main course of the river running alongside George Row several hundred yards to the east. The creek is simply that, a tidal creek, which possibly may have been used as a landing place for Bermondsey Abbey and the tide mill in this area.

Any connection with the Neckinger was lost when London’s sewers were reorganised by Bazalgette and the trickle sometimes visible into the creek is local drainage.

Going down Mill Street took me to the Thames and Bermondsey Wall West where I joined the riverside path, though mostly on the land side of warehouses, going past the huge Chambers Wharf on Chambers St with a huge cold store on the land side of the street before reaching the river again.

The path then runs beside the river to Rotherhithe, with view across the river to the City and Wapping as well as downriver to RRotherithe and Canary Wharf.

Near the well-known Angel pub was Diane Gorvin’s 1991 three part sculpture “Dr. Salter’s Daydream” which showed the doctor, his daughter Joyce who died as a child of scarlet fever, and their cat. Salter became the local MP and ran a pioneering local health service 20 or more years before the NHS. He died in 1945.

His wife Ada became the first woman mayor in London and the first Labour mayor in Britain in 1922. In 2011 the statue of Dr Salter was stolen for the metal in it. A local campaign raised £60,000 to replace it and a new statue of Ada was added to the group.

On the grass south of the riverside path are the low ruined walls a small of a small then moated manor house built by King Edward III around 1350. After his death the house was given to the abbey of St Mary Graces by the Tower and in 1399 it passed to Bermondsey Abbey.

A few yards east is the Angel pub, one of only two buildings standing on this long section of riverside. A short distance along is the second, sometimes called ‘The Leaning Tower of Rotherhithe’, four storeys tall and only around 11 foot wide. Once part of a long row of adjoining buildings it was more or less the only one left standing by bombing during the Blitz. It was the offices of lighterage firm Braithwaite & Dean, where lighters would pull in to get their orders and, importantly, their pay. They sold it in the early 1990s.

Finally I arrived in Rotherhithe where there were more pictures to be made – including several buildings and another sculpture, this showing Brunel driving a staem engine which now appears to have disappeared.

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