Posts Tagged ‘50th anniversary’

Aldermaston 2008

Monday, March 24th, 2025

Aldermaston 2008: Searching for what to write today I came to my post about my journey to Aldermaston, where the huge 750 acre Atomic Weapons Establishment is the UK’s main site for nuclear weapons research, design and manufacture. It was to here that people marched from London over 4 days at Easter1958 in a pivotal event in the anti-nuclear movement organized by the Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War (DAC) and supported by the newly formed Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) – which took over the organisation of further marches. 

Aldermaston 2008

The CND leaflet in 1958 gave the reason for marching:

“MARCH TO ALDERMASTON
WHY?
BECAUSE we must show our opposition to the Testing, Storing and Manufacture of the H-Bomb in Britain.
If we make no protest now we have given our consent to its use.
“All who are opposed on any ground to Nuclear Weapons, whether possessed by the British, American or Russian Governments, are welcome.”

I didn’t go on that march as my parents thought I was too young, but both my older brothers marched. 50 years later at Easter 2008 I decided to take part in CND’s 50th anniversary event.

Aldermaston 2008
The cyclists arrive at the main gate at Aldermaston

I had decided not to march but to cycle at least part of the way from London to Aldermaston with Bikes Not Bombs, but for various reasons (sloth, other events, lousy weather and a dislike of early rising) it didn’t happen, although I did manage to photograph the riders on Oxford Street, where they were going in exactly the wrong direction.

Aldermaston 2008
WMD were not in Iraq – but here at Aldermaston

In the end I did ride from Reading to Aldermaston (and back) on Monday, but started an hour or two later than the organised ride, taking a more direct route at a faster pace and arriving before them. Here I’ll copy what I wrote on My London Diary in 2008 with a couple of minor corrections and post a few of the pictures with a link to many more on My London Diary.


Aldermaston – 50 years

Monday 24 March, 2008

Aldermaston 2008
Holding hands around the base

Monday I got up too late to join the Bikes Not Bombs cyclists on their way from Reading, where I arrived by train. The train that goes from Staines to Reading is so so slow I’m convinced there is still a man with a red flag walking in front of it much of the way, and the 20 or so miles took almost an hour.

I took exactly the same route from Reading that I’d walked with Pat Arrowsmith and the other Aldermaston marchers in the 2004 march. Although a cool day, it was a pleasant morning for riding and I was quite enjoying it until a stretch of road called ‘Hermit’s Hill’ reminded me how out of practice I was at cycling. I can’t remember when I last had to push my bike up a hill, although in 2002 when my arteries were almost fully clogged with cholesterol I did once have to stop and rest in Normandy. Fortunately it turned out to be the only significant hill on the route.

I went first to the main gate and joined the other photographers who were there, and took a few pictures of people arriving, including the 30 or so cyclists who I had beaten there. I walked down with some of the other photographers to the Falcon gate, but not a lot was happening there.

Falcon Gate

Later I took a ride around perimeter, or at least the part of it which is on roads – the northern side is simply a footpath, and it was rather muddy and full of demonstrators, so I didn’t try to ride along it. I caught up with the cyclists again at the Boiler House gate where I stopped to take some pictures, as quite a lot seemed to be happening there.

They left before I had taken all the pictures that I wanted, and got a few minutes start on me, before I pedalled off in pursuit. The road leads down and through the actual village of Aldermaston (rich home counties, rather too tidy), but what goes down has to come up, and I found myself struggling uphill again through the queue of traffic held up by the ‘bikes not bombs’ group and their police escort of two cars and several motorbikes.

Welsh choir at the Construction gate

The Construction gate at the top of the hill had a Welsh socialist choir, and I took a few pictures before I saw the cyclists coming up again – they had stopped to regroup a little down the road. Further along the fence, near the Home Office Gate was another largish group of people and a veteran from 1958 was talking.

Veterans of 1954 who spoke

The incredible Rinky-Dink mobile cycle-powered sound system was also there – another reminder of 2004 when it accompanied us as we marched down the lanes to the base.

People were now beginning to link hands around the base, although the organisers had talked about one person every 5 metres. Most of it seemed to be surrounded considerably more densely than this, although there were some gaps.

Back at the main gate there was an opportunity to photograph some of the speakers who were touring the event, although I didn’t actually hear them speak. They included two labour MPs, Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell, Green MEP Caroline Lucas, veteran Labour Party member Walter Wolfgang and several guests from Japan, one of whom was a survivor from Hiroshima.

Jeremy Corbyn, Caroline Lucas, Walter Wolfgang, John McDonnell and others

After that people started to go home, and after a short but rather heavy shower I decided it was time to get on my bike too.


Many more pictures from the event at Aldermaston – 50 years, and I also took a few on my ride back to Reading Station.


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Union Busting, Tibet, Women & Sharia – 2009

Friday, March 7th, 2025

Union Busting, Tibet, Women & Sharia: My work on Saturday 7th March began outside fashion store Prada in Mayfair. I moved on to the Chinese Embassy for the annual Tibet Freedom March, then to Portman Square for a International Women’s Day march and finally to Trafalgar Square where ‘One Law for All’ were marching to a public meeting against the use of Sharia and other faith-based laws in the UK.


Union Busting – Just SO Last Season – Prada, Old Bond St

Union Busting, Tibet, Women & Sharia - 2009

A dozen people from Labour Behind the Label, part of the international ‘Clean Clothes Campaign’ which campaigns in support of garment workers worldwide were protesting outside Prada, one of the best-known luxury brands around the world.

The ridiculously expensive fashion luxury goods its customers buy are not made in Milan where Prada was founding but in factories such as the DESA factory in Turkey. Workers there are on ridiculously low pay and work long shifts – sometimes up to 40 hours.

Union Busting, Tibet, Women & Sharia - 2009

When in April 2008 workers at DESA decided to join the Turkish leather workers union, 44 were sacked and 50 forced to resign from the union.

Demonstrations outside the DESA factory have led to repression and arrests and when one union leader refused to accept a bribe, her family was threatened, and later that day men on a motorbike attempted to kidnap her 11 year old daughter.

Union Busting, Tibet, Women & Sharia - 2009

Prada wasn’t the only luxury goods seller profiting from this despicable exploitation – the DESA factory in the Dzce Industrial Zone also makes goods for Mulberry, Louis Vuitton, Samsonite, Aspinal of London, Nicole Farhi and Luella.

As well as publishing more about the protest – and of course more pictures, my London Diary post also pointed out that it isn’t just the high price designer labels that support sweatshops, but also Matalan and other cheap suppliers and supermarkets – and urged readers to visit the Labour Behind the Label web site to find out more and support their actions.

Union Busting – Just SO Last Season


Tibet Freedom March – 50 Years – Chinese Embassy

Union Busting, Tibet, Women & Sharia - 2009

The march marked the 50th anniversary of the brutal repression by China of the ‘Tibetan People’s Uprising‘, when over 80,000 Tibetans were killed and many others jailed.

It was then the Dalai Lama fled the country along with many others. Those still in Tibet still suffer the same kind of brutal repression, with thousands missing after the demonstrations in Tibet in 2008, and hundreds serving lengthy prison sentences.

Many on the protest carried Tibetan flags. Two months earlier a young Tibetan, Pema Tsepak, had been beaten to death for carrying one in his own town in Tibet.

Palden Gyatso
Palden Gyatso.

At the start of the march opposite the Chinese Embassy, Palden Gyatso, a Tibetan monk who spent 33 years in prison and labour camps from 1959 to 1992 and was permanently damaged by the beatings and inhumane torture he suffered tried to deliver a letter to the Chinese Embassy but the Embassy was not accepting any post.

Gyatso’s autobiography was the basis for the film, ‘Fire Under the Snow‘ – you can watch a trailer on YouTube.

I left the march when it reached Oxford Street to go to the International Women’s Day march.

Tibet Freedom March – 50 Years


Million Women Rise 2009 – Portman Square, Oxford St

The main celebration of International Women’s Day in London in 2009 was the ‘Million Women Rise 2009‘, a women-only march to end male violence against women.

This annual march since it started the previous year coincided with the global United Nation theme for 2009 which was ‘Women and men united to end violence against women and girls‘, but Million Women Rise is a women-only march.

Hackney Women Rise. The march was co-ordinated by Sabrina Qureshi

This year the numbers seemed rather smaller, despite the predictions of a much larger event, but it was still a lively event and one that made a greater impact with its route through London’s major shopping streets – Oxford Street and Regent Street and across Piccadilly Circus to a rally in Waterloo Place.

As they marched the women chanted their main message: “However we dress, wherever we go, yes means yes, no means no!” and called for an end to male violence against women.

“Yes means Yes and No means No” Women march along Oxford St

This was a national march with coaches bringing women from Birmingham, Bradford, Hebden Bridge, Wales, Nottingham and Todmorden as well as other groups coming from around the country. There was also a strong participation by Kurdish and Turkish groups based in London.

One group marched behind the main march, choosing to follow the UN theme rather than be a women-only march; “the European Confederation of Workers from Turkey (ATIK) Women’s Commission group included men marching (as their placards proclaimed in Turkish) in a spirit of socialist equality, fraternity and freedom.”

Million Women Rise 2009


One Law For All – No Sharia Law in Britain – Trafalgar Square

The One Law for All campaign had been launched three months earlier on Human Rights Day by prominent civil rights activists, lawyers, feminists and academics as well as the National Secular Society.

A speaker from the Worker Communist Party of Iran UK Committee

Among those supporting it were many who had previously lived under Sharia, including both Muslims and ex-Muslims, some who had fled their home countries to claim asylum after persecution for political activities including the refusal to adhere to religious dictats.

The organisation objects to the setting up of Sharia courts in the UK, on the grounds that Sharia law is discriminatory and unjust, particularly against women and children. While supporters of religious courts see these as promoting minority rights and social cohesion they see them as a cheap short cut to injustice and call for one secular law to govern all of us.

Maryam Namazie

After an hour of speeches One Law for All Spokesperson Maryam Namazie made a final address before the roughly 250 people present marched to a public meeting at Conway Hall. But I left for home instead.

One Law For All – No Sharia in Britain


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Catalonia & Levitation

Thursday, October 21st, 2021

I began work on Saturday October 21st 2017 with a large group of Catalans at Piccadilly Circus, demanding immediate release of the political prisoners Jordi Cuixart and Jordi Sanchez, and end to the repression and the start of dialogue to accept the electoral mandate of the Catalan Referendum.

After several speeches they set of to march to Trafalgar Square for photographs and then on to Downing St where they called on the UK Government to condemn the violence towards civilians during the referendum vote in Catalonia and to support a democratic solution.

In June 2021 the nine separatist leaders who had been jailed for sedition in 2017 were released, and talks finally restarted in September, with the Catalan government demanding an amnesty for the many pro-independence politicians still facing legal action over their part in the 2017 independence referendum and for the Spanish government to acknowledge their right to hold a referendum on self-determination, both demands still resisted by the government.

March in Solidarity with Catalonia


I left the Catalans at Parliament Square, where it wasn’t clear if their protest was ended but I was on my way to meet Class War’s Levitation Brigade of Ian Bone and shaman Jimmy Kunt (aka Adam Clifford) who were celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Yippee levitation of the Pentagon during anti-Vietnam War protests with a similar action at Kensington Town Hall.

Standing on the steps of the entrance to the town hall of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, the council responsible for the disastrous fire at Grenfell Tower, Adam called out the demons of councillors including Nicholas Paget-Brown, Rock Feilding-Mellen & Elizabeth Campbell and attempted to levitate the town hall to a height of over 70 metres. “Out, demons, out! Out, demons, out!

A security officer told them that they couldn’t do that here, but they told her it wasn’t possible to stop a levitation or exorcism and the ceremony went ahead.

Afterwards Ian Bone repeated a well-known quote from 1967 “You mean you didn’t see it, man?”

Class War levitate Kensington Town Hall

Flushed with success the Levitation Brigade decided to cross Kensington High St and repeat the exorcism and levitation at the offices of the Daily Mail, standing on the pavement outside between the offices and a highly polished Rolls-Royce.

Security staff there reacted angrily to Class War calling out the demon of Paul Dacre and their attempt to raise the building by over 70 metres, perhaps fearing it might damage the Rolls-Royce parked outside, but the levitation ceremony went ahead despite considerable interference.

Class War levitate the Daily Mail

Security here reacted rather more aggresively, coming to push the crew away and telling me I could not take photographs. I was standing on the pavement and told them I had every legal right to photograph whatever I chose, but had to move back rahter smartly to avoid getting fingerprints on my lens.

Class War of course found the over-reaction by the Daily Mail extremely amusing and continued to bait the security for some minutes after the levitation before leaving as you can see on My London Diary.

Class War levitate the Daily Mail
Class War levitate Kensington Town Hall


GLIAS 50

Wednesday, December 11th, 2019

I think I joined the Greater London Industrial Archaelogy Society (GLIAS) in around 1979, forty years ago, but it had then been going for 10 years. I’ve not been the most active of members, particularly in recent years when I’ve been too busy with other things, but over the years I’ve been on numerous walks, several outings, attended talks and lectures and even made some tiny contributions. I still enjoy reading the newsletters and occasional publications of the group.

The various walks usually took me back to areas of London I’d already explored when taking photographs, and they often made me much better informed about buildings I had already photographed. I’ve not been on any lately as they almost always take place when I’m now working. But in previous years, the walks were often followed by the publication of small walk leaflets giving the route and pointing out the IA features.

The first of these walk leaflets was for Tower Hill to Rotherhithe and this anniversary event more or less retraced its steps, led by one of the two original authors, Prof David Perrett, now Chairman and Vice-President of GLIAS. It was a walk I’d first taken – without the aid of the leaflet – in the opposite direction back in 1983 (though I’d photographed parts of the area previously) and quite a few pictures from that are now online on my London Photographs site.

This area on Bermondsey Wall has changed considerably since then, though the riverside of Wapping seen at the top of the image still looks much the same. Of course you can’t see it from this same point, which I think is now occupied by expensive flats.

Inspired by these walk leaflets I went on to produce one of my own, a folded A4 sheet printed on thin card by my laser printer, largely as an exercise in Desktop Publishing which I was then teaching a course on.

Over the next few years I made and sold over well over 500 copies, charging I think 20p for each of them, though I never got the cash for some that were sold locally in Bermondsey (it rankled though the money was insignificant.) My best paying customer was a local historian who used them for several years for the guided walks he did on the local area. I think it is now seriously out of date, but ‘West Bermondsey – The Leather Area‘ has for a long time been available as a free download. (PDF)

The first time I put images from the area on line was in a site called ‘London’s Industrial Heritage‘, designed for me by my elder son, and you can see some pictures from this area from the links on the Southwark page.

I haven’t put many of the pictures from the walk on My London Diary, but there are a few more at GLIAS 50th anniversary walk. If you live in or around London and have any interest in industrial archaeology you would find GLIAS worth joining – and it has a very reasonable annual subscription of £14 (£17 for family membership.)


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