May Day 2004 – One of the many advantages of giving up full-time teaching around 2000 was that I was able to go to various events that previously took place when I was at work. And one of these was the London May Day celebrations taking place on May 1st – previously I could only take part in these when May Day fell on day I was not at work. I hope to be taking pictures of today’s march and rally as usual from Clerkenwell Green to Trafalgar Square gathering at noon.
Back in 1978, Labour Prime Minister James Callaghan introduced an early May bank holiday, but rather than making May Day – International Workers Day – a bank holiday we got instead the first Monday in May. So only one year in seven do we get a Bank Holiday on May Day.
Even then, Tories have made several attempts to get the Bank Holiday moved to another time of year – the first attempts came with a bill in 1982 and ten years later John Major suggested Trafalgar Day. The coalition government made another attempt in 2011, but so far strong opposition has kept the early May holiday, though I suspect it may be under threat again in the next Labour government.
In 2004, twenty years ago, May Day was a Saturday, so many who would otherwise have been working were able to attend the annual May Day march and rally in London. I’ve written on some previous May Days about the origin of May Day and how it became International Workers’ Day and rather than repeat myself you can read an article by People’s History Museum researcher Dr Shirin Hirsch, May Day: A People’s Holiday which has the advantage of some fine illustrations.
Here, suitably corrected, is what I wrote about my May Day twenty years ago. All the photographs in this post are from May 1st 2004. There are many more pictures on My London Diary.
May Day!
London’s TUC sponsored May Day March and Rally is a peaceful celebration of International Workers’ Day. This was apparently first celebrated in 1886 in Chicago by striking textile workers.
In London, the celebrations are dominated by several Turkish and Kurd groups, with the MLKP and their youth wing being some of the most vocal.
I was pleased to meet up again with members of Bristol Radical Cheerleaders, adding their enthusiasm and a little spectacle to the event. Fortunately they were not responsible for the route, as ‘To the left, to the left, not to the right, to the left’ might never have got us to Trafalgar Square.
Maybe that wouldn’t have been a bad thing. The rally at the end was something of an anti-climax. Not that London Mayor Ken didn’t project his usual charm – and Frances O’Grady and the others spoke well, it was just, well, a bit dull. It needs something that is rather more of a celebration and a party.
I wandered off, jumping on a bus down the Strand to Fleet Street and St Brides where there was a wedding going on. Perhaps I should have taken more than the couple of pictures here, but I didn’t have an invite.
Back in St James Park there was supposed to be a party, and a game of ‘Anarchist Mayday Cricket’. It wasn’t quite the weather for either, and I took a few snaps and came home.
May Day – International Workers Day – May 1st was chosen as the date for International Workers’ Day in 1889 by the Second International socialists and communists, and adopted by anarchists, labor activists, and leftists in general around the world, to commemorate the 1886 Chicago Haymarket affair and the struggle for an eight-hour working day. It continues to be celebrated in many countries around the world.
Although I tested negative for Covid on Wednesday I’m still short of breath and short of energy, with still a little of a cough and have been strongly advised to take things easy for the next week or two. So I’m not sure if I’ll be out celebrating May Day today, much as I yearn to be.
Before 2000 I was usually unable to celebrate May Day properly as May 1st was usually a normal working day and I went out around 8am and arrived home from work around 5.30pm, usually with more to do at home after an evening meal. Not much time to celebrate International Workers Day!
Of course, May Day sometimes fell at the weekend, so I would have been free to take part in events that were taking place, but even in 1999 when it was a Saturday I think I had other things on.
There were of course May Day related events that I went to most years, but usually these were on the Saturday or Sunday before the early May bank holiday Monday which was introduced by a Labour government in 1978, when they lacked the nerve to make May Day itself a public holiday. We still have that bank holiday despite plans made by Conservative governments under both John Major and David Cameron to replace it by a Trafalgar Day holiday in late October.
By 2003 I was getting rather blasé about the London May Day march, writing “May Day Has perhaps settled into a rather predictable event now. The socialist left – and what is left seems to be a few unions and a number of ethnic communist party groups – march from Clerkenwell to Trafalgar square, while anti-capitalist protesters do not a lot around town“, but that didn’t stop me going again to photograph it that year or in 2004, 2005, 2006, and every year until 2019. Covid put an end to the sequence in 2020, but I came out of seclusion for May Day 2021, though perhaps I’ll miss it again today.
And I will miss it. Miss the sense of solidarity on the streets. And most of my life I’ve been feeling a loss of what might have been had we ever had a socialist government since my first few years growing up in a welfare state. Tory governments largely did what was expected of them but the various Labour administrations largely failed the people. Perhaps the final straw came in 2017, when people inside Labour actively worked against a Labour election victory.
The pictures here come from some of the other May Day events I’ve photographed in the last 20 years or so. You can find other May Day pictures on My London Diary simply by choosing a year at the top of the page and then the month of May at the left of the year page.
Today’s May Day will be very different, with no march in London, no meeting in Trafalgar Square and none of the other activities we have seen in recent years. There will be online events, but it really isn’t the same. And I think I will take few if any pictures.
Until 2000, I was working on May Day most years and missed the May Day celebrations, except, when as in 1999 they fell on a weekend. In 2000 things were a little different, and while doubtless the usual trade union celebrations went on, rather more of us gathered in Parliament Square on May Day, a Monday, for an anti-capitalist protest, indulging in a little guerilla gardening. It wasn’t as the BBC and newspapers recorded a riot, but a good-natured protest with people having fun and a little minor law-breaking and only became nasty when the police charged in after windows were broken at a McDonald’s. I went home as I didn’t want to be kettled.
It was 2003 before I returned to photograph May Day events, and I wrote:
may day has perhaps settled into a rather predictable event now. the socialist left – and what is left seems to be a few unions and a number of ethnic communist party groups – march from clerkenwell to trafalgar square, while anti-capitalist protestors do not a lot around town.
and the few images I put on line reflect this. My coverage the following year, 2004, was a little more upbeat, perhaps because I met up again with the Bristol Radical Cheerleaders who certainly livened things up, but also because I was getting better at using a digital camera. But most of my coverage then was still in black and white and I still haven’t added the pictures I said would follow.
I photographed May Day and the march again in 2005, but the highlight of the day was provided by the Space Hijackers who had challenged our 600 odd MPs to an Anarchist Cricket match to be held in Parliament Square.
I wasn’t surprised when no members of the opposing team actually turned up, but their absence didn’t detract from the event.
2006 was perhaps my busiest May Day ever, beginning with the launch of the London Citizens Workers’ Association at Westminster Cathedral, then photographing the London May Day March, which included a strong autonomous anti-capitalist bloc.
Among the speakers at Trafalgar Square, though not on the main platform was Ian Bone of Class War, once labelled the most dangerous man in England, and even at this event attracting considerable police attention.
I went on from Trafalgar Square to the Bank of England where the Space Hijackers were holding their Police Victory Party. Unlike at their cricket match there was a large attendance by the opposition, though they didn’t really join in the party organised for them.
Long Live May Day!
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.
