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Notting Hill Carnival – Children’s Day – 2012

Notting Hill Carnival – Children’s Day: Lurid and largely untrue media reports had put me off from attending carnival until 1990, but after I had gone and seen for myself the two days at August Bank Holiday each year became one of my unmissable events of the year.

Each year from then on I went to photograph the revels, trying to capture the spirit of the event in my pictures, and I had some success, with publications and some small exhibitions of the work.

I saw and experience little of the criminality reports of which still often dominate press coverage, with many still trying to get carnival banned or to emasculate it as a static event in Hyde Park or something similar. Opposition to carnival, a great community event, seems at least in part driven by the same kind of racist and classist attitudes that led to Grenfell. I only once in over 20 years came close to it when I caught a pickpocket with his hand in one of my trouser pockets in a densely packed crowd. I grabbed it and pulled it out, to find it clutching an empty wallet – not mine.

Of course I took some sensible precautions, taking only the equipment I needed and keeping a close eye and hold on it. I used a small bag which in crowded areas at least was always around my neck and in front of me rather than on my shoulder, and left my wallet and credit cards at home, carrying enough cash for travel, food and drink in a zipped pocket.

Most of what mayhem there was – and given the huge number of people in the area there was relatively little of it – took place later in the day, after a day of dancing and drinking and after I had gone home, always before the light began to fade.

While I was there the streets were full of people having a good time and happy to be photographed while they were doing so. Mostly they were Londoners, and particularly black Londoners, though some people came from far away for the event. When we were in St Denis at the north of Paris one year I photographed posters advertising trips for the event.

The only real problem I had over the years was with my ears. At carnival you don’t just hear the music, you feel it as the tarmac on the streets vibrates and your internal organs jump around to the beat. For several days afterwards my ears would hurt , my hearing would be dull and my head would still be ringing. Some years when carnival came late in the month I was back teaching within a couple of days and it was hard.

Professional media crews covering the event mainly wear ear protectors, and I did try using earplugs, but found it unsatisfactory. They stopped me experiencing carnival fully and made communication with those I was photographing difficult. It was like eating wearing boxing gloves. So I just put up with being deafened and taking a day or to for recovery.

But by 2012 things were different for me. As I wrote then: “But either I’m getting too old for it, or perhaps carnival is changing, and this year I found it a little difficult. So I went on the Sunday, stayed around three hours and didn’t really want to return for the big day. So I didn’t.“

And this was the last time I went to Carnival. The next year I was away from London and in years since then I’ve thought about it, but not gone. I feel I’ve taken enough pictures of it.

You can see more of the pictures from the 1990s in two albums – Notting Hill Carnivals and Panoramas on Flickr though I’ve still to add some from later years. Many of those from this century are on My London Diary, including many more from 2012 at Notting Hill – Children’s Day.

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All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
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Tamil Festival & Brentford Walk – 2010

Tamil Festival & Brentford Walk: On the morning of Sunday 8th August 2010 I photographed the annual Chariot Festival from the Tamil Hindu Temple in West Ealing and in the afternoon went for a walk in Brentford.

Tamil Chariot Festival in West Ealing

Tamil Festival & Brentford Walk - 2010 — *Men wait with coconuts outside the temple, ready to roll along the road*

The annual Chariot Festival from the Tamil Shri Kanagathurkkai Amman (Hindu) Temple at a former chapel in West Ealing comes close to the end of their Mahotsavam festival which lasts for around four weeks each year.

In it a represtentation of the Temple’s main goddess Amman (Tamil for Mother) and priests are dragged around the streets on a large chariot pulled by men and women on long ropes.

Behind them around 50 men naked from the waist up laid down on the street holding a coconut in front of them and rolled their bodies along the street for the half mile or so of the route. Men and women came and scattered Vibuthi (Holy Ash) on them. Following them were women who prostrated themselves to the ground every few steps.

From the Temple in Chapel Street the procession, led by a smaller chariot made its way along Uxbridge Road in the bus lane. People crowded around the chariot holding bowls of coconut and fruits (archanai thattu) as ritual offerings (puja) to be blessed by a temple priest.

To photograph the event I had – like those taking part – removed my shoes and my feet were soon soaked in coconut milk from the many cut open or smashed on the ground. Coconuts play an important role in many Hindu rituals and are a major product of the Tamil areas of India and Sri Lanka and many sacks of them were broken in the festival.

Further back in the procession were male dancers, some with elaborate tiered towers above their heads. Others had heavy wooden frames decorated with flowers and peacock feathers, representing the weight of the sins of the world that the gods have to carry; they had ropes attached to their backs by a handful of large hooks through their flesh. They turned and twisted violently as if to escape from the ropes, held by another man.

Women walked with flaming bowls of camphor which burns with a fairly cool flame and leaves no residue with others behind them carrying jugs on their heads.

The festival raises funds for various educational projects for children that the temple sponsors in northern Sri Lanka and other charitable projects in Sri Lanka devastated by the civil war and had sent more then £1.3 million in the previous ten years.

I left the festival, dried my feet as best I could, put on my socks and shoes and caught at bus to Brentford.

Many more pictures on My London Diary at Tamil Chariot Festival in Ealing.

Brentford

*Overflow from the canal takes the River Brent to the Thames*

When I was young and lived not far away Brentford was an important canal port, the junction of the Grand Union Canal (also here the River Brent) with the River Thames. The docks by the Thames were now a private housing estate and by 2010 almost all of the British Waterways sheds had gone, replaced by blocks of flats.

*Past the recent moorings were the last remaining loading sheds*

But the canal and the locks are still there, along with the small docks and some of the boat repair businesses. Little is visible from the High Street except where it goes over the canal, but despite extensive redevelopment in the 1990s – and more going on now – it remains an interesting area to walk around.

*From the footbridge over the Brentford gauging locks*

I’d photographed a little in the area back before much redevelopment took place, and more extensively in the 1990s. On line you can see some pictures from 2003 when some of the more recent development was starting. And I’ve returned a few times since this walk in 2010 and you can find more pictures if you search on My London Diary.

*Thames Lock, connecting the canal system to the River Thames*

As I noted in 2010, “Much of the walk that I took is now a part of the Thames Path, though it isn’t always well signposted, and some of the more interesting parts are a short detour away.”

More pictures from my short walk around Brentford on My London Diary.

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All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
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Carnaval, Right To Protest & Tobin – 2005

Carnaval, Right To Protest & Tobin: On Sunday 7th August 2005 I began by photographing London’s Latin Americans getting ready for the Carnaval Del Pueblo procession, then went to Parliament Square for an illegal protest against the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 which had come into force on August 1st and among other things restricted the right to demonstrate within a large area around parliament without prior written notice to the police. Finally another illegal protest on Westminster Bridge expressed support for the Tobin Tax, a low rate of tax on currency conversions with the aim of discouraging short-term currency speculation and so stabilising currency markets. Here is what I wrote about the day in 2005 with some pictures and links to more on My London Diary

Carnaval del Pueblo – Southwark

Carnaval, Right To Protest & Tobin - 2005

Sunday I started off photographing London’s Latin American communities getting ready for the start of their annual Carnaval Del Pueblo procession. This year it was starting from Potters Fields near the GLA headquarters, on an empty site awaiting development, rather than from a street, and this made photography a little more difficult.

It was good to see so many groups taking part, although I found it very difficult to sort out the different nations, and found myself unable to recognise most of their national flags.

This procession, making it’s way to Burgess Park where there is a Latin-American Festival, is one of London’s most colourful events, with some costumes to rival those seen at the much larger annual Notting Hill event at the end of the month.

I was sorry not to be anle to go on to the festival, especially since there was to be a short period of silence to mark the tragic shooting by police of the innocent Brazilian electrician, Jean Charles de Menezes, on a tube train at Stockwell Station the day following the second round of bombings in London.

I followed the procession up to London Bridge Station where I needed to get on a train to get to Westminster.

More pictures

The Right to Protest – Parliament Square

*Police arrest a demonstrator in Parliament Square, London. The crime? Holding a protest banner. Welcome to Britain, the police state (not that I think the police particularly welcome it.).*

Britain once had a deserved reputation as a haven for free speech and the rights of the citizen. A number of acts by our New Labour government have seriously curtailed these freedoms – including introducing a number of measures that they had opposed before they came to power.

Some of these measures have just been a part of the general trend to central control begun under Thatcher, but others have been brought on by the threat of terrorism and even more by the growth of opposition to government policies, and in particular to the war on Iran.

Formerly a life-long supporter of the party it saddens me, and angers me. One of the signs that Brian Haw holds in a picture is a quotation from a speech by Condoleeza Rice in January 2005, when she said “if a person cannot walk into the middle of the town square and express his or her views without fear of arrest, imprisonment, or physical harm, then that person is living in a fear society, not a free society. We cannot rest until every person living in a ”fear society” has finally won their freedom.”

New restrictions have been brought in that move Britain into that realm of a “fear society”.

This afternoon I saw five people arrested for simply peacefully holding banners supporting the right to protest. It happened on the square opposite our Houses of Parliament, and it made me feel ashamed to be British.

Although the law was passed largely to get rid of Brian Haw, it turns out not to alter his right to be there, as his protest started before the act became law and is thus not covered by it. Rather a lot of egg on government faces there.

[The High Court decision that agreed Haw was not covered by the Act was overturned by the Court of Appeal in an alarming decision in May 2006.]

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The Westminster Tea Party – Time for Tobin Tax

*Holding up tea bags on Westminster Bridge*

In 1978, Nobel Prize-winning economist James Tobin proposed a uniform world-wide tax at a very low level – perhaps only 0.2% – on all foreign currency exchange transactions. The aim was to deter speculation on currency movements, thus giving the elected governments greater control over their fiscal and monetary policies, and reducing the power of unelected speculators (who include some of the larger multinational companies) to affect the markets.

Exporters, importers and long-term investors would all benefit from less volatile exchange rates, and the revenue raised by the tax could make a significant contribution both to the revenue of national economies and also for international development projects.

As a small gesture of support for the Tobin Tax, another illegal demonstration took place in Westminster this afternoon, unnoticed by police. A small group of demonstrators, again following an example from Boston – although this time from 1773 – chose tea as a way to symbolise their protest. Each threw a teabag, produced by one of the giant corporations, from the middle of Westminster Bridge into the River Thames below.

A couple more pictures at the bottom of this page on My London Diary.

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Battersea, Jesus, Bonkers & Peckham – 2008

Battersea, Jesus, Bonkers & Peckham: On Saturday 19 July 2008 I began my day at an open day at Battersea Power Station by developers proposing a comprehensive redevelopment before photographing the Jesus Army marching along Piccadilly and, going on to Camberwell Green for Bonkersfest and a brief visit to I Love Peckham.

Battersea Power Station

Battersea, Jesus, Bonkers & Peckham - 2008

Developers Real Estate Opportunities had bought the site for around £400 million and were showing the latest development of their plans for it to the public. These then involved re-building the chimneys and filling the space around with various buildings including an eco-dome and a 980ft eco-tower which dwarfed the power station – and which London Mayor Boris Johnson described as an “inverted toilet-roll holder”. You can see it in my photograph of their model on My London Diary, and to be fair I think it perhaps looks more like some high-tech lavatory brush.

This tower was soon dropped from the scheme which was approved in 2010 but building never started. The only aspect of the scheme which did eventually get built was the Northern Line extension from Kennington, partly because of a £100 million contribution from the sale of the site to a Malaysian consortium in 2012 – who ten years later opened the power station building to the public.

The central turbine hall had been open to the elements since the late 1980s when the roof was removed to lift out the machinery.

Local organisations had been formed in the 1980s to oppose unsuitable development and were then still active and asking questions about the proposals. They were concerned both about the loss of the power station as an iconic landmark and also the lack of affordable housing and facilities of any use to local people in the plans. The web site I linked to in 2008 is no longer active and the domain is for sale.

More on My London Diary at Battersea Power Station.

Jesus Army Marches on London – Piccadilly

The Jesus Army describes itself as “an evangelical Christian Church with a charismatic emphasis” while others have labelled it as a sect or a cult. There are certainly ex-members who talk openly about it, and particularly about leaving it as a traumatic experience, while others simply feel that they could not personally give the level of commitment it requires of them.

I found their march through London a dispiriting event, too uniform in many ways and I soon found it depressing to photograph. But as I told the woman who came out of the crowd passing by to hug me, “Jesus loves you too, sister” although I’m sure the guy I’ve read about in the gospels would have had no truck with this organisation. London Transport might have a problem with their logo [on some t-shirts] too!

Jesus Army Marches on London

Bonkersfest – Camberwell Green

Creative Routes, an interdisciplinary arts organisation run by and for those who have survived the mental health system and mental distress, organise the annual Bonkersfest as “a showcase of mad creativity.”

I wasn’t greatly impressed by what I saw happening this year, and left after taking a few pictures, including those of “some enterprising women were making the most of the occasion by organising a yard sale” in front of Brighton House on the edge of the green and a small memorial which had been unveiled in 2007 to the Wright family and four others killed by a direct bomb hit on the shelter here on the afternoon of 17th September 1940.

They had taken shelter while celebrating the wedding of Sidney and Patricia Wright. Bride and groom, Sidney’s parents and five sisters were among the 13 who were killed.

Bonkersfest

I Love Peckham – Peckham Square

There is an energy about Peckham that I really do like, and some of it was on display here, watched by a small crowd including the Mayor of Southwark, Councillor Eliza Mann – in pink.

There were a few things going on for me to photograph, and clearly there had been various other mainly art-related activities by local people, particularly children in the week of the festival, but it seemed to have attracted rather less interest than the previous year when I had photographer the march of the human rights jukebox.

St Michael, Gorillas, Pearlies & Urban Golf – 2006

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.

more pictures

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.

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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.

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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.)

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More Carnival – Children’s Day 2009

More Carnival – Children’s Day: On Sunday 30th August 2009 I spent a few hours in Notting Hill and took a lot of pictures – here are just a few of those I liked. I can’t remember why I didn’t get around to putting them on line in 2009, but I only remembered them again in 2014 when August bank holiday was so wet I stayed home and didn’t go to carnival.

I thought again this year about going to Notting Hill for Children’s Day when it is a little less crowded than the Monday. But there was engineering work on the railway with no trains from my station for over a week, only rail replacement buses.

It would still have been possible to make the journey, or to take a bus and then the Underground, but having to do so on both the outward and homeward journey would add considerably to my journey times. I decided my trip to Notting Hill wasn’t essential.

I’ve taken enough pictures of Carnival over the years since 1990 to satisfy me for my lifetime, and it’s hard to find anything really new.

Though I do regret having been put off from going to Notting Hill before 1990 by the media coverage which concentrated on the few violent incidents and painted a picture of street violence and mayhem. It’s really more of a huge outbreak of celebration.

*There was a huge tightly packed crowd dancing to Sancho Panza*

And I did photograph some children, though its clear my mind was largely on other things.

Many more pictures at Notting Hill – Children’s Day.

Buildings, Dancers, Gym and a Bison

This is the final part of my walk around King’s Cross after the walk led by the Greater London Industrial Archeology Society finished on Saturday 8th April 1989. The previous post was Goods Way, Gasholders & St Pancras.

Stanley Buildings, Stanley Passage, Cheney Rd, King's Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4h-61 — *Stanley Buildings, Stanley Passage, Cheney Rd, King’s Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4h-61*

I was clearly in no hurry to get home and spent some time wandering around the area taking pictures. In this post they are in the order that I made them, along with some others, mainly near duplicates, but I haven’t kept to this in posting them to the album.

This block of flats was built 1864-5 by the Improved Industrial Dwellings Company, architect Matthew Allen. They were grade II listed five years after I made this picture and have been retained in the fairly comprehensive development around them, being incorporated after considerable rebuilding around 2014 into a modern office development.

The listing text decribes them as part of a group with the “King’s Cross Gasholders, Goods Way and Barlow’s great shed to St Pancras Station, Euston Road” and “in addition an important part of a dramatic Victorian industrial landscape.” Unfortunately this is no longer the case, and it is now simply an addendum to a modern development.

Gasholder, Cheney Rd, Battlebridge Rd, King's Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4h-62 — *Gasholder, Cheney Rd, Battlebridge Rd, King’s Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4h-62*

Here and in the next picture we see a landscape and portrait view of a nearby part of that “dramatic Victorian industrial landscape”, now gone and replaced by modern blocks

*Gasholder, Cheney Rd, Battlebridge Rd, King’s Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4h-64-Edit_2400*

I made the landscape format view first, but then decided that it was probably better to include the top of the gasholder.

German Gymnasium, Cheney Rd, King's Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4h-65 — *German Gymnasium, Cheney Rd, King’s Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4h-65*

The German Gymnasium on the south side of Clarence Passage was also built in 1964-5, paid for by the German Gymnastics Society and London’s German community and it had its front entrance on Pancras Road. It was one of the first venues used by the National Olympian Association for its first games in 1866.

Dancers, Mural, Stanley Buildings, Pancras Rd, King's Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4h-56 — *Dancers, Mural, Stanley Buildings, Pancras Rd, King’s Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4h-56*

My favourite mural in London, on the side of this block of flats. I don’t know when this disappeared. The ‘preserved’ building has a huge featureless brick wall facing Pancras Road which could do with something like this to liven it up.

German Gymnasium, Cheney Rd, King's Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4h-42 — *German Gymnasium, Cheney Rd, King’s Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4h-42*

Although this building was Grade II listed in 1976, part of its western end was demolished for the construction of St Pancras International, with a new end wall being built in matching fashion. The building is now in use as a restaurant and bar.

Culross Buildings, Kings Cross Station, King's Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4h-43 — *Culross Buildings, Kings Cross Station, King’s Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4h-43*

I had wandered here to the side of the Motorail terminal at King Cross, where you used to be able to drive your car onto a train and sleep in a bunk bed all the way to Edinburgh or Aberdeen. This was the first such service, I think dating from the 1950s by British Rail, who set it up as Car Sleeper Limited, but it was soon joined by a network of similar services serving other stations and distant destinations, with London terminals at Olympia, Paddington and Euston.

As the motorway network grew, demand for motorail decreased, and I think the service from Kings Cross ended around the time I made this picture.

Culross Buildings, Kings Cross Station, King's Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4h-44 — *Culross Buildings, Kings Cross Station, King’s Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4h-44*

Another image from somewhere around the north of King’s Cross Station where I had wandered.

Great Northern Hotel, Pancras Rd, King's Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4h-45 — *Great Northern Hotel, Pancras Rd, King’s Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4h-45*

Back on Pancras Rd I walked to the eastern side of the Great Northern Hotel facing King’s Cross Station to take this picture of the main facade. The area in front of the hotel is now covered by the extended station building from 2008. The building was a part of Lewis Cubitt’s plans for the station, built in 1854 and Grade II listed in 1984. The slightly less impressive convex rear of the building is still fully visible on Pancras Rd.

Ox, Pancras Rd, King's Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4h-46 — *Ox, Pancras Rd, King’s Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4h-46*

This rather threadbare beast was for some years a feature of Pancras Road, and although I’ve called it an Ox I think it was really a Bison. I think it was there simply to draw attention to the shop behind, or perhaps just to make it easier to find. Perhaps someone will be able to post more about it in a comment?

A short distance down the road was the Underground entrance at which my walk ended and my journey home began.

The first post on this walk was Kings Cross, St George’s Gardens & More

Notting Hill Carnival 2004

If you live in or near London there is a fairly good chance that you will be among the millions on the streets of Notting Hill today, although people sometimes come long distances for London’ and possibly Europe’s biggest festival. Many years ago I remember being a little surprised to see a poster advertising the event in St Denis on a visit to Paris, though post-Brexit it may be a little more difficult to travel here.

Although I’ve lived in the London area for most of the years carnival has been running, it was only around 1990 that I first went and experienced it. I’d probably been put off by the bad press it usually got, with the media making much of the crimes and battles with the police that occasionally took place.

But given the number of people attending and the relatively high level of policing the number of arrests at least in recent years is relatively low – and as a Huffington Post investigation into police figures shows, fairly similar to Glastonbury taking into account the number of people attending. In 2019 the number of arrests was dominated by those for drug offences, two thirds of the total, and relatively few for violent incidents, some of which were almost certainly simply reactions to heavy-handed policing. 23 years after the Macpherson report our police are still institutionally racist and certainly Cressida Dick did little to change that – we can only hope Sir Mark Rowley will do a better job, but my hopes are not high.

I’m not sure how many days I’ve spent at carnival over the years, but it is probably around 30, and I’ve yet to see any violence. Of course I’ve been offered drugs, though probably rather less frequently than in some other streets in London, and there was an almost omnipresent reek in any of the crouds announcing that what some were smoking wasn’t just tobacco. And although personally I kept to Red Stripe, I think by the end of some days I was experiencing something of a high from secondary inhalation.

I did one year encounter a rather incompetent pick-pocket. In 2004 I was standing still with some difficulty in a tightly packed crowd moving to the beat of a giant sound system and trying to take pictures when I suddenly became aware of a hand in my left trouser pocket. It wasn’t mine and I grabbed the wrist with both hands and slowly pulled it out to find it holding a wallet. But that wasn’t mine either and it was empty.

The main after-effect of carnival was always on my ears, which sometimes took several days to recover and for me to lose a ringing sound. In years when the bank holiday came of the 31st of August, this often meant I was back at work the following day, and it was difficult when I couldn’t hear properly. Sound at Notting Hill is phenomenal in places, with the ground and every organ inside your boddy vibrating, you feel it rather than hear it.

Of course there were some years I was away from London for various reasons – often because it wasn’t me who booked the holiday. In 2005 I was suffering badly from a knee injury but was still determined to go. I got ready and slowly limped my way to the station, where I had to climb a footbridge. A few steps up I collapsed in pain, pulled myself up and then came to my senses and realised I wasn’t going to be dancing on Ladbroke Grove that year, sat down and rested for a while before making my slow way home.

But I’ve not now been since 2012. I went on the Sunday, Children’s Day, stayed around three hours taking pictures and didn’t really want to return for the big day. So I didn’t. I’m not sure if its that I’ve changed – getting old – or if carnival has. But since then I’ve often been away from London but even when I’ve been here I’ve decided to go on a quiet country walk with family instead. So I don’t think I’ll be there today, but I might change my mind.

The pictures in this post were all taken in 2004, when I went on both Childrens Day which was the 29th August and the Carnival proper on the 30th, taking my son – then in his twenties – with me on Sunday. He didn’t want to go back the following day.

The Sultan’s Elephant, Buddha’s Birthday & May Queens

The Sultan’s Elephant, Buddha’s Birthday & May Queens – Satiurday May 6th was another varied day for me.

The Sultan’s Elephant – Westminster

“Just why does it take so many people to drive an elephant when one elephant can do it on its own?” was the question that came to me while watching the Sultan’s Elephant making its ponderous way around central London. The 12 metre high mechanical elephant, along with the Little Princess was constructed by French company Royal De Luxe and appeared to have around 20 drivers as well as a cast of under-employed actors.

And, as I commented, “it did occur to me to ask why the Arts Council was spending so much of our money on guys who wanted to play with big toys.” Rather than art it seemed to me to be “more or less a larger version of model railways to me, or perhaps even more a simplistic version of a computer game fantasy made manifiest” and little about art. “More Disneyland.”

Buddha’s 2550th Birthday – Leicester Square

A quarter of a mile to the north, celebrations were taking place in Chinatown of Buddha’s 2,550th birthday, organised by London Fo Guang Temple, one of two UK branches of the Taiwanese Fo Guang Shan Order who have a temple in Margaret St in a rather nice Grade II listed former Parish School and Church House designed by William Butterfield and built in 1868-70.

The festival was continuing over two days, but I only stayed for around an hour, photographing a colourful procession which included two lions and the Mayor of Westminster.

Chislehurst May Queen Ceremonies – Chislehurst

Chislehurst is around ten miles from the centre of London, in Kent until brought into Greater London on the edge of the London Borough of Bromley in 1965. Fortunately trains from Charing Cross go there in around half an hour, which makes it a popular commuter town, and took me there, where I had been invited by the organisers of the Chislehurst May Queen to photograph their May Queen Ceremonies.

Traditionally May had been a time when the New Year and Spring was celebrated, when young men and women danced together and often rather more, and a queen of the may was chosen to lead the event. Oliver Cromwell banned the celebrations as sinful pagan events, and although they came back after the restoration the events slowly died out or became more formal.

As I noted: “There was a revival of interest in old customs in the Victorian era, with various ‘Merrie England’ events being organised. Some schools had maypoles and learnt the dances and many Sunday Schools had their may queens who often took a leading part in Whit Walks.“

I became interested in these continuing events in 2005, going to photograph the Merrie England and London May Queen Festival at Hayes, Kent (also in LB Bromley.) It was the start of a project that led to my self-published book London’s May Queens (ISBN: 978-1-909363-06-9) and almost to a major museum exhibition, plans for which fell through at the last hurdle.

Book Preview

The book preview contains an essay on the history of London’s May Queens and a number of photographs from various May Queen events. Although print copies of the book are expensive you can purchase a reasonably priced PDF version.

But putting the pictures from this first event I photographed in 2005 on-line attracted a great deal of interest, particularly among the families involved, and led to me being invited to other events such as this at Chislehurst, who were particularly keen that I should photograph their proper maypole dancing.

*Last year’s Queen crowns the new May Queen*

As I explain on My London Diary, “Any girl five or over who lives or has grandparents who live in Chislehurst can join the retinue. They then work their way up the ranks, with the oldest girl of the year of joining having the choice of being Queen or Prince. Several months of twice-weekly rehearsals are required, and as well as the festival they also perform at other events.” From the various ‘realms’ such as Chislehurst, the girls then move on to become a part of the London May Queen group. The Chislehurst group is now open to both boys and girls.

Chislehurst first took part in the London May Queen festival in 1923, ten years after it was founded by Dulwich schoolmaster Joseph Deedy in 2013 – there is more of the history in my book. Their festival involved other groups in the area and seemed very much a community festival. It ended with a tea for the May Queen group in the Methodist church hall, and I waited for the May Queen to cut the cake with the help of her ‘Prince’ before leaving to catch the train back home.

I’m pleased to see that the Chislehust May Queen Society is still continuing – and has a Facebook group and a web site. They will be crowning their 99th May Queen tomorrow, as usual on the first Saturday of May.

More on all these events on the May 2006 page of My London Diary.

Notting Hill Carnival 2006

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.

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.

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.

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.

More pictures on My London Diary.

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.