Childrens Day, Notting Hill Carnival: Sunday 29th August 2004 was Children’s Day at Notting Hill Carnival and back in 2004 I wrote just two short paragraphs to go with a large number of pictures.
“I don’t know whose wallet it was in the hand I caught as it reached into my pocket in Cambridge Gardens, but it wasn’t mine. It wasn’t the time or place to argue much, so I let the youth wriggle away.”
“The 40th Notting Hill Carnival was living up to its reputation, in this and also in the friendliness of most of the participants. This was Children’s Day, so I took my son, and will embarrass him with a couple of pictures of him dancing. But mostly it was what we have come to expect, and a little dull weather and the odd shower didn’t mar the celebrations”
I didn’t take my wallet to Notting Hill, but in a densely-packed crowd found a hand putting an empty one back into my left front trouser pocket. Perhaps he thought he had earlier taken it from that same pocket before removing the contents and was trying to replace it, or did he just want an easy way to get rid of the evidence.
I think I probably went to carnival on around twenty or thirty days over the years, though I’ve not been recently. Apart from this rather odd incident I saw very little criminality apart from the widespread smoking of weed – and I picked up enough secondary smoke some days to make me rather high.
But generally there were many more pickpockets on crowded underground trains and much more violence in the crowds around football stadiums. Press reports always greatly exaggerated the negative sides of the event and I never felt unsafe. When there were reports of trouble it was usually late in the day when I had gone home.
But I did take some simple precautions – taking a couple of notes and some coins rather than my wallet and credit cards, and being more careful than usual with my photo gear. I carried less than usual and kept it in a small ex-military shoulder bag – though in crowds I carried this around my neck and in front of my body.
Attitude is also important. Some photographers seem to me to be rather confrontational but I followed my normal friendly nature, smiling, talking and at times dancing with people. Like most of the others at the event I was there to have a good time. And to have just a can or two of Red Stripe – and some of my free annual malt fix.
End Austerity Now & Class War: On Saturday 20th June 2015 I sent to photograph the march organised by the People’s Assembly Against Austerity from the Bank of England to Parliament Square. Class War came to protest calling for direct action rather than marches which changed nothing and after photographing them in the City I went with them to Downing Street – and they paused for a brief protest at the Savoy on the way.
End Austerity Now at Bank
Bank
Large crowds gathered around the Bank of England for the start of a massive march against austerity organised by the People’s Assembly Against Austerity and supported by many groups including CND, the Green Party, People’s March for the NHS, Global Women’s Strike, Basic Income, Revolutionary Communist Group, Clapton Ultras and many other groups and individuals from around the country.
Clapton Ultras -“Football for all. Good times, good songs and Polish lager. Always antifascist.”
So many were being affected by the cuts which had forced down incomes, cut benefits and the welfare state, cut education, destroyed youth services, made massive cuts to the NHS and public services while supporting the bankers whose actions had led to the crisis.
Austerity is a Con – Westmonster Banksters sponsored by Rothschild
The programme of austerity introduced by the coalition government and continued under the Tories had seriously harmed the country and slowed its recovery from the financial crisis and seemed to be a punishment for the crimes of others, which had been made possible by the changes to the banking system introduced under Thatcher in 1986.
As usual estimates of the number of marchers varied hugely, with the organisers claiming a quarter of a million, while the BBC contented itself with ‘”thousands”. From the time it took and the density of the crowds I think it was at least a hundred thousand. Parliament Square was well filled with others still arriving, but like many others I went home rather than listen to the speeches.
Class War held their banner on a footway overlooking the march
Class War had come to the protest to call for end of A to B marches to rallies and call for direct action. They succeeded in diverting several hundred of the marchers to make their way to protest at a squatted pub near the Elephant which Foxtons want to open as an estate agents.
Class War had brought several banners including the ‘Political Leaders’, a new version of that seized by police at a ‘Poor Doors’ protest, the ‘Lucy Parsons banner with its quote “We must devastate the avenues where the wealthy live” and ‘We have found new homes for the rich‘, with its rows of crosses on graves extending into the distance which police were then still pressing charges against Lisa McKenzie over.
Lisa McKenzieAdam Clifford
Lisa was there along with the others including Adam Clifford who stood for Class War in the Westminster constituency, today wearing a top with fake exposed breasts and holding a fairly lifelike looking baby. As well as those above the protest others protested on the side of the street below.
Many marchers raised fists and shouted in solidarity with Class War as they passed, though some shook their heads, while others tried to ignore them. This wasn’t easy as they made a fair amount of noise and let off several smoke flares.
Around 30 police gathered around them at one point and it looked very much if they were going into action, but after a discussion between several senior officers on the scene, most rapidly walked away.
I stayed in the area either with them above the march or down below on the densely crowded wide street for around an hour, making many pictures both of Class War and the marchers.
They sit in the pub and police wait for them outside
When the end of the march appeared to reach them they joined in for a couple of hundred yards then peeled off to go to the Olde London pub on Ludgate Hill
Class War insist on the right to protest outside the Savoy
After a rest in the pub Class War walked down towards Westminster with their police escort to carry out more protests.
Approaching the Savoy Hotel some broke out into a run to get ahead of their escorts but found that there were more police already waiting there.
But they unrolled their banners again and briefly blocked the entrance with ‘New Homes for the Rich’ and ‘Lucy Parsons’ banners. After minor scuffles and arguments with police they marched on.
A woman talks to Adam Clifford of Class War holding a baby and a banner outside the gates of Downing St
Class War continued their protests in Whitehall, displaying their banners, setting off flares and dancing with others to a sound system which joined them briefly.
They then moved off towards Downing Street where they posed for photographs with all three banners – and threw a flare over the gate.
Their protest continued there with short speeches and more dancing. People were still coming down the street to join the People’s Assembly Against Austerity protest in Parliament Square and some stopped briefly to join in.
Eventually Class War decided it was time to roll up the banners and leave before police intervened – and it was time to go to the pub again. But for me it was time to go home.
More Golden Jubilee Celebrations: Monday June 3 2002 was the official Golden Jubilee Bank Holiday, and a number of events were taking place across the nation. And although I wasn’t myself celebrating I felt I should in some way document the events and picked a couple I felt might be of interest.
Here I’ll reproduce what I wrote in My London Diary in 2002 with the usual minor corrections, along with some of the pictures I posted back then, though the scans I made are sometimes rather primitive. I’ll also link to more pictures on-line, though there are still many from the day I’ve yet to digitise.
“June 3 I went to see how ordinary people were celebrating – first of all to a council organised even in Ilford, and then to a street party in the heart of the East End. “
Redbridge Jubilee Celebrations
Ilford High Rd, Ilford.#
Redbridge is in some ways one of the bleaker London boroughs, and the event seemed to lack any real centre or real conviction.
Perhaps the brightest point was the rain, which brought out a little of the true british spirit.
Mile End is also bleak when you emerge from the Underground, with too many lanes of road cutting through its centre.
To the north, and running up to the Roman and Vicky Park is one of the remnants of London’s East End, still with many of its Victorian terraces.
The street party was in full swing when I arrived and everyone was out to have a good time.
It was a great event for kids and for grandmas and everyone else, and the bar and the pub were doing good business too.
These were the real East-Enders – with a cast including a real Black Bishop in purple robes, two fancy dress Beefeaters, police who could almost have been from Dock Green (except for the hats), a fire engine and its crew and plenty of characters.
Not a single juggler, mime or performance artist in sight (sometimes I ask myself what did I do to father a unicyclist.) These were people who – like we all used to – could make their own entertainment.
Food, drink, chat, music, a bit of a dance, games for the kids. It was a street rather like the area I grew up in fifty years ago, where everybody knew each other, although now with a rather more multi-ethnic population.
People – apart from the odd shy kid – were happy to have their pictures taken and to talk. One man saw I was photographing the decorations on his house and came over to tell me how his father had decorated it for the Silver Jubilee twenty five years earlier and that he had been determined to do it better.
They hadn’t quite got to a real full-blown knees-up, but it seemed definitely on the cards but it was time for me to go. As I walked away three young women were walking towards the party on the other side of the street, “D’you wanna take our picture“, one shouted, seeing my cameras. “No film left” I replied.
The following day I meant to go out and take more pictures of other Jubilee events, but in the end I couldn’t make it, just feeling it would be too much of an anti-climax.
There are six pages with pictures from the celebrations in Bow. Back in 2002 we were still on dial-up connections and so images were spread out only a few on each page to give sensible loading times. Images were then shared on the web at much lower quality than we would use now. The links to the next page are usually above the final picture and the final page from the event is of black and white images.
Brian, Bears, Morris and May Queens: On Saturday 13th May 2006 I went to Parliament Square where I photographed resident peace protester Brian Haw and Morris Dancers, going on to more dancers performing in Trafalgar Square as a part of a Westminster Day of Dance. From there the Underground took me out to Hanger Lane from where I walked to Brentham to photograph the 100th anniversary of the first Brentham May Queen crowning.
Brian Haw at Parliament Square
Brian and the Bears
Brian Haw lost the appeal by the government over his protest in Parliament Square, the court deciding that the Serious Organised Crimes And Police Act did apply to his protest after all, despite it having started around 4 years before the act came into force. It seems to be a decision that reflects more on the ability of the government to apply pressure rather than one that suggests an independent judiciary.
At the moment, Brian is still there, his protest now regulated by the police, but it seems rather likely that at some moment the feel convenient they will decide to terminate it. On Saturday morning I went to have a short word with him and take some more pictures, particularly of some of the bears who are with him.
His protest from the start has been about the killing of children, at first by the effects of sanctions, then by the war, and the teddy bear symbolises this (I think of one of the most poignant images from the Second World War, by Cecil Beaton, of a child in a hospital bed with a teddy bear.) I hope to be back to see Brian tomorrow, with a few friends, if he is still there. [He was, and depite constant harassment remained there until ill-health forced him to leave in 2011, dying in a German hospital six mohnths later.]
For several years there has been a dance festival in Westminster in May, with teams of Morris Dancers from around the country. I caught up with them briefly dancing in front of St Margaret’s Church next to Westminster Abbey, then a little later in Trafalgar Square.
Although i’ve never had a great desire to take up Morris myself, it certainly is one of our English traditions, going back at least 500 years – the first written record of it is in 1448.
It was still alive in many villages in the nineteenth century and a revival started in the early twentieth century particularly through the work of Cecil Sharp, who collected over 170 different dances around the country and started the English Folk Dance Society in 1911. Sharp and Mary Neal published books of dances, and in the 1920s and 30s, country dancing became a part of most young school children’s week. How I hated it in the 1950s!
It is perhaps that enforced participation that led to Morris Dancing being thought of as something false and lacking in credibility. In a curious anomaly, our Arts Councils refuse to support English ethnic dances while (quite rightly) giving aid to foster dance and related activities among minority ethnic groups. Despite this, Morris Dancing has continued to grow both in the UK and now increasingly abroad, particularly in Canada and the USA.
All the teams in Trafalgar Square were men, although there are also many women dancers. One of the things that comes out in my pictures is that the dance is at times a very athletic event. Many of the traditional dances use swords or staves and have a link to martial arts. Morris also has a strong link to another English tradition, the ale house.
May continued for me with another May Queen. Last year (2005) I had photographed the oldest continuing May Queen event at least in the London area, the Merrie England and London May Queen Fayre at Hayes, Kent, held continuously since 1913. This year I went instead to Brentham, where a May Fayre with maypole dancing was held in 1906, and its centenary was held this year.
For this event, the organisers had managed to find and invite along many former May Queens, including some from the 1950s. Some had come long distances to be there, including one now living in America.
Brentham was one of the earliest “garden village” estates, built by ‘Ealing Tenants’ a co-partnership housing scheme started in 1901 and largely completed by 1915. The road layout was designed by Raymond Unwin and Barry Parker, and it was in many ways a model for other and better known garden villages.
The Brentham May Queen is less formalised that the south London events, with little or no long speeches and ceremonies (unlike Hayes it was not set up by a Dulwich schoolmaster.)
As well as the May Queen Elect and previous May Queens, each with a small group of attendants, there is also a herald who leads the parade (aided today by a brass band) Brittania, Sailor and Soldier, and, leading the large group of around 150 young girls dressed in white with flowers, a Jack In The Green, covered with leaves, with just bare legs and sandals visible.
The crowning of the 2006 Brentham May Queen
After the parade around the area, there was a short ceremony in one of the fields by the River Brent in which last year’s May Queen crowned the new queen, and a very short speech. Following this were country dances and dancing round the maypole, but I left before this began.
Global Marijuana March: According to Wikipedia, the “Global Marijuana March (GMM), also referred to as the Million Marijuana March (MMM), is an annual rally held at different locations around the world on the first Saturday in May.”
The Wikipedia article goes on to say it was first held in 1999, then tella me that “Since then, hundreds of thousands of people have participated in over 1034 different cities in 85 nations and subnational areas.”
Legalise Cannabis March, Kennington to Brixton
The first march was in New York City, but although London was one of those 1034 cities it doesn’t get a mention. There have been various events in London over the years calling for legalisation of cannabis, but in more recent years these have mainly taken place on ‘420’, April 20th.
Supplies of something were on offer
The name ‘420’ came from a group of friends in San Rafael, California, who called themselves the Waldos. They had agreed to meet after school one day at 4.20pm to search for an abandoned cannabis farm, using the term ‘420’ as shorthand for their (unsuccessful) quest. After this they carried on using ‘420’ as a coded way to talk about marijuana particularly when teachers and parents were around.
The Waldos were fans of The Grateful Dead, very much a part of the counterculture and associated with cannabis use, and the term spread to other fans of this Californian rock group and on worldwide.
I only wrote a short paragraph on the event in 2002:
“Saturday 4 May was some kind of World Cannabis Day, and those who could still stand made it down to Kennington and marched down through Stockwell & Brixton to Brockwell Park, were we we danced, ate, drank and did all the kind of things people do at festies.“
Legalise Cannabis Festival, Brockwell Park, Herne Hill
My experience of cannabis remained only through from thick secondhand smoke as I wandered through the event taking black and white and colour pictures. There are a few more black and whites on My London Diary.
May Day 2000 – Anti-capitalist celebrations: May Day has been celebrated in Europe since ancient times as the beginning of Summer, with festivities, dancing and more, but also became International Workers’ Day following the 1889 International Workers Congress, the date marking the start of a general strike in the USA in 1886 which lead to the Haymarket affair three days later.
May 1st is a public holiday in many countries, but only occasionally in the UK when the first Monday in May happens to be on 1st May. The Labour government that eventually brought in the early May Bank Holiday in 1978 chickened out from making it actually May Day. So one of the many advantages of leaving full-time teaching to become a freelance writer and photographer was that I was for the first time able to able to go every year to the May Day events in London.
As it happens, the first May Day after that was Monday May 1st 2000 and the big London event on that day was an anti-capitalist celebration that combined elements of both the traditional events and International Workers Day, beginning with partying and ‘guerrilla gardening’ in the sun in Parliament Square.
I went with the protesters up Whitehall towards Trafalgar Square, and was outside McDonald’s when a handful of protesters began smashing the windows there. Most of the people at the protest stood back and watched. I was a few yards away and the crowd was too dense for me to get close enough to take pictures.
Police clearly made no effort to protect the McDonald’s though it was an obvious target, but stood waiting around the corner until after the damage took place before charging into the protest, herding them into Trafalgar Square where they were kettled for some hours and around 95 people were arrested. It looked as if police had they had planned to let protesters attack the fast-food outlet to justify the use of violence against the large crowd of peaceful protesters.
The BBC report began “Hundreds of demonstrators have been fighting running battles with police during anti-capitalist protests in London” but failed to say that these ‘battles’ were the result of police attacks on largely peaceful protesters – and they also wrongly said the McDonald’s was “in The Strand“. They used the term “defaced‘ for the decoration of Churchill’s statue with a turf ‘Mohican’ which considerably overstated the event, but was also the main preoccupation of the rest of the media. Reading their account I very much get the impression that it was written by someone not there when things were happening.
As you can see from my account at the time below, I was there until I saw the riot police charging the protesters, batoning clearly peaceful protesters offering them flowers, before deciding to go home rather than face possible police violence and detention.
May Day 2000 – Anti-capitalist Celebrations
May in London must mean May Day, and we made the most of this one, dancing around Parliament Square.
I was more or less next to Macdonalds on Whitehall when demonstrators started to break windows and generally smash it up. It was obvious it was going to happen some time before, and the police made no attempt to prevent it, standing back and letting things happen, although they were massed down a nearby side-street.
I could only conclude they wanted some damage to be able to justify their actions that were to follow, as well as the dire warnings their superior officers had spent some time giving on the media.
The damage could easily have been prevented; action by a handful of police would have been enough to have led the demonstrators on into Trafalgar Square.
A woman harangues demonstrator’s from behind police lines
When I saw they were letting it happen, I drew back, making my way through the police lines as they prepared for a massive charge. I watched the first few waves go in and belatedly take up positions. They were hyped up for action and one or two stepped out of line to attack a demonstrator who was offering them flowers with their sticks, knocking him flying and leaving blood pouring from his head. I was just too far away on the wrong side of the charging police to get the picture.
One or two photographers who got close to the police received similar treatment. At this point I decided to leave the scene before I was trapped in by the police or assaulted – I had other things I needed to do that evening. If I had left it a few minutes later I would have been among the several thousand confined for hours for little reason in Trafalgar Square. Perhaps I would have got more pictures, but equally likely I would have suffered gratuitous violence. I wasn’t commissioned to be there and decided not to stay.
There are just a few more pictures on My London Diary but quite a few more that I’ve never posted on-line, both black and white and colour. I hope to digitise more later.
Stop the War – Troops Out: The protest organised by Stop the War, CND and British Muslim Initiative on Saturday 15th March, 2008 was an impressive one, with around 50,000 marchers calling for the withdrawal of our troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, no attack on Iran and a free Palestine, as well as many other groups drawing attention to other issues around the world including the genocide in Somalia.
Tony Benn
It began with a rally in Trafalgar Square where speakers included Tony Benn and Bruce Kent and then took a roundabout route across Westminster Bridge and then back over the Thames on Lambeth Bridge and up Millbank to Parliament Square. Those at the rear of the march were still passing the corner of the square when those at the front arrived back there.
It was an event that included many issues still relevant now, particularly over Iran and Palestine, but also on direct action, with a reminder of the then upcoming trial of the Raytheon 9, anti-war activists who had entered the Raytheon factory in Derry in August 2006 after learning that Raytheon missiles were being used by Israel in their 2006 invasion of Lebanon.
Occupying the offices for eight hours before they were arrested they destroyed computers and documents, and six were tried for criminal damage and affray in May 2008. One man was found guilty of stealing two computer disks but they were all acquitted on all other charges.
The police took a great deal of interest in the protest, with FIT teams who photograph protesters (and journalists, particularly photographers) took an unusual interest in anarchist protesters from Class War, the Anarchist Federation and FITwatch who use their banner to try to prevent the police taking photographs and video.
I missed seeing four of the FITwatch protesters arrested, apparently for intimidating the police. As I commented, “Since a couple of weeks ago one of their photographers and his minder had been seen taking flight and seeking refuge up the steps of the National Gallery when pursued by a polite and always well behaved woman with a shopping trolley and free cakes – much to the amusement of other police present – intimidating the FIT doesn’t seem too difficult.“
But this – like the many large pro-Palestine protests since ‘September 7th’ – was an entirely peaceful protest, calling for peace in many areas around the world and for an end to UK involvement in wars and oppression.
It was a lively protest, with samba band, sound systes, street theatre and dancing. People laid flowers at Nelson Mandela’s statue and Brian Haw – still permanently camped in Parliament Square despite the attempts to remove him by passing SOCPA – joined the protest.
And like all of these marches it also included many Jewish marchers including the Neturei Karta ultra-orthodox anti-Zionists.
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.
Soho Pride – 1st August 2004: Soho Pride was a festival celebrated in the streets around Old Compton Street from 2003-2008, a separate event from the annual London Pride parade which now takes over the whole area for after-parties on the day of the parade. You can read a little more about it # on the Historic England web site which has a “Self-Guided Virtual Heritage Walking Tour” 130 Years of Queer Soho (or thereabouts) which includes Soho Pride.
I paid the first Soho Pride a brief visit in 2003 on my way home from a busy 5th July after covering a protest calling for legal recognition of British Sign Language and the Somerstown Festival Of Cultures. There are just a few pictures of Soho and Soho Pride 2003 on My London Diary.
I spent rather longer at Soho Pride 2004, and here is what I wrote it on My London Diary – and all the pictures in this post come from the 2004 festival.
The first Soho Pride held last year was a great success, and this year's event followed the same pattern. Street closures, restaurant tables in the roadway, DJs and loud sounds, people out to eat, drink, dance and generally have a good time.
Even in mid-afternoon, the streets were beginning to get really packed, especially outside the more popular gay bars and around the club DJs.
Really it was one big party, and a party that catered for almost all tastes except in music, which was uniformly relentless club beats. Perhaps a pity that the Jazz On The Streets events had beat a retreat to Carnaby Street (surely forty years behind us with flower power.)
After a while I began to feel my age, and escaped to the Underground and home for a quiet and leisurely alfresco dinner with a few glasses of white wine.
TUC ‘March For The Alternative – On 26th March 2011 between a quarter and half a million people marched through London against planned public spending cuts by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government in the largest demonstration since the 2003 protest against the plan to invade Iraq.
The TUC argued that what the country needed was not austerity but policies that would grow the economy, and that we should raise income from those more able to pay rather than by measures that had the greatest impact on the poorest in society.
It was the largest march and rally organised by the trade union movement since the Second World War, and like other major trade union marches was perhaps largely worthy but not exciting – and like others it achieved nothing. The cuts went ahead and we all suffered – except of course the wealthy – who continued to grow richer and richer, helped by government bail-outs and the deliberate failures to tackle tax evasion, stop tax avoidance loopholes and raise taxes on those with excessive wealth.
The cuts particularly hit the public services, including teachers, nurses and other medical professionals – and eventually helped drive these areas into the critical conditions that they are now in. They resulted in financial problems and excessive workloads and also meant that those of us who rely on public provision for health and education often failing to get proper treatment. The gap between those who could afford private services and those who relied on the state provision increased.
Particularly hard hit by the cuts were the disabled and for them the situation continues to worsen with our now Labour government announcing huge cuts which will leave many considerably worse off – and greatly reduce their ability to lead normal lives and contribute to society.
As well as the TUC, other groups contributed to the march, announcing various feeder marches and other activities, many of which added a little life and colour to the day’s events. They also resulted in over 200 arrests and a number of injuries.
Too much was happening on the day for me to rehash it all here, but you can read my seven posts on my London Diary for my account of events. I started with the feeder marches from South London, disowned by the TUC. The ‘Armed Wing of the TUC’ brought its street theatre Trojan Horse, Spitfire, Tank and armed Lollipop Ladies produced by Camberwell art students to Camberwell Green where they marched to Kennington where the South London Feeeder March was gathering for a rally before the march in Kennington Park – the site of the final “monster meeting” of the Chartists on 10th April 1848 from where they marched to Parliament to deliver their final petition.
I left there to take the tube to Trafalgar Square where I found that the main march had started early and was well on its way to Hyde Park and I stayed around there for over an hour as marchers filed past, including photographing the Morris Liberation Front, an idea of Henry Flitton specially for the TUC demonstration, with music, provided by a couple of mandolins playing the Clash’s ‘I fought the Law’ and the Smith’s ‘Panic.
Later in the day Trafalgar Square was the site of bitter fighting as police made a largely unprovoked attack on a partying crowd, but when I was there things were peaceful.
I left the square to follow several hundred anarchists, dressed in black and mainly wearing face masks making their way up past the National Portrait Gallery, many waving red and black flags. I went with them through the back streets to Piccadilly Circus and then up Regent Street where they turned off into Mayfair and were held off by police when they attacked a RBS branch – one of the main banks to receive a huge government handout.
At Oxford Circus they attacked Topshop, then owned by the prominent tax avoider Sir Philip Green. As I went to take photographs of police arresting one of the protesters and holding him on the ground I was “hit full on the chest by a paint-bomb possibly aimed at the police, although many of the protesters also have an irrational fear of photographers. My cameras were still working and I continued to photograph, but I had also become a subject for the other photographers.”
It wasn’t painful, but it was very messy and bright yellow. I scraped and washed the worst off in a nearby public toilet for around 20 minutes, then went out to take more photographs, joining UK Uncut supporters who had come to hold peaceful protests at tax dodging shops and banks around Oxford St and to party at Oxford Circus.
Eventually I followed them down to Piccadilly Circus where 4 hours after the start of the official march people were still filing past. I stopped there and photographed until the end of the march passed, rather than going with UK Uncut into Fortnum and Mason. Inside the story they sat down and occupied the store peacefully. if noisily calling on them to pay their taxes. After an hour or more a senior police officer told them they were free to leave, promising they could make their way home “without obstruction”. 138 were arrested as they left the store, charged with ‘aggravated trespass’. Most of the cases were latter dropped but at least 10 were found guilty, given a six-month conditional discharge and a £1,000 fine.
Even after the official end of the march there were various other groups following the march route – including a group of Libyans with green flags, marching in support of Colonel Gaddaffi. I walked back to Trafalgar Square where there were still plenty of people around but everything was pretty quiet, so I got on the tube to come home and try to wash more of the paint off.
I think it was later when police made a charge to try and clear Trafalgar Square than almost all the arrests on the actual march took place – according to Google “Further clashes were reported later in Trafalgar Square. 201 people were arrested, and 66 were injured, including 31 police officers.” Had the police simply gone away people would have eventually dispersed and there would have been no trouble.
Others also got hit by paintballs
Back home I spent hours trying to scrub out yellow paint, but the rather expensive jacket I was wearing was only ever really fit to wear for gardening. The also expensive jumper underneath still has some small traces of yellow 14 years and many washes later, though I do sometimes still wear it around the house. Until my Nikon D700 came to the end of its life, beyond economic repair, a few years later I would still come across the occasional speck of yellow paint.
Much more about the day and many more pictures in the following posts on My London Diary
