Derry | >Re-PHOTO

Borough Market & Apprentice Boys – 2006

Borough Market & Apprentice Boys: On Saturday 21st October I went to the 250th anniversary celebrations at Borough Market and then to a march celebrating the closing by apprentices of the gates of Derry to the forces of King James II in 1688 which led to the siege of Derry the following year. Here are my accounts of both events from My London Diary in 2006 with a few minor alterations to make them more readable and links to more pictures on the site.

Borough Market: 250th Anniversary – Southwark

Borough Market started with the Romans a couple of thousand years ago, and around a thousand years ago was thriving on and around London’s only bridge across the river Thames. In the next few centuries it moved a little south into Borough High Street, and in 1550 received a royal charter, although like all London markets it was under the control of the City of London.

Increased congestion in Borough High Street lead to the first of nine Acts Of Parliament about the market’s activities in 1754, which moved it out of the road a few yards west to its present site. The agreement with the city authorities, which established the new market was made 250 years ago in 1756. Every year the Lord Mayor of London visits the market and collects fruit for the poor. It is now the only remaining wholesale and retail market in London.

The market is now officially a charity, but has always existed to support the residents of St Saviour’s Parish. Any surplus made by the market now goes to Southwark Council and the residents of the former parish get a rebate on their council tax.

The Worshipful Company of Fruiterers have also been celebrating the 400th anniversary of their Royal Charter in 1605. They had been inspecting (and levying duty) on London’s fruit and veg since 1292 or earlier, and received ordinances in 1463.

Until recently, Borough Market was a wholesale market, but its small size and transport problems meant that ten years ago it was almost empty and in a very poor state. Since then it has grown as a retail site for high quality food and drink, with many small specialist suppliers, as well as other small businesses. Two small parts of the site have been sold to provide money to rebuild and improve the market.

The Lord Mayor arrived with a small guard of pikemen and there were a few speeches. The fruiterers provide fresh fruit for a number of shelters for the homeless. The Lord Mayor and his party then toured the market, which had some fine displays of produce as well as its normal superb foods.

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Apprentice Boys of Derry March – Westminster

The Apprentice Boys Of Derry is a protestant organisation dedicated “to maintaining the spirit of liberty” displayed by the 13 apprentices who closed the gates of the city to the approaching army of the Catholic King James II in 1688. He demanded that the city surrender, receiving the now famous reply “No surrender!” The association which now organises parades to commemorate this was founded in 1814.

As well as in Derry itself, there are Apprentice Boys Clubs around the world, and each year there are several marches in London. At times their marches by or through largely Catholic areas have been extremely contentious, and the banning of their Portadown march in 1986 led to serious riots. Recent events in today’s calmer climate have caused fewer problems.

The march started near Victoria Station and went through Parliament Square to the Cenotaph in Whitehall where a wreath was laid. I left them at Trafalgar Square, on their way to a service at the Independent Congregational Church in Orange Street, behind the National Gallery, followed by a social evening.

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Guns & Knives, Pineapple, Orange & Thames 2008

Guns & Knives, Pineapple, Orange & Thames: On Saturday 20th September 2008 after photographing a protest over gun and knife crime, a festival in Stockwell and being assaulted at an Orange March I went to Open House Day at Trinity Buoy Wharf and then crossed the river to walk along the riverside path from North Greenwich to Greenwich.

The Peoples March – Kennington Park

The Peoples March’ against gun and knife crime from Kennington Park was organised by the Damilola Taylor Trust and other organisations and supported by the Daily Mirror and Choice FM and came at the end of London Peace Week.

In 2007 there were 26 teenagers killed on the streets of London, and many of those on the march “were the families and friends of young people whose lives were ended prematurely by violent death, and the grief felt by many of those I photographed was impossible to miss. They were stricken and angry and demanding that something was done to stop the killing.”

These deaths continue. They peaked in 2021 when 30 were killed, but most years there have been around 20 such tragic deaths. Despite many marches such as this and projects such as the Violence Reduction Unit set up in 2019 by London Mayor Sadiq Khan these deaths continue.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer met with victims’ families just a few days after the election and earlier this month held a knife crime summit at Downing Street aimed at halving it over the next decade. Earlier in the year King Charles and actor Idris Elba hosted a mini-summit on knife crime at St James’s Palace in July. A ban on the sale and possession of zombie-style knives and machetes will come into force in 4 days time.

It remains to be seen if these initiatives will have any effect. Back in 2008 I commented that “Effective action would involve huge cultural shifts and a direction of change that would reverse much of what we have seen over the past 50 or so years” and unfortunately there still seems little chance of this happening.

The Peoples March

Stockwell Festival – Pineapple Parade

My spirits were lifted by seeing so many people taking part in the Pineapple Parade, part of the Stockwell Festival, clearly enjoying themselves taking part with others in the event. As I commented, “Community festivals such as this have an important role in building the kind of relationships that lead to healthy communities.”

John Tradescant the Elder (1577-1638) and his son John Tradescant the Younger (1608-1662) had their extensive nurseries a little up the road from where I was taking pictures and brought many exotic species to this country in the seventeenth century, and possibly pineapples were among them, although sources differ on this. Some pineapples were imported here in that era but apparently they were only cultivated here in heated greenhouses in the nineteenth century.

But as I wrote in 2008 “among the dancing and fancy dress I also found a reminder of violent death, Stockwell is probably best known for the brutal shooting by police of an innocent unarmed Brazilian man who had just boarded an underground train at Stockwell Station in 2005.”

More pictures Stockwell Festival – Pineapple Parade.

Apprentice Boys of Derry March – Temple

I shivered a little as I went down the escalator and boarded the tube on my way to Temple to photograph the Apprentice Boys of Derry March in which various Orange Order associations were taking part.

As you can see from my pictures, most of those taking part were proud to be there and happy to be photographed.

“But at one point I found myself being pushed backwards by a large man in dark glasses and instructed very fimly to leave. This kind of intimidation certainly isn’t acceptable and of course I continued to take pictures of the event. But it was a reminder of the darker side of Loyalist Ulster, which I hadn’t expected to see on the streets of London.”

More pictures on My London Diary at Apprentice Boys of Derry March.

Open House at Container City – Trinity Buoy Wharf, Leamouth

I took the tube to Canning Town and then walked down the long way to Trinity Buoy Wharf, cursing that the path beside Bow Creek and long-promised bridge had not been built. Part of the walkway is now open and an new bridge to the redeveloped Pura Foods site now provides more convenient access.

It was Open House Day in London and I took advantage of this to visit Trinity Buoy Wharf and the Container City there, a set of artists studios built using containers. Begun on the site in 2001, this had by then expanded considerably.

Trinity Buoy Wharf is open every day of the year except Christmas Day, but in 2008 as this year there were many extra activities for Open House. And at the end of 2023 the only complete Victorian steam ship in existence, the SS Robin has joined the collection of Heritage Vessels there, though tours for Open House on Sat 21st & Sun 22nd September 2024 are fully booked.

The containers were interesting but I think it was other aspects of the site and the view from it that interested me most, as well as the chance to take the specially laid-on ferry across the Thames to North Greenwich.

Open House at Container City

North Greenwich to Greenwich – Thames Path, Greenwich

The riverside walk is one I’ve done many times and its always of interest although the section at North Greenwich was only opened up in the 1990s and in more recent times parts of the walk have been blocked during the construction of some of the new blocks of riverside flats.

A large aggregate wharf remains although most of the riverside industry has gone, including the silos and the rest of the works at Morden Wharf. And only Enderby House remains of the site from which ships left to lay undersea cables across the world.

Greenwich of course retains its grand buildings, now a part of Greenwich University.

On My London Diary there are also some views across the river, both to buildings Canning Town, Leamouth, Canary Wharf and the Isle of Dogs. It’s a walk I’ve done several times since and might well do again, probably starting from North Greenwich Station. You can see pictures from a walk in 2018 on My London Diary. And there are still some good pubs when you reach Greenwich on your way to the buses or stations there.

More pictures from September 20th 2008 at North Greenwich to Greenwich.

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Mooning for Soldier F

I hadn’t come up to London to photograph ‘Operation Zulu’, a protest against the prosecution of ‘Soldier F’ for the murder of civil rights protesters in Londonderry on ‘Bloody Sunday’ in 1972, but since I was in London I did take a brief walk through Parliament Square and Whitehall. And stopped to take a few photographs, mainly of a small group ‘mooning’ on the roof of an armoured vehicle. And to wonder why they called this ‘Operation Zulu’.

I remember going to see the film Zulu back in 1964, I thought at the Dominion Cinema in Hounslow, but memory is fallible as that apparently closed in 1961 (though this fine Art Deco building was only demolished after 45 years as a Bingo club in 2007), so perhaps it was the Regal. The film itself although based on history is incorrect in many aspects, and though the courage of the defenders of Rourke’s Drift is undeniable, the Zulu War it took place in was one of the worse aspects of our colonial past.

The man responsible for it has a statue I often walk past, in the Embankment gardens close to Northumberland Avenue, though I suspect few who walk past could tell you anything about Sir Henry Bartle Edward Frere. He was sent to South Africa as High Commissioner for the British Empire to carry out a British plan to combine all of the south of the continent into a Canada-style federation. Frere took advantage of postal delays between South Africa and the UK to carry out his unauthorise policy, sending the King of Zululand a completely unacceptable ultimatum which amounted to a declaration of war, and then sent in the British Army.

Despite the Zulus being equipped largely with spears, clubs and hide shields against British firepower of breech-loading rifles and a couple of field guns, the first battle resulted in a great Zulu victory – as Wikipedia puts it, “The British Army had suffered its worst defeat against an indigenous foe with vastly inferior military technology“. The successful defence of Rourke’s Drift (the subject of the film) did much to restore British morale and a much stronger force was then dispatched to finally defeat the Zulus.

Frere was censured but allowed to stay on for long enough to cause several other wars across the area, including the disastrous First Boer War before being finally recalled to London, where he was eventually dismissed by Prime Minister Gladstone and censured by Whitehall for his disastrous actions in South Africa and policies he advocated over Afghanistan which had led to the Second Anglo-Afghan War.

Bloody Sunday in Londonderry in 1972, when British soldiers shot 26 unarmed civilians during a protest march against internment without trial, is a more recent shameful episode in British history. The Tory governent recently announced that soldiers would be granted protection against prosecution for any alleged historic offences, except for those in the Northern Ireland “troubles”. Although there have clearly been some cases where the allegations made against soldiers have been unfounded, where there is significant genuine evidence there should be no immunity from prosecution.

If anything I think there is more justification in providing protection against prosecution for crimes committed by both sides in Northern Ireland than for the crimes against civilians in Iraq and other overseas conflicts the army have been sent to. We need peace in NI, and there needs to be a reconciliation between the two communities . Post-Brexit I think that also means a united Ireland, though it may take some years for this to arrive.

More pictures at Veterans Moon for Soldier F

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Justice and Bloody Sunday

I felt uneasy covering this protest against the prosecution of soldiers involved in the Bloody Sunday massacre, the murder of civil rights protesters in Derry/Londonderry in 1972, and other incidents in the Northern Ireland ‘Troubles.’

It wasn’t because of my views about their protest, though I’m clear that there is a need to see justice done for those who lost family and friends in that terrible event. I do wonder whether 47 years later there is much point in bringing ageing ex-soldiers to trial, and those who bear the real responsibility for the events – from Prime Minister Edward Heath down – are long dead. But is there any other way to reach some satisfactory conclusion?

It is of course shameful that these clearly illegal killings were not properly investigated at the time – and those soldiers who were found to have acted illegally brought to justice at the time. We shouldn’t have the culture of cover-up which is so deeply embedded in both our military, government and judicial establishment – and continues to cover up crimes such as the killings by police officers of mentally disturbed black young men, newspaper sellers and Brazilian electricians and those responsible for creating the death-trap of Grenfell tower (and almost certainly the mysterious death of weapons expert David Kelly.) The list goes on and on…

If I had been a few years older I would have either faced National Service either in the armed forces or to have taken the decision as one of my brothers did to enter one of the non-military essential services as an alternative. Fortunately for him, the call-ups ended in November 1960 when he was still a student, and I was still at school.

After the last National Servicemen left the forces in 1963, they became solely reliant on recruits and their nature has changed, developing a more conservative and right-wing nature. Extreme right organisations such as the EDL included many ex-soldiers among their members, and the Veterans Against Terrorism joined with the Football Lads Alliance for what was clearly a racist and Islamophobic protest despite the protestations of the organisers in October 2017.

So while the veterans protesting here were a much wider group – and certainly I would not label them as racists, I knew that among them would be some of those who had threatened and attacked me when I was photographing right-wing protests, and I was uneasy when mingling with the crowd. And as I made my way to the front of the protest I did see and hear several people pointing and making aggressive comments about me and moved very smartly away.

Once at the front of course I had no problems as those leading the protest were keen to get press coverage and not involved with the extreme right; when a UKIP EU Election candidate tried to make a political speech he was given very short shrift and hustled away, by people shouting “No Politics“.

The protesters feel strongly that the soldiers who served in the Troubles should be protected from what they see as unfair prosecutions – as the government have made clear that those who served in operations in other countries such as Iraq will be. It does seem hard to argue that those who served in Northern Ireland should be treated differently from those who served in overseas conflicts.

What really would I think be even more important than bringing the few guilty individuals to trials which may or may not find them guilty – and after so many years it must be difficult to find really convincing evidence despite their guilt – is for there to be a proper recognition of the institutional culture, prejudices and shortcomings that lay behind their actions and which allowed them to be covered up for 47 years – and I suspect may still operate to prevent a true verdict being obtained in any prosecution – and for effective action to be taken to correct these.

The Stephen Lawrence case made clear and public the institutional racism of the Metropolitan Police, and led to some actions to oppose this, though clearly much more still needs to be done. The deaths at Deepcut Barracks revealed the the toxic culture in the Army and much more needs to be done to combat this.

More about the protest and more pictures: Veterans demand end of NI prosecutions.

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.