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Diamonds, Peace & St George – 2016

Diamonds, Peace & St George: St George’s Day, 23rd April, celebrates the death of this Cappadocian Greek soldier in the Roman Army martyred on this day in AD 303 for refusing to recant his Christian faith. We know little about his life, but can be sure that he never killed a dragon.

As I commented back in 2005, “St George keeps busy as a patron saint of Canada, Catalonia, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Lithuania, Malta, Palestine and Portugal, as well as a number of cities including Moscow and Venice, a whole raft of trades including farmers and soldiers, as well as herpes and syphilis. It’s perhaps surprising he still has time for England, although until recently you would hardly have noticed it in any case.“

It is also at least 23 other national days around the world, a few of which are related to the birth of Shakespeare who was most probably born on April 23, 1564. But I won’t be celebrating National Talk Like Shakespeare Day, World Table Tennis Day, National Cherry Cheesecake Day or any of the rest, though I suppose there is just an outside chance I might dabble with German Beer Day (though I’m more partial to British Bitter, increasingly a rare species, which has its day on June 15th.)

My day began with two protests against the selling of blood diamonds from Sierra Leone at leading London stores, before I went to Trafalgar Square to briefly visit the unimpressive St George’s Day event there. I ate my sandwiches in the Peace Garden at the Imperial War Museum before going to a St George’s Day procession in Southwark from St George’s Cathedral to the church of St George the Martyr, and finally went to a pub in Southwark with a couple of friends where I met and photographed two St Georges.

Sierra Leone Blood Diamonds at Selfridges – Oxford St

Diamonds, Peace & St George - 2016 — *Octea mine diamonds in Sierra Leone, Tiffany sell them in Selfridges and children in Kono die*

People from the Kono district of Sierra Leone protested at Selfridges on Oxford St as part of a global demonstration against the financial partnership of Tiffany & Co with Octea, the largest diamond mining company in Sierra Leone. They say people in Kono suffer and die because of Octea’s diamond mining.

Octea, wholly owned by Israeli billionaire, Benny Steinmetz is operated by former mercenaries and has been allowed to operate without a licence and tax free. The protesters say it’s operation defies all national and international legal norms and ethics.

Sierra Leone Blood Diamonds at Selfridges

Sierra Leone Blood Diamonds at Tiffanys – Sloane Square

From Selfridges the group went on to Tiffanys. Police told them they could not protest on the wide pavement there but must go across to protest in a pen set aside for them in the square opposite.

After some argument they did so, although there seemed to be no reason other than lessening the impact of the protest for the police to move them. Why UK police should take the side of Tiffany and support illegal diamond mining by Octea that defies all national and international legal norms and ethics is hard to understand.

Sierra Leone Blood Diamonds at Tiffany

St Georges Day in Trafalgar Square

St George was there and you could have your picture taken with a dragon and the square was filled with long tables where you could sit and eat food from the many stalls set up around the edges of the square.

Everyone got handed little St George’s flags, but there seemed to be little going on and little real atmosphere. Perhaps things might have picked up later in the day, but I didn’t feel like returning.

St Georges Day in London

Peace Garden

Instead I ate my sandwiches in the Samten Kyil (Garden of Contemplation) in Geraldine Mary Harmsworth Park commissioned by Tibet Foundation, designed by sculptor Hamish Horsley and opened by the Dalai Lama in 1999. A few yards from the Imperial War Museum it was conveniently just across the road from where my next event was to start.

Peace Garden at War Museum

St George in Southwark Procession – St George’s Cathedral to St George the Martyr

A procession for St George’s Day, led by St George, a Roman Emperor, the Mayor of Southwark and others and with a dragon at its rear made its way from the St George’s RC Cathedral to the Church of England St George the Martyr in Borough High Street. It was a part of ‘A Quest for Community’ with the aim of ‘Taming the dragon of difference’ and was followed by a play outside St George the Martyr telling the true story of St George, a Roman solider from Palestine who chose death rather than give up his Christian faith.

*From right to left: St George, Emperor Diocletian, the priestess or haruspex and the emperor’s daughter*

I’d not been inside this building before and we had an interesting tour of the building before the procession. Designed by Augustus Pugin it was gutted by incendiary bombing in 1942, left it with only walls and one chapel standing but was rebuilt to the same plan, finishing in 1958.

The route was an interesting one and along streets I had previously photographed – and went past the blue plaque where photographer Bert Hardy was born – and I was able to tell the Mayor something about one of Southwark’s more famous.

We arrived rather late at St George the Martyr and I had to leave shortly after the beginning of a play about St George being performed there by local children – possibly something of a relief.

St George in Southwark Procession

St Georges in the Kings Arms – Newcomen Street

Two of my photographer friends had been going to come to the St George procession, but had apparently been unable to find St George’s Cathedral. Instead we had arranged to meet afterwards at the King’s Arms, a traditional British pub just off Borough High Street.

Among those drinking there were not one but two St George’s and I photographed both of them, one with his fortunately rather friendly dragon.

Pictures at the bottom of the My London Diary page St Georges Day in London.

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Llawhaden Bridge, Church & Castle

Llawhaden Bridge, Church & Castle: My final post on my holiday at the start of September 2024 in Wales.

The last day of our holiday in Wales was a gloomy one so far as the weather was concerned, overcast and with occasional light rain interrupting the drizzle. It didn’t stop me from taking a rather long route into Narberth from our holiday cottage at Narberth Bridge in the morning with Linda, though it was a walk I’d made on my own a few days earlier, stopping then to take photographs in rather better weather and I made no more this time.

Back at the cottage after lunch we decided the weather would not put us off another walk and made plans to visit Llawhaden to view the church and castle and then to walk along a footpath to Robeston Wathen, where we would phone for a car to pick us up and take us back to Narberth.

It seemed a long drive mainly along narrow country lanes to take us to Llawhaden Bridge, a Grade II* scheduled monument. This medieval stone arch bridge is said to be “of national importance for its potential to enhance our knowledge of xmedieval or post-medieval construction techniques and transportation systems.” Wikipedia says it was built in the mid-18th century.

For us it was a convenient place to be dropped off and to take us across the Eastern Cleddau river, which here formed the boundary from Norman times between English and Welsh-speaking Wales.

Over the bridge we turned right, taking the road below the steep hill up to the village of Llawhaden to its church beside the river. It was unusual in being one of six parishes that straddled the linguistic border and was bilingual. The bridge is now on the Landsker Borderlands Trail that marks this divide.

St Aidan’s church was an impressive building from the outside, but relatively bare inside with only a few monuments on its wall, and just a little stained glass. This medieval church has an unusual double tower and is II* listed with a very complete description of the structure

Opposite the church is a steep path leading up around 80 metres to the village of Llawhaden, emerging close to the castle, though by the time I’d got to the top I was too out of breath to notice it and walked to the centre of the village before realising it was behind me.

Llawhaden was a far more important place back in the 12th and 13th century as it became the administrative centre of Dewisland, the land owned by the Bishops of St Davids which King Henry I had issued a charter as a Marcher Lordship – effectively an independent state.

The castle was first built as a smaller military castle to protect the area from the Welsh on the other side of the Cleddau river, but this was destroyed by the Welsh in 1193 was later replaced by the fortified palace for the Bishops whose remains we spent some time walking around and climbing up and down various parts. Much of it was “embellished” by Bishop Houghton in the 14th century, but later after it fell into disuse, much of the stones were used for other buildings in the area.

The site is well presented and free to visit, but rather off the beaten track despite being only a couple of miles from the A40. There were only two other visitors in the 25 minutes or so we spent there.

We might have spent longer, but the only one of us with a mobile phone realised she had left the piece of paper on which she had written the phone number for our ride home back in Narberth. We tried to contact others who might know it without success and our emails to the driver were only read the following day. We decided we had to walk back the whole way and continued on the route, going back down the hill and back over Llawhaden Bridge to the bridle way and footpath leading to Robeston Wathen.

This started well, but after around 500 metres we found the path flooded and decided not to try to wade through, turning around and going back to the bridge again. We were tired by the time we had walked back the 4 miles along the route we had been driven on our way to Llawhaden.

Just a few more pictures at Llawhaden Bridge, Church & Castle.

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Shakespeare and East Ham Vaisakhi – 2007

Shakespeare and East Ham Vaisakhi – for me Sunday 22nd April 2007 was very much a day of two halves, with a morning spent at the Shakespeare’s Birthday celebrations around the Globe Theatre in Southwark and the afternoon with Sikhs celebrating in East Ham.

Shakespeare’s Birthday – Globe Theatre, Southwark

Shakespeare was born in April 1564, but the exact date is not known, though he was baptised on April 26th. Conventionally his birthday is celebrated on St George’s Day, April 23, so although this event was a day earlier it was just as likely to be his actual birthday.

Unusually I didn’t write anything on the April 2007 page of My London Diary about either of the two events I photographed on this Sunday, other than the links to to pages of pictures, but there are some captions with the pictures that give the story of the day.

People met on Montague Close at the north entrance to Southwark Cathedral for the start of the carnival procession. Among them were the Pearly King of Bow Bells & Blackfriars and the Pearly Queen of the Old Kent Road, as well as a very splendid large dragon, who was accompanied by a man in a harlequin costume and mask of diamonds of blues, greens, yellows and reds.

Fortunately for the dragon I think St George was saving his appearance for the following day, although later there was a man carrying his flag, and perhaps the man himself arrived after I had to rush away at noon.

There were musicians with large drums and small whistles and others in some kind of medieval dress as well as a large posse of masked children as we made our way west past Pickfords Wharf and along Clink Street to the riverside and Bankside in front of the replica Globe theatre were we were welcomed by Artistic Director Dominic Dromgoole, who invited us all – including the dragon – into the theatre.

Given the Globe is a wooden structure which would burn rather well this was perhaps foolhardy, but the dragon did seem rather short of fiery breath and on his or her best behaviour and posed for photographs rather tamely and demurely on the stage with the children and others. No children were eaten or maidens ravaged at least while I was there.

I was sorry to leave, but there’s a time for all things, and my time on Bankside ran out fast, and the journey to the Gurdwara in East Ham from London Bridge to West Ham and then East Ham and the walk to Rosebery Avenue took me around an hour.

More pictures on My London Diary.

Vaisakhi – East Ham – Gurdwara Dasmesh Darbar

The street was densely crowded as I got close to the Gurdwara, but people were very welcoming and let me through, though I stopped to take a few pictures of them.

As I arrived the organisers were giving people at the front of the crowd handfuls of flower petals which were thrown as the Guru Granth Sahib – the sacred Sikh scriptures and eternal Guru – was carried on cushions on its bearers head, sheltered by a saffron and blue umbrella, to be placed on a float.

The came the Khalsa, carrying Sikh standards and with the five in saffron robes holding their swords.

There were prayers and the five had flower garlands placed around their necks and loud blasts from a splendid curved metal horn, a Narsinga announced the start of the procession, with the congregation joining behind the float carrying the Guru Granth Sahib.

The Khalsa walk barefoot with holding their swords upright and looking ahead rather than at the ground and a team of sweepers, also barefoot, sweep the roadway in front of them.

The procession moved onto the main road, High Street North, which was soon packed as far as I could see in both directions. I waited for the end of the procession to pass but did not follow it on the long procession around the area which takes several hours.

There are many more pictures on My London Diary

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Anonymous Oppose Scientology, Chinese New Year

On Sunday 10th of February 2008 I photographed protests against the Church of Scientology before going into Chinatown for the Chinese New Year celebrations.

‘Anonymous’ Protest – Church of Scientology – Blackfriars & Tottenham Court Road

Anonymous Oppose Scientology, Chinese New Year

This was the first time I’d come across protesters wearing the ‘Anonymous’ masks that became a common feature at protests in the following years. This grinning Guy Fawkes mask was designed by illustrator David Lloyd for the 1980s graphic novel by Alan Moore and 2005 film ‘V for Vendetta.’

When hacktivists set up Project Chanology to campaign against Scientology at the start of 2008, they realised that like all other critics of the movement they would face vicious and intensive personal attacks from the group and needed to protect their identities both on-line and in person.

So those behind Project Chanology decided to call themselves ‘Anonymous’ and hide themselves behind these masks when protesting. The London protest was one of over 50 protests in cities around the world at this time in which many of those taking part wore them.

As I wrote at the time “I’m just amazed that Scientology is still around, despite having been comprehensively exposed so many times over the years. You can find out more about it on Wikipedia.”

*Xenu.net reveals much of the uglier side of the cult*

Wikipedia records that “The Church of Scientology has been described by government inquiries, international parliamentary bodies, scholars, law lords, and numerous superior court judgments as both a dangerous cult and a manipulative profit-making business.”

To my surprise round 4-500 had come for a peaceful protest on the walkway facing the Church of Scientology building in Queen Victoria Street at Blackfriars. After the protest there many of them went on to a second demonstration opposite the Dianetics & Scientology Life Improvement Centre in Tottenham Court Road, where those passing by are often lured into the building to take tests and pressured to join the cult, which demands large financial contributions from members.

More pictures at ‘Anonymous’ Protest – Church of Scientology on My London Diary.

Chinese New Year Celebrations, Soho

Things were festive in Chinatown which was packed with visitors celebrating the Chinese New Year.

Though many of those who work in the area it was a very busy day, selling Chinese decorations, toys and food.

Performers were going around the area as Chinese lions, leaping up to grab salad vegetables hung at shop doorways and bringing good luck to the businesses in exchange for cash.

Gerrard Street at the centre of Chinatown was thronging with crowds, though my ultrawide lens meant I could still work even though it was difficult to get a clear view. But soon I just had to leave for some quieter back streets for a while.

There was a money god, but he was only handing out entry forms for a competition to win a return ticket to Hong Kong

martial arts demonstrations…

and a dancing dragon carried by children from Surrey. But I soon tired of the noise and the crowds and as I commented “there are 51 other weekends of the year when its probably more interesting to come and see Chinatown how it really is.” And I went home. I think this was the last year I photographed the festival.

More pictures at Chinese New Year Celebrations, Soho on My London Diary, where you can also find images of the festival from 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007 using the search box at the top of the page.

St George’s Day 2016

April 23rd 303 was not a good day for George from Cappadocia. Diocletian, then the senior Roman Emperor had previously purged the Roman Army of Christians but had not really otherwise bothered too much about them, but he was persuaded by fellow emperor Galerius to take a harder line, and after consulting the oracle of Apollo began a general persecution across the empire on February 23, 303, which continued for the next 10 years or so.

For some reason George had escaped the previous army purge was was still serving as a member of Emperor Diocletian’s personal bodyguards. Tradition has it that he refused to recant his faith and was sentenced to death, being beheaded at Nicomedia on 23rd April. Rather different versions of his life (and death) grew up in the Greek and Latin churches. But certainly many Christians were killed by the Romans and George certainly represents one of many brave men who died rather than recant, most probably in the earlier years of Diocletian’s reign.

*St George, Emperor Diocletian, the priestess or haruspex and the emperor’s daughter*

Legends built up around him, few of which like that of the dragon (an 11th century addition) will have been true. It’s unlikely that he was subjected to more than twenty separate tortures over the course of seven years or that his martyrdom led to “40,900 pagans were converted to Christianity, including the empress Alexandra.” You can read more about him on Wikipedia.

His martydom began to be celebrated in Lydda in Palestine where he was thought to have died, and pilgrims came there and later to Cappadocia where he is thought to have come from. He was made a saint by Pope Gelasius I in 494, who said his was one of those “whose names are justly reverenced among men, but whose actions are known only to God“.

*St George fights the dragon on the Passmore Edwards Public Library, long closed*

His fame spread across Christendom, though it was only in the ninth century that the first church was dedicated to him in England – and not until 1152 that he displaced Edward the Confessor as the patron saint of England, although he had become a part of some English battle cries in the Hundred Years War (1337-1453) and among the Crusaders, when many went from England to fight against the Muslims in Palestine between 1095 and 1291.

St Georges Day was made a major feast here in 1415 and 1421, a holiday where church attendance was compulsory and other festivities took place. Later its celebration declined, particularly after the union with Scotland, and had more or less died out by the 20th century.

In recent years there has been something of a revival, spurred on in part by the increasing festivals of other communities, sometimes supported by local councils. There has been an increasing emphasis too on our national teams, particularly the English Football and Rugby teams, with minor fixtures being promoted through the mass media in a way that in earlier years was reserved for the major sporting events – the Grand National, the FA Cup FInal and the Boat Race.

The St George’s Flag had become something seldom seen outside football matches, except in the hands of small racist right-wing groups who called themselves patriots. Unfortunately recent years have seen a growth in these, and some have organised celebrations of St George’s Day, but there has also been a growth in less political events, with even English Heritage encouraging celebrations. Radio 3 has celebrated it, and both Conservatives and the Labour Party have campaigned for it – with Labour calling for it to become a public in both 2017 and 2019 manifestos.

The pictures here are from 23rd April 2016, I started the day photographing a couple of protests over the sale of illegal ‘blood diamonds’ from Sierra Leone at Selfridges in Oxford Street and Tiffany in Sloane Square before going on take pictures about St George’s Day, beginning around lunchtime in Trafalgar Square, where despite the support of mayor Boris Johnson little was happening. I went to the Roman Catholic St George’s Cathedral in Southwark, calling in briefly at the peace garden in the Imperial War Museum across the road as I waited for people to arrive for the St George in Southwark Procession.

This, led by led by St George, a Roman Emperor, the Mayor of Southwark and others and with a dragon at its rear made its way from the St George’s RC Cathedral to the Church of England St George the Martyr in Borough High Street.

I’d not been inside this before and went in with those taking part for a short address before we came out and the procession formed up. It wound its way through the back streets of Southwark and I was pleased as we went past the Priory on Webber Street to be able to tell the mayor something about Bert Hardy who had recently got a blue plaque there. I’d only met Hardy a couple of times, but one of my friends had worked at Grove Hardy as a printer.

The procession ended with a play in the yard beside St George the Martyr, but I left before it finished. Earlier I’d agreed to meet a couple of photographer friends at the start of the procession, but I think they had got lost on the way there, but I’d now arranged to find them on London Bridge. There seemed to be little going on at the George Inn on Borough High St, but at the King’s Head we walked into the bar and were seated by the window when St George walked in with a few mates. It obviously wasn’t the first pub they had visited. After he had got a pint I went and asked if I could take a few pictures, and he began posing, though moving rather too much in the low light.

After I had taken his picture a rather friendly dragon came up to the bar, followed by a second St George, and I photographed the two St Georges together. And as we left the bar, there in the street was the second of them with his dragon friend – and I took a few more frames.

More on most of these events and the other two protests I photographed that day:
St George in Southwark Procession
Peace Garden at War Museum
St Georges Day in London
Sierra Leone Blood Diamonds at Tiffany
Sierra Leone Blood Diamonds at Selfridges

Chinese New Year 2005

On Sunday 13th 2005, 17 years ago, London was celebrating the Chinese New Year of the Rooster which started the previous Wednesday – it was 4072.

Chinese New Year in Soho is something I’ve avoided in more recent years – as I wrote in 2005: “I used to enjoy the rather anarchic celebrations in Chinatown, but it’s now more of an ordeal, with far too many people coming in to watch and too much organisation.”

Trying to photograph in such crowded situations was a problem, and one I confronted in two main ways in 2005, something reflected in the two pictures above. At the top is a picture taken standing back some distance with a telephoto lens, while the lower picture is taken with a fisheye lens, both on a Nikon D70 DX camera.

Usually now when I use the a fisheye lens like this, I would convert the perspective to give straight verticals – as in the above image. But back in 2005 I didn’t have a good plug-in to do this conversion, and although it was possible with various programmes I was using for making panoramas it was a rather time-consuming process.

For this particular event I rather liked the fisheye effect, at least in some pictures. Although it does clearly misrepresent those faces close to the edges of the picture, for me it pulls the eye towards the centre of the picture and perhaps gives a greater impression of the crowding I was working in.

A small problem is that the image you see in the viewfinder is the fisheye one, and not that in the ‘de-fished’ version. But as you can see, the fisheye image which you see has the same horizontal limits at the centre of both the horizontal and vertical sides, with just a little of the image towards the four corners being lost. It’s still possible to frame accurately when working.

It’s not I think correct to call the effect of the fisheye lens ‘distortion’. It is simply a different way of recording the subject on a flat rectangle. Most fisheyes I’ve used (and I own four different examples, for DX and full-frame Nikon, for Fuji and for micro 4/3) seem actually to have rather less actual distortion than my ultra-wide rectilinear (i.e. ‘normal’) lenses.

In the de-fished image you can see that as well as the verticals of the building being straight, people at the edges of the picture are also shown naturally, unlike in the fisheye version. I was also taking some pictures with an ultra-wide 12-24mm lens (equivalent to 18-36mm full-frame) and with that at its widest faces at the edge would have been rendered a little stretched out horizontally.

I’m not sure what some major agencies would make of conversions using software like this, whether they would regard it as an unacceptable alteration of the image. For me its just one of many acceptable corrections of the image, but clearly it does alter the image as recorded by the camera. It would be possible to design a specialised wide-angle camera which carried out the correction in firmware but the market for this would probably be small. Rather it could be provided into normal digital cameras as an option – far more useful than all those special effects which clutter the menus on many cameras now.

More pictures on My London Diary – scroll down a little from the top of the page.

St George

The details of the life and death of St George (as you can read in Wikipedia) are recorded in accounts dating back to around 1600 years ago, though details vary and the Pope in 494 CE who officially made him a saint called him one of those “whose names are justly reverenced among men, but whose actions are known only to God.“

According to the early texts, George was born in Cappadocia, now a part of Turkey, where his father came from, but his mother was a Palestinian Christian. Cappadocians were generally historically regarded as Syrians, though St George’s family are usually said to be of Greek descent. St George became, like his father, a Roman soldier, becoming a member of the elite Praetorian Guard, and was beheaded in the eastern capital of the Roman Empire on 23 April 303CE, 1718 years ago, during Emperor Diocletian’s purge of Christians who refused to recant the faith.

His behaviour and suffering apparently convinced one prominent Roman woman, Empress Alexandra of Rome, possibly the Emperor’s wife – to become a Christian – and to share his fate. The purge failed to have its intended result, and around 21 years after George’s execution, Christianity became the preferred religion in the Roman Empire under Emperor Constantine.

George’s body was buried in Lydda in Palestine and Christians there soon became to regard him as a martyr. Some legends say that his martyrdom resulted in the conversion of not just the Emperors’s wife but 40,900 other pagans.

The dragon came along considerably later, only appearing in legends around 700 years after his death, apparently terrorising the city of Silene in Libya, which there is no evidence that St George ever visited. The dragon in my picture above, from a St George’s Day procession in Southwark, seems to have come from Chinatown. But dragons can fly.

The traditional patron saint of England was the last king of Wessex, Edward the Confessor who died in 1066, and it was only in 1552 that as a part of the English Reformation that St George officially became the only saint recognised in England, although along with various other countries English armies adopted him during the crusades and in our battles with the French in the Hundred Years War from 1337-1453. Surprisingly we didn’t drop St George although we lost rather badly.

St George’s Day remains an official feast celebrated by the Church of England, usually, though not always, on April 23, as Easter sometimes interferes. Rather more is made of it by some other countries and churches.

The St George’s cross, widely used by football supporters and right-wing extremists in England, comes from the 10th century in the city of Genoa in Italy, becoming used in England in 1348 when Edward III founded the Order of the Garter and made St George its patron saint. It has never been officially adopted as the national flag, though now widely used as such. It is of course a component of many other flags, including the UK’s national flag.

Over the years I’ve photographed many different celebrations of St George’s Day in and around London, and the pictures come from a few of these in 2005, 2009, 2011 and 2016.

2005 St George’s Day
2009 St George & the Dragon
2009 England Supporters,Trafalgar Square
2009 The George Inn, Southwark
2009 The Lions part: St George & the Dragon
2009 St George’s Day – Trafalgar Square
2011 St George’s Day in London
2016 St George in Southwark Procession
2916 St Georges Day in London

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.