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Slavery, Aninal Cruelty & Turkey Attacks Rojova – 2018

Slavery, Aninal Cruelty & Turkey Attacks Rojova: Protests in London on Saturday 27th January 2018 against migrants being sold as slaves in Libya, the continuing cruel trapping of animals to use in clothing sold by Canada Goose and the attacks by the Turkish army on Kurdish areas of North Syria.

End UAE support for slavery in Libya – UAE Embassy

Slavery, Aninal Cruelty & Turkey Attacks Rojova - 2018

African Lives Matter and the International Campaign to Boycott UAE protest at the UAE Embassy in London against the funding by the the United Arab Emirates of armed Groups in Libya which imprison, torture and kill African migrants and sell them as slaves.

The protest also called for an end of the human trafficking of African migrants to and from Dubai and for help to be given for slavery victims in Dubai to return to their families in Africa.

This turned out to be a fairly small protest, although the police had obviously planned for something much larger and I had expected more after earlier protests over the issue.

End UAE support for slavery in Libya

Canada Goose protests continue – Regent St

Protesters were again outside the Canada Goose flagship store in Regent St asking shoppers to boycott the store because of the horrific cruelty involved in trapping dogs for fur and raising birds for down used in the company’s clothing.

The company had obtained an injunction to try to prevent protests, but this had been amended in the previous month to allow more protesters and to enable them to use loud hailers between 2pm and 8pm. They were now carrying out weekly protests on Saturdays as well as occasional protests during the week.

Finally in 2022 Canada Goose announced it would stop purchasing new fur from trappers and transition to using reclaimed fur, though it seems unclear whether they have achieved their goal. The company is apparently still selling garments made with its large stocks of trapped fur and continuing to use feathers from geese and ducks which campaigners allege are plucked from live birds.

Canada Goose protests continue

Defend Afrin, stop Turkish Attack – BBC to Downing St

Several thousand people, mainly Kurds, marched through London from outside the BBC to a rally opposite Downing St, calling for an end to the attacks by Turkish forces on the Afrin Canton of Northern Syria, now a part of the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria (DFNS) or Rojava, a de facto autonomous region in northern Syria.

Many see Rojava with a constitution based on a democratic socialism which treats all ethnic groups as equal and women as equal to men as a model for a future federal Syria, although it seems unlikely to find favour with Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham.

Turkey is the second largest military force in NATO, second only to the USA and appeared to be using its position in NATO and the threat of closer relationships with Russia to eliminate the Kurds on its borders, who it alleges are a part of the PKK, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, a Kurdish nationalist organisation regarded by Turkey and its allies as a terrorist organisation which was proscribed by the UK in 2001.

Kurds are around 15-20% if the population of Turkey, its largest ethnic minority and were violently suppressed following the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, with a number of massacres and a continuing attempt to erase their language and culture. Even the words “Kurds” or “Kurdistan” were banned and in 1980 their languages were banned, with those found using them arrested and imprisoned. It remains illegal to teach using Kurdish in schools in Turkey.

Kurdish forces,aided by US air support played a major role in the defeat of ISIS in Syria. Eventually the Turkish attacks on Afrin were halted after the Kurds in Rojava reached an agreement with the Syrian army to aid them in the defence of Syria. Further Turkish encroachment into Syria was prevented by the setting up of the Second Northern Syria Buffer Zone, part of the Sochi Agreement, in 2019.

Turkey encouraged ISIS in Syria as a part of their attempts to remove Kurdish influence in the areas close to their borders. Sales of oil smuggled through Turkey with the connivance of leading figures in the Turkish government provided most of the funding for ISIS.

The marchers met at the BBC who they say has failed to report over many years on Turkish atrocities and their genocidal attacks on the Kurds before marching to Downing Street.

Police apparently seized a number of PKK flags before the start of the march, though I did still spot one when the marchers reached Downing St. Kurds largely view the PKK as a nationalist rather than terrorist organisation and there were many flags with the image of the PKK’s long imprisoned leader Abdullah Öcalan. His nickname ‘Apo’ means uncle in Kurdish. It was his reading and thinking during long years of solitary confinement that led to the new thinking in the constitution of Rojava.

I listened to a few of the speeches at Downing Street before leaving for home and you can see many more pictures of the march and some of the speakers on My London Diary.

Defend Afrin, stop Turkish Attack

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A Submarine, Flats, Pub, Dog, Ducks & Milkmaid

A Submarine, Flats, Pub, Dog, Ducks & Milkmaid is the final post on my walk on Friday afternoon, May 5th 1989. The previous post was Around Camberwell New Road – 1989

*Camberwell Submarine, boiler room, Akerman Rd, Lambeth, 1989 89-5b-35*

I crossed over Camberwell New Road to the southern side, turned own Vassall Road and then left into Langton Road. I’ve not digitised the one picture I took of a house here, nor the single image I made in Lothian Road, but I continued further south along here, lured by the sight of an unusual object in the centre of Akerman Road.

Two vertical concrete towers rose up from a more organic looking low concrete body. Later I was to learn that this was known as the Camberwell Submarine.

*Camberwell Submarine, boiler room, Akerman Rd, Lambeth, 1989 89-5b-21*

I had no idea what this structure was, though clearly it was providing ventilation for some below ground installation. Was it Lambeth’s nuclear bunker, perhaps an underground city? Was there some secret tunnel underneath – though the nearest Underground line was well over a mile away. Later I looked it up to find others had made similar speculations to mine, but of course the real purpose is rather more prosaic.

This is the visible structure of the below ground Myatt’s Fields North Boiler House designed by Michael Luffingham in the mid-seventies for Lambeth Council, and described at the time as Hollamby’s submarine after his boss, borough architect Ted Hollamby. An attempt was made to get it listed ten years ago but failed.

*Camberwell Submarine, boiler room, Akerman Rd, Lambeth, 1989 89-5b-23*

I could only walk around the outside of the submarine and although it had doors at each end, both were locked. In 2007, Mike Urban of Urban75 was photographing it and was invited inside by a maintenance worker and his post reveals some of the hidden secrets of the interior.

*Flats, Akerman Rd, Lambeth, 1989 89-5b-26*

These are some of the flats on the Myatt’s Fields North which were heated by the submarine. The estate later got a very poor reputation and much was demolished and replaced in controversial redevelopment in 2014, mentioned in a previous post.

*Loughborough Hotel, Evandale Rd, Brixton, Lambeth, 1989 89-5b-14*

I turned down Evandale Road and walked down to the Loughborough Hotel on the corner with Loughborough Road. The earliest record of a pub here – on the corner with what was then Cromwell Rd – was in 1864, and it was built on the site of Loughborough House which was demolished in 1854. This had been the Manor House of Lambeth Wick, home to the 1st Baron Loughborough, Henry Hastings. He had been given his title in 1643 for fighting for the Royalists in the English Civil War and returned to live here after a period of exile in 1661.

In 1900 the hotel was replaced by this splendid new building, designed as an entertainment palace with a large ballroom on the first floor. The name ‘Hotel’ simply meant it was a posher establishment than an inn, and it never had rooms where people could stay.

The nature of entertainment at the hotel changed from the late 1960s as did the local population. The Island Disco, a South Pacific Island themed disco opened in 1967 and various other night clubs followed including the legendary Latin and African music club, the Mambo Inn. There were drag nights too from !969.

All this finished in 2005, when the upstairs room s were turned into flats. The ground floor pub finally closed in 2007 and the former bar is now a café and possibly at times an art gallery.

*Fiveways, Loughborough Rd, Akerman Rd, Brixton, Lambeth, 1989 89-5b-15*

I turned east along Loughborough Road and made my way to Fiveways, the junction with Akerman Road, Lilford Road and Fiveways Road. This shows the house on the corner with Akerman Raod, which has since been considerably refurbished. This was once the end of a long terrace from the Loughborough Hotel with ground floor shops, but those at this end and some others have been converted to residential.

*Dog, Ducks & Milkmaid, Lilford Rd, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-5c-62*

I continued along Lilford Road, where at number 15 I photographed this small menagerie. I’m pleased to see that the ducks are still there on the short pillars at the front door, though now looking a little worn, but the milkmaid and dog have gone.

Auto Stores, Camberwell Rd, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-5c-63 — *Auto Stores, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-5c-63*

By now it was getting a little late and I was getting hungry and I made my way quickly along Knatchbull Road towards Camberwell Green to catch a bus back to Waterloo for my train home. I only took this one last picture, though I’m not sure exactly where it was taken around Camberwell Green, though my contact sheet says Camberwell Road.

This is the third and final post on the walk which began with Naked Ladies, 3 Doors & A New Walk. But two days later I was back again on a new walk in South London which I’ll write about shortly

Shepperton Ride

June 4th I took it easy again on my ten-mile ride, forcing myself to stop and take pictures here and there. Of course the stopping and starting does actually add to the amount of energy expended and I find it hard to actually waste the effort I’ve made by braking, so the places I stop are sometimes more determined by where I need to slow down for other reasons.

I’d changed my route slightly to go along a little of the River Thames towpath through Laleham village. I don’t like cycling along this bit of the towpath much, partly because its often quite busy with walkers, but mainly because the loose chippings on the actual path are a nuisance. Years ago, as a teacher hurrying along here on my way to an early morning in-service training meeting at the Runnymede Centre in Chertsey a stone flew up and into my chain, snapping the fairly chunky aluminium arm of my Campagnolo rear derailleur. I couldn’t ride the bike but rushed home pushing it, and picked up my wife’s bike to ride to the session. Fortunately I’d left home early to enjoy the bike ride, and ended up only a few minutes late. But I had to buy a new derailleur, opting for a rather cheaper model that seemed to work just as well.

This time I took the path in a leisurely fashion, keeping as far as possible to a narrow hardened mud area to one side of the chippings to arrive at the parking area where I stopped to take a photograph before proceeding.

One of many unfilled gravel pits in Spelthorne

The narrow path soon becomes a metalled road, which would provide a pleasant ride beside the river to Chertsey Lock and Chertsey Bridge, though marred by the traffic humps and the occasional rather dangerous pothole.

Just before the bridge is the house where during the 2014 floods a tragic release from landfill of deadly hydrogen cyanide killed a seven-year-old and paralysed his father. Zane Gbangbola’s parents have continued the campaign to get the truth about the incident since.

At the bridge I turned left towards Shepperton, along a busier road with a road surface curiously resistant to bicycle tires.

Pharoah’s Island can only be accessed by boat

Shepperton Ferry – not currently operating.

It was a pleasure to turn off down Docket Eddy Lane which leads back down to the river, and past the houses on the riverside and on Pharoah’s Island to Shepperton Lock and the ferry.

I turned off the route into Church Square and went down to the garden by the riverside, to find a pair of fancy ducks with a small group of chicks. I switched to my longer lens so as not to disturb them while taking pictures.

Back on my bike I rode up Shepperton High St, turning left at the top to go over the M3. It’s always just a little of a struggle up this bridge, perhaps because its usually against the wind and very open, but there is a long downhill stretch after it, with little need to pedal until just before the next traffic lights. I kept on and was soon cycling through Laleham on the road and up towards Staines, over some more resistant road surface and some really poor cracks and holes at the roundabout by the pub I still think of as the Lucan Arms, though it has changed its name several times since Lord Lucan went missing. Nowadays he could easily disappear through a Surrey pothole.

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.