St Matthews Day, Uganda & Mass Lone Demos: A long day for me on Friday 22 September 2006, beginning with a parade in heavy rain in the City of London by students from Christ’s Hospital school which moved out of Newgate to West Sussex in 1902 but return each year for this annual event. I had time to spare for a lunch and then a some rather frustrating and disappointing trips to photography galleries before photographing a protest over the persecution of gays in Uganda. Finally I went to Parliament Square for another evening of mass lone demos.
Below I’ll post a few of the pictures with the text I wrote back in 2006, tidied up as usual, and links to more pictures still on My London Diary.
St Matthew’s Day Procession – Christ’s Hospital School
London
Friday I tried some underwater photography in the city, taking pictures of the annual St Matthews Day march by pupils of Christ’s Hospital School from a service in St Andrew’s Holborn. I kept with them all the way to Mansion House, where they turned down Walbrook before returning for their lunch with the Lord Mayor, but conditions were really atrocious for them and for me.
I kept the camera under my waterproof coat as much as possible, and kept wiping the rain of the lens filter with a microfibre cloth, but eventually the lens misted up inside and stopped focusing. So there are some interesting effects, but not much in the way of pictures.
I lunched on my own, then set off to visit a few photo galleries. The first two were closed, despite being advertised as open, which wasn’t a good start. But the third was open, as was the National Portrait Gallery, though the work there was a disappointment.
Outrage Protests at Uganda House
Trafalgar Square
In Trafalgar Square Outrage and others were demonstrating outside Uganda House against the persecution of gays in Uganda. At first I thought the protestors were likely to be outnumbered by the two police, but eventually around 50 turned up, some having travelled a couple of hundred miles to be there.
I missed one picture of a Ugandan inside the building who had come up to the glass doors and was behind their rather fancy bird-shaped handles; as I raised my camera he scurried quickly away. Others were watching through the curtained windows of the upper stories.
Mass Lone Demo
Parliament Square
There were two sets of mass lone demos – following the idea of Mark Thomas – arranged for 6.00pm and 6.30pm in Parliament Square, with some demonstrators having also applied for permission to protest in Whitehall outside Downing Street later in the evening.
As well as the usual staunch supporters of Brian Haw (and of course the man himself) there were a wide variety of causes, across a whole spectrum from insanely nutty to deadly serious.
At least two commented on the actual nature of placards and signs, and those present demonstrated a wide range of care and skill.
The shortest demo on record was probably achieved by the two protesters who had brought a finely painted bendy bus, but, doubtless due to being held up in traffic, it arrived late and they finished their demonstration almost before it had started.
The police stood around the edge of the square, not bothering to check up on what was going on. After all, one or two unauthorised demonstrations weren’t going to make a lot of difference among all those who had permission.
Even cheeky comments from some of the more regularly harassed protesters failed to arouse their interest.
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