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Knife Crime & Sikh Genocide – 2018

Knife Crime & Sikh Genocide: On Saturday 3rd Jun 2018 Anti-Knife UK protested opposite Downing Street calling on Prime Minister Theresa May to take action against knife crime in the UK. From there I went to Hyde Park where several thousand Sikhs were meeting to march through London to Trafalgar Square in memory of the 1984 Indian Army attack on the Golden Temple in Amritsar and the mob killings of Sikhs later in the year encouraged by the Indian government following the assassination of Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards.

Anti-Knife UK protest – Downing St

Anti-Knife UK had been founded by Danny O’Brien in 2008 to monitor knife crime incidents from across the UK on a daily basis and to campaign for legislation and other actions to reduce them. He announced at the protest that he was stepping down from active leadership because of the strains it had put on his mental health leaving the campaign to be carried forward by others.

Anti-Knife UK had organised this protest by community groups and campaigners from various groups across the country to urge Theresa May to take action against this growing problem. Many at the protest were family and friends of those, mainly young men, who had been killed in knife crimes and wore t-shirts with pictures of the victims.

As well as placards and banners some had brought pairs of empty shoes to remember those killed.

Speakers at the rally called for government support for measures to tackle the problem including tougher sentences, tagging of all knives, knife arches in night clubs, equal rights for victims and families, and a review of the laws governing self-defence and reasonable force as well as more work in schools and communities.

More pictures at Anti-Knife UK protest.

Sikhs remember the 1984 genocide

Several thousands of Sikhs sat in front of a stage on a lorry in Hyde Park for a rally addressed by a succession of Sikh leaders calling for and end to the persecution of Sikhs in the Punjab and for freedom in an independent Sikh state of Khalistan. Sikhs got a raw deal at partition in 1947 and promises made to them at the time were never kept.

They remembered the thousands of Sikhs killed in the 1984 Indian Army attack on the Golden Temple in Amritsar, Operation Blue Star, and more murdered later that year after the assassination of Indira Gandhi when the Indian government encouraged mob killings of Sikhs, crimes for which none have been brought to justice.

Since the 1984 Sikh genocide there has been a continuing program of police arrests, torture and killing of Sikh males in the Punjab and crippling economic and social policies. Many Sikhs demand independence from India and a Sikh state of Khalistan.

The militant Sikh group Babbar Khalsa calling for independence had been formed a few years before 1984 and had been active for some years in the Punjab before they gained international notoriety by planting a bomb in an Air India flight to Canada which killed 329 people in 1985. Some at least of the continuing activities of this group are thought to be financed by Pakistan.

Babbar Khalsa are a proscribed group in the UK and in some earlier years I photographed this event some people were arrested for allegedly promoting this organisation. This year I saw none of this, but Babbar is an Indian family name.

*Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale was killed in ‘Operation Blue Star’*

Some did carry placards showing Kulwant Singh Babbar, one of the first members and founders of Babbar Khalsa and a supporter of Khalistan movement, killed by Indian army snipers in Operation Blue Star in 1984.

This was a peaceful protest and I was made to feel welcome as I took pictures – and enjoyed some of the free food being handed out to all at the event before the march.

The start of the march was led by groups from Birmingham and when they reached Marble Arch they were unsure which way to proceed. They decided to go back into Hyde Park and get the police to tell them which way to go, and were led back through a gate a short distance down Park Lane and led across to continue,

I left them at Hyde Park Corner on their way down Piccadilly towards a rally in Trafalgar Square.

More pictures on My London Diary at Sikhs remember the 1984 genocide.

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Trans Pride & Anti-Racist March in Brixton – 2019

Trans Pride & Anti-Racist March in Brixton: Five years ago today on Saturday 14th September I photographed the start of London’s first Trans+ Pride march before taking the tube to Brixton for an anti-racist march and rally.

London’s First Trans+ Pride March

Hundreds met at Hyde Park Corner to march along Oxford Street to Soho Square in London’s first Trans+ Pride March, was both a celebration and protest for trans, non-binary, intersex, and gender non-conforming individuals and their family, friends and allies.

They marched to increase the visibility of the trans+ community and to protest against the continuing discrimination in the UK and around the world against trans people.

Many carried placards and posters with messages such as ‘Trans Rights Matter‘ and ‘Trans Rights Are Human Rights’.

There has been increasing transphobia in British media, with trans people being attacked on the streets, and this has continued to grow since 2019.

The charity Stop Hate UK reports that in “2020/2021, 2,630 Hate Crimes against transgender people were recorded by the Police, an increase of 16% from the previous year” though they say the actual number of incidents is much greater as 88% of transgender victims of serious incidents did not report them.

Incidents reported to Stop Hate UK were of “verbal abuse, threatening behaviour, harassment and anti-social behaviour, such as having derogatory terms shouted at them, having invasive or inappropriate questions asked of them or facing harassment from neighbours, co-workers or strangers. “

In 2018 Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists had disrupted the Pride March in London with an anti-Trans protest and there were fears they might try to disrupt this march. There were many feminists supporting trans rights on this march.

More pictures at London’s First Trans+ Pride March.

Brixton anti-racist march

I took the tube from Green Park to Brixton where Movement for Justice and Lambeth Unison Black Workers’ Group were protesting against the continuing persecution of Windrush family members and other migrants.

They called for freedom of movement, the closure of immigration detention prisons, and an end to Brexit which is being used to whip up immigrant-bashing and nationalism to establish a Trump-style regime in Britain under Boris Johnson.

I missed the start of the rally in Windrush Square, but heard several of the speakers including Eulalee who has been fighting the Home Office for 16 years to remain in the UK with her family and was wearing a ‘More Blacks! More Dogs! More Irish‘ t-shirt.

People picked up their posters and marched the short distance to busy Brixton Market.

Here they stopped for more speeches, with many shoppers stopping briefly to listen and taking the fliers that were being handed out.

The protest seems to get a very positive reception in the market.

Green MEP for London Scott Ainslie joined the protest to speak about his ‘LDNlovesEU‘ campaign calling for an end to Brexit.

After his speech the protesters picked up their posters and moved on along Electric Avenue,

and turned into Atlantic Road,

They then marched down Brixton Road back to Windrush Square where the protest ended with some brief speeches and photographs.

More pictures on My London Diary at Brixton anti-racist march.

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Tibet, Syria, Fukushima, EVF & Lions – 2014

Tibet, Syria, Fukushima, EVF & Lions – Protests in London on Saturday 15th March covered a wide range of issues across the world. Another varied day for me in town.

London March for Freedom for Tibet – Downing St

Around a thousand Tibetans and supporters of the Free Tibet campaign met at Downing Street to march to a rally at the Chinese Embassy on the 55th anniversary of the Tibetan National Uprising against oppressive Chinese rule.

Before the start of the march they sang the Tibetan national anthem then marched up Whitehall. I left the marchers at Trafalgar Square to cover another event.

It was a colourful march, with many carrying the Tibetan National Flag or wearing items in its colours. In my post on My London Diary I wrote more about Tibet and the brutal Chinese regime there along with many more pictures.
London March for Freedom for Tibet

Syrians March for International Action

Before going to Downing Street I had gone to Hyde Park Corner where Syrians were gathering at the start of their march to Downing St on the third anniversary of the start of their fight for freedom to show their commitment to the cause and their solidarity with fellow Syrians inside and outside Syria.

They were calling for the international community to help them get rid of the Assad regime which had murdered over 150,000, seriously injured 500,000 and imprisoned 250,000 people in Syria. 1.5 million refugees had fled Syria and over 4.5 million were internally displaced and recently Assads forces had started using chemical weapons.

I left Piccadilly as the march was about to leave and met them again as they turned into Whitehall and began their protest opposite Downing Street. Unfortunately the west was not prepared to stand fully behind the Syrian revolution, with Turkey very much opposed to the autonomy it was providing for the Kurds and supporting ISIS and Russia stepping in to support Assad.

Many more pictures on My London Diary: Syrians March for International Action.

Fukushima Nuclear Melt-down Remembered

Also at Hyde Park Corner were protesters on the third anniversary of the nuclear melt-down at Fukushima, including many Japanese, marching to remind the world of the dangers of nuclear power and nuclear weapons.

They were led by a group dress as flurescent barrels of roadioactive waste, while others were dressed up in various ways and some carried giant sunflowers. It was a fairly small group but made a colourful impression as it made its way first to the Japanese Embassy.I left them as they arrived there.

I met the group again as it arrived at Downing Street where they stopped for a short protest and photographs in front of the gates before moving on to a rally in Parliament Square. But I had other things to do.

Many more pictures at Fukushima Nuclear Melt-down Remembered.

English Volunteer Force march in London

I met the English Volunteer Force, combining a number of right wing ‘patriotic’ groups outside the Lord Moon of the Mall at the top of Whitehall just a minute or two before their march to Parliament Square began from there.

I had a little trouble getting there through a loose line of police who were there to ensure that the anti-fascist opposition to the march were kept well away. The around a hundred EVF supporters were accompanied by rather more police as they marched down Whitehall, but I was able to walk with the and to talk to a few of the protesters who knew me from earlier right-wing events.

They seemed pleased that I was covering the event, but as I reported in 2014, “one man came over and shouted at me, pushing my camera into my face. I complained to police at this assault but they simply pushed me away. Later the same individual came and threatened me, and a police officer did ask him to stop, though it seemed rather half-hearted given that he was clearly breaking the law.“

The major police effort was directed against the larger number of anti-facists and was largely successful in keeping the two groups apart and enabling the EVF to hold their rally as planned in Old Palace Yard. I saw several arrests of EVF supporters who tried to attack the anti-fascists. Police had kettled some of these briefly but they were soon allowed to leave so long as they went away from Parliament.

You can read more about the event and see more pictures at English Volunteer Force march in London.

Save Our Lions – Ban Canned Hunting – Trafalgar Square

I walked up to Trafalgar Square where several marches from different starting points in London were combining for a protest calling for a ban on the ‘canned’ hunting of captive lions by wealthy trophy tourists.

‘Canned hunting’ is big business in South Africa, with more than 8,000 lions in captivity, bred on lion farms and over 160 lion killing camps. These lions are raised without fear of humans and are often drugged to make them easy kills.

The tourists kill male lions and buy the lions heads stuffed and mounted as trophies. The bones fetch high prices in the Far East for use in ‘medicines’ or ‘aphrodisiacs’ though they have no testable beneficial effects.

Most female cubs are killed at birth with just a few being kept for breeding. The cubs are kept and tourists pay to ‘pet’ and play with them and when they are a little larger pay for the experience of ‘walking with lions’. Once they outgrow this, they are crammed into overcrowded cages in poor conditions until they are mature and can be shot.

Canned hunting also threatens the wild lion population as some are captured to combat the inbreeding in captive lion populations.

More at Save Our Lions – Ban Canned Hunting.

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Extremists and Mob Rule

Extremists and Mob Rule: Last Saturday I walked along with around 450,000 others from Hyde Park to the US Embassy in Nine Elms calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and an end to Israeli genocide. The IDF has now killed over 30,000 people, mainly women and children and many more are threatened with starvation and disease as Israel continues only allow a trickle of the food and medicines needed into Gaza.

Humanitarian agencies including UNRWA are ready to distribute aid, but far too little is coming across the borders and the Israeli army are disrupting their activities, while Israeli spokesmen continue to produce lies which even the BBC now feels it has to challenge. The pictures here all come from this march.

Of course it wasn’t a mob, but a peaceful protest. It wasn’t Islamists taking over the streets of London, though there may well have been a few taking part among the more than 99% of us who were protesting because of the terrible scenes we have seen on even the limited reporting which has been allowed to come from Gaza – where Israel still prevents the international press from reporting. And because many of us believe that we should have a peaceful solution which gives freedom to both Palestine and Israel.

It wasn’t one of of my better days. I was feeling a little weak and walked twice as far as I should have done. The march may only have been around two and a half miles, but photographing it I walked at least twice that, going back and forth. And after collapsing for a short rest beside the Thames opposite the US Embassy I walked back to the middle of Vauxhall Bridge. From there I could see almost the length of Vauxhall Bridge Road, around three quarters of a mile still packed with marchers and no end in sight. But I was tired and turned back and took the train home from Vauxhall station.

Later today the UK Government is expected to announce its new definition of extremism, which is expected to be something along the lines of:

“promotion or advancement of ideology based on hatred, intolerance or violence or undermining or overturning the rights or freedoms of others, or of undermining democracy itself“

The point behind this re-definition is to enable the government to list organisations which it considers extremist and to ban these from meetings with ministers and elected officials or receiving public money and ban individuals who belong to them from serving on government boards.

It is clear that it will be used by the current government to list a wide range of organisations that are seen as left-wing in an attempt to embarrass the Labour Party, including those that support the Palestinian opposition to Israeli occupation, and with Sunak’s crazed accusations of “mob rule” could be applied to any organisation that supports large protests on any issue, but particularly calling for freedom for Palestine. And I expect to see Stop The War and CND on that list along with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Muslim Association of Britain and the Palestinian Forum in Britain.

Reports suggest that the largest Muslim group in the UK, the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), as well as Muslim Engagement and Development (MEND) and Palestine Action will be on the list and any other groups opposed to the UK’s Prevent programme. Government departments have boycotted the MCB since 2009.

Listing will not ban these groups, though it might deny funding to some organisations which many might feel important in maintaining effective democracy. And if this wretched government remains in power much longer we will certainly see further powers given to the police particularly over the policing of protests, probably giving them much greater control over the activities of listed groups.

It will almost certainly be used to stigmatise groups which campaign against the monarchy, and perhaps also those calling for changes to our parliamentary system such as the abolition or reform of the House of Lords or proportional voting systems. And groups such as Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil will surely be there.

Michael Gove has apparently rejected suggestions that trans rights activists will be among those listed, but suspicions remain that these and some gay rights groups might also be targeted.

Perhaps too, human rights organisations that launch legal cases against government legislation might feature, and when we have had government ministers in recent years labelling the Supreme Court as anti-democratic it is hard to see where this definition might end.

Like many recent statements from the government, this one from Gove seems dangerous and divisive. It might even itself be seen as “undermining democracy itself.“

You can read more about the protest march last Saturday, 9th March 2024 and see another seventy or so of my pictures at End Gaza Genocide Massive March To US Embassy

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Knife Crime & 1984 Sikh Genocide

Five years ago today on Saturday 3rd June 2018 I photographed two events in London, beginning with a protest opposite Downing Street by campaigners against gun and knife crime and moving on to an annual march remembering the 1984 Indian Army attack on the Golden Temple in Amritsar where thousands of Sikhs were massacred, and the Indian government encouraged mob killings of Sikhs across the country following the assassination of Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards later in the year.

Anti-Knife UK protest – Downing St

The event was organised by Anti-Knife UK, founded by Danny O’Brien in 2008 which monitors knife crime incidents from across the UK on a daily basis. 2008 had been a particularly bad year for the murder of teenagers on London’s streets, with 29 deaths, and thought the numbers had gone down until 2012 when there were 9 such deaths by 2017 they back up to 27.

All of these deaths are tragedies for the teenagers and their families, and the numbers of crimes involving knives across England and Wales is huge – now over 45,000, though many of those are for possession of knives – and the total number of deaths is the year ending march 2022 was 261.

Many of those at the protest were bereaved family members and their supporters and were wearing t-shirts or holding placards with photographs of the knife victims and pairs of empty shoes as well as banners.

Speakers called for measures to tackle the problem including tougher sentences, tagging of all knives, knife arches in night clubs, equal rights for victims and families, a review of the laws governing self-defence and reasonable force and work in schools and communities.

More pictures at Anti-Knife UK protest.

Sikhs remember the 1984 genocide

I went to meet a large crowd of Sikhs at a rally in Hyde Park before the march, sitting on the grass. It was 24 degrees in London, and without any shade I was far too hot. Few of the speeches were in English, but many of the placards were and others graphically made their message clear.

Sikhs were badly treated by the British at the time of partition which divided the country up between the Hindus and Muslims, with millions of people having to flee across the borders of the new states and millions were terribly killed in doing so. Sikhs had called for an independent Sikh state in the Punjab, but most were simply lumped in, along with Buddhists and Jains with Hindu dominated India, although large numbers also remained in the part of the Punjab which had been designated as Muslum Pakistan.

Although there were large numbers of Sikhs across the Punjab before partition were still a minority population and they were not united in their demands for an independent state of Khalistan. Althugh they would probably have been better joining Pakistan, their cultural ties to Hinduism as well as a history of persecution by Muslims led them to instead unite with India. Many Sikh leaders had been involved with the Indian Congress Party which had made them promises about their position in India where the are less than 1% of the population but these were never kept.

The idea of a separate Khalistan became talked about more widely particularly in the diaspora in the 1970s, with the movement in Punjab led by Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale advocating an autonomous state within India. The movement had become increasingly militant with a number of armed supporters, setting up in 1982 what Wikipedia describes as ‘what amounted to a “parallel government” in Punjab‘.

In June 1984, the Indian Army launched Operation Blue Star to remove Bhindranwale and his armed followers from the Golden Temple complex in Amritsar, killing Bhindranwale and large number of his supporters as well as many civilians as the temple was packed with pilgrims. The figures for deaths are disputed but probably between 5-7,000, with around 700 of the Indian army also dying.

In 2018 I commented “Since this 1984 Sikh genocide there has been a continuing program of police arrests, torture and killing of Sikh males in the Punjab and crippling economic and social policies. Sikhs demand independence from India and a Sikh state, Khalistan.”

After the rally the march set off, led by Sikh standard bearers and five Khalsa representing the Five Blessed Ones or Panj Pyare holding swords and walking barefoot in their orange robes and followed by several thousand Sikhs with flags, placards and banners. I talked with them past Marble Arch and down to Hyde Park Corner where I left them going down Piccadilly towards another rally at the end of the march in Trafalgar Square.

You can see many more pictures and captions describing the event on My London Diary at Sikhs remember the 1984 genocide.

XR Carmen’s Carbon Procession

*Carmen leads the XR Carbon Procession at Hyde Park Corner*

Extinction Rebellion had obviously put in a lot of thought and effort into their Carmen’s Carbon Procession on July 2nd, 2019, and there were quite a few photographers and videographers who came to photograph it. Doubtless all of us filed our pictures with the agencies or publications, but I don’t know how many got published. Probably the only pictures used came from later in the day when they ended the event with a protest in Trafalgar Square close to where a large audience had gathered to watch the opera.

Protests in the UK seldom get reported, unless they result in considerable disruption, violence or involve celebrities behaving badly. So far as most editors are concerned they are not ‘news’. Of course much of the press and media is owned by a small group of billionaires whose interests those editors have to bear in mind even where there is not explicit direction. But more generally they operate under a general restraint of upholding the status quo and from their personal position as part of the well paid middle class – something which has been very apparent in the coverage of the recent RMT strikes.

But overall Extinction Rebellion have done much to bring the climate crisis into a wider public consciousness, and I applaude them for this even if I agree with some of their left and anarchist critics. And perhaps an opera-based protest exemplifies the middle-class nature of the organisation. But mobilising such a large middle-class movement is certainly an acheivement, and many of their harshest critics are those who have failed to mobilise more than a tiny fraction of the working class. Though nothing at the moment suggests that XR’s efforts will result in any of the decisive action needed to be anything but too little too late.

Relatively few people actually see protests on the streets, and most who do are too intent on getting on with their life, shopping or hurrying to meetings or to catch trains to take much notice. Much of XR Carmen’s Carbon Procession in any case took part on fairly empty back streets and it was more an event staged for the media than a protest.

The protest took place on the day that BP, a company which began life in 1909 as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, Ltd, a part of our imperial exploitation of Iran’s vast oil reserves was greenwashing its polluting and climate-damaging activities through sponsorship of a Royal Opera House performance of Carmen to be relayed to 13 BP giant screens in major cities across the UK.

*An opera singer performs a little from Carmen*

It toured the offices of oil companies belonging to the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI) urging them to abandon the pretence they can combat global warming without a huge cut in oil production and delivering copies of the Extinction Rebellion Handbook ‘This is Not A Drill’.

As well as Carmen in costume, there was a fine opera singer and a group of musicians, XR drummers to draw attention to the event and a team who marked out the company offices as crime scenes.

*The procession found a floral arch in Grosvenor Square*

The event met on Ebury Bridge before marking to perform in front of the nearby offices of Italian petroleum company ENI, on an otherwise rather empty street in Pimlico. They then moved on for another performance on a busy lunchtime street corner in Eccleston Square and then the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) close to Victoria Station. By then they needed a rest in Hyde Park before going through Mayfair to the offices of Saudi Aramco at 10 Portman Square.

*And an illegally parked symbol of the kind of extreme wasteful consumption that has got the planet in such a mess*

It had taken them around three and a half hours to get there, and I decided I’d taken enough pictures and was getting tired. But probably the parts of the event more likely to be featured as news in the UK were to come. Their next planned performance was outside BP in St James’s Square, from where they were going on to protest close to the giant screen in Trafalgar Square, hoping to make clear to the audience there that the Royal Opera House should end their greenwashing sponsorship by BP.

*Security at Saudi Aramco take a copy of the XR Handbook ‘This is not a Drill’*

More at XR Carmen’s Carbon Procession

Hyde Park Corner & Belgravia

St Georges Hospital, Royal Artillery, Memorial, Hyde Park Corner, Westminster, 1988 88-3d-22-positive_2400 — *St Georges Hospital, Royal Artillery, Memorial, Hyde Park Corner, Westminster, 1988 88-3d-22*

I can’t recall why on this particular March Day in 1988 I decided to photograph these major military meorials at Hyde Park Corner. I think I’d probably emerged from the tube there, or perhaps got off a bus from Victoria Station and thought the lighting looked right. Non-photographers often see me going out on bright sunny days with a blue sky and no trace of cloud and say to me “Good weather for it!” and I usually just give a faint smile, while thinking to myself it might have been better to have left the cameras at home. For subjects like these, a bright overcast day with no shadows is generally the best, enabling you to chose your viewpoint to bring out the best in your subject.

Machine Gun Corps, Memorial, Hyde Park Corner, Westminster, 1988 88-3d-43-positive_2400 — *Machine Gun Corps, Memorial, Hyde Park Corner, Westminster, 1988 88-3d-43*

St George’s Hospital is a good backdrop for the . The hospital opened next door in 1733 and was expanded with this building in 1830, to provide 300 beds. Its medical school moved to Tooting in1970 and the hospital finally closed here in 1980. Part had clearly moved much earlier and the Nightingale Ward in which I stayed for a couple of weeks at St George’s in 2003 were clearly from the 19th century and falling to pieces. The Grade I listed Royal Artillery Memorial designed by Charles Sargeant Jagger, with architectural work by Lionel Pearson, was unveiled in 1925, to commemorate the 49,076 soldiers from the Royal Artillery killed in the First World War and to my mind is the finest sculptural piece of the several around.

Wellington Arch, Memorial, Apsley Way, Hyde Park Corner, Westminster, 1988 88-3d-44-positive_2400 — *Wellington Arch, Memorial, Apsley Way, Hyde Park Corner, Westminster, 1988 88-3d-44*

The Machine Gun Corps Memorial was also erected in 1925, but rather further to the south in Grosvenor Place. It was dismantled to enlarge the roudabout in 1945 and only replace in its current position at the north of the isolated square in 1963, By Derwent Wood, it shows David holding Goliath’s sword and at a lower lever are two real Vickers machine guns covered with bronze and with laurel wreathes. The Grade I-listed triumphal arch by Decimus Burton was built nearby in 1826-30 to celebrate the victory over the French and moved to its curent location in 1882-3. At the same time a huge and ugly equestrian statue of Wellington which had been placed on top in 1846 was removed and sent to Aldershot, being replace by the more fitting Quadriga by Captain Adrian Jones. Until 1992 the arch was home to London’s smallest police station but it now houses an exhibition about Waterloo.

Wellington statue, Memorial, Apsley House, Hyde Park Corner, Westminster, 1988 88-3d-46-positive_2400 — *Wellington statue, Memorial, Apsley House, Hyde Park Corner, Westminster, 1988 88-3d-46*

When the eyesore huge Wellington statue was taken from the top of the arch to Aldershot, Joseph Boehm was commisioned to make a replacement, which was installed on a plinth facing the Duke of Wellington’s house, Apsley House, at Hyde Park Corner. Below on the four corners of the plinth stand four foot-soldiers, one from each of the four nations of the united kingdom.

Hans Crescent, Knightsbridge, Westminster, 1988 88-3e-22-positive_2400 — *Hans Crescent, Knightsbridge, Westminster, 1988 88-3e-22*

Hans Crescent in Knightsbridge is a little to the west of Hyde Park Corner, between the back of Harrods and Sloane St. Part of the Cadogan Estate, this building at 2-4 Hans Crscent on the corner of Pavilion Road stands out in the area both for its white finish – and is know at the White House among so much red brick and is home to the Holy Carrot vegan restaurant, described by some as London’s best vegan restuarant and also to Urban Reatreat, “a one stop shop for all things to do with beauty” also with a restuarant but not vegan who are responsible for a large pink and gold plastic creature on its balcony.

Chester Square, Belgravia, Westminster, 1988 88-3e-24-positive_2400 — *Chester Square, Belgravia, Westminster, 1988 88-3e-24*

Edward Walford in his contribution ‘The western suburbs: Belgravia’, to Old and New London: Volume 5 (London, 1878), pp. 1-14. has a lengthy description of Belgravia, much a which is still relevant today. You can read it in full at British History Online but the rest of today’s text come from this volume:

This mine of wealth—the present suburb, or rather city, of Belgravia, for such it has become—passed into the possession of the Grosvenor family in 1656, when the daughter and sole heiress of Alexander Davies, Esq., of Ebury Farm, married Sir Thomas Grosvenor, the ancestor of the present Duke of Westminster. This Mr. Davies died in 1663, three years after the Restoration, little conscious of the future value of his five pasturing fields.
Edward Walford, ‘The western suburbs: Belgravia’, in Old and New London: Volume 5 (London, 1878), pp. 1-14. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/old-new-london/vol5/pp1-14

Chester Square, Belgravia, Westminster, 1988 88-3e-25-positive_2400 — *Chester Square, Belgravia, Westminster, 1988 88-3e-25*

“In Queen Elizabeth’s time,” observes a writer in the Belgravia magazine, “this sumptuous property was only plain Eabury, or Ebury Farm, a plot of 430 acres, meadow and pasture, let on lease to a troublesome ‘untoward’ person named Wharle; and he, to her farthingaled Majesty’s infinite annoyance, had let out the same to various other scurvy fellows, who insisted on enclosing the arable land, driving out the ploughs, and laying down grass, to the hindrance of all pleasant hawking and coursing parties. Nor was this all the large-hearted queen alone cared about; she had a feeling for the poor, and she saw how these enclosures were just so much sheer stark robbery of the poor man’s right of common after Lammas-tide. In the Regency, when Belgrave Square was a ground for hanging out clothes, all the space between Westminster and Vauxhall Bridge was known as ‘Tothill Fields,’ or ‘The Downs.’ It was a dreary tract of stunted, dusty, trodden grass, beloved by bull-baiters, badger-drawers, and dog-fighters.
Edward Walford, ‘The western suburbs: Belgravia’, in Old and New London: Volume 5 (London, 1878), pp. 1-14. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/old-new-london/vol5/pp1-14

Chester Square, Belgravia, Westminster, 1988 88-3f-16-positive_2400 — *Chester Square, Belgravia, Westminster, 1988 88-3f-16*

There can be little doubt that, in right of his Manor of Ebury, the Duke of Westminster enjoys one of the largest rent-rolls, if not the very largest, in the kingdom. The current rumour of the day sets it down at £1,000 a day, or £365,000 a year. Other noblemen, especially the Dukes of Sutherland, Buccleuch, and Northumberland, are thought to approach very nearly to a like rental.
Chester Square, which almost abuts upon the north side of Eaton Square, was commenced about the year 1840, and was so called after the City of Chester, near which place Eaton Hall is situated. The picturesque Gothic church of St. Michael, which stands in a commanding position at the western end of the square, was erected in 1844, the foundation-stone being laid by Earl Grosvenor, father of the present Duke of Westminster; and it was built from the designs of Mr. Thomas Cundy in the Decorated style of the fourteenth century. Its principal external feature is the tower, with a lofty spire, which, till some additions to the body of the church were made in 1874, appeared to be somewhat out of proportion to the remainder of the fabric.
Edward Walford, ‘The western suburbs: Belgravia’, in Old and New London: Volume 5 (London, 1878), pp. 1-14. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/old-new-london/vol5/pp1-14

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.

Hands off Sudan

The protest in London on 15th June was a response to the massacre of 124 peaceful protesters by Janjaweed militias (Rapid Support Forces) in Khartoum on 3rd June and the 3-day general strike prompted by this the following week. Protests began in Sudan in December 2018, calling for an end to the military regime headed by President Omar al-Bashir and calling for a return to civilian rule.

The protests continued and military coup in April removed al-Bashir from power and the country was under control of a Transitional Military Council, which the protesters demanded transfer power to a civilian-led government. Negotiations continued between the two sides until interrupted by the Khartoum massacre, and were resumed following the three-day general strike.

The massacre was thought to have been prompted by demands from Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates that the miltary and police take a tougher line against the protests, and so the London demonstration began at the UAE embassy in Belgrave Square before marching to Mayfair and the Egyptian embassy in South Street and finally the Saudi embassy nearby.

My only real problem in photographing the protest was in finding it, as although I knew the starting time I hadn’t been able to find any timings for the other two embassies. It wasn’t clear how long they would be in Belgrave Square or when they might arrive elsewhere.

Because of covering other events I was unable to get to the start in Belgrave Square and thought by the time I could get to the protest it might be at the Egyptian Embassy. I took the tube to Green Park and walked there – passing the back of the Saudi Embassy on route. There were only a handful of protesters at the Egyptian Embassy and it was clear the protest had not yet arrived, so I continued on the likely route towards the starting point.

As I crossed Hyde Park Corner I saw and heard the protest emerging from Grosvenor Crescent and hurried to meet it. They stopped for some time on Grosvenor Place where I took the first few pictures on a fairly narrow and very crowded pavement; heavy traffic there made it unsafe to photograph from the road.

After a while the protesters moved across to the wider pavement in front of the monumental gateway to Hyde Park, where again it halted for some loud singing, chanting and dancing before moving off around into Park Lane. By the time I’d photographed the end of the procession crossing South Carriage Drive at the Queen Elizabeth Gate I decided I’d probably taken enough pictures and could make my way home. One of the noticeable aspects of the protest was the large proportion of women among those most active in it.

In Sudan negotiations continued with an agreement being reached between the TXC and the Forces of Freedom and Change representing the protesters agreeing there would be a judicial investigation into the Khartoum massacre and other events and that they would share power for a transitional period until elections in mid-2022 led to a civilian government. Street protests have also continued, but it looks as if they have acheived their goal.

More at: Hands off Sudan march

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.

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