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Childrens Day, Notting Hill – 2004

Childrens Day, Notting Hill Carnival: Sunday 29th August 2004 was Children’s Day at Notting Hill Carnival and back in 2004 I wrote just two short paragraphs to go with a large number of pictures.

“I don’t know whose wallet it was in the hand I caught as it reached into my pocket in Cambridge Gardens, but it wasn’t mine. It wasn’t the time or place to argue much, so I let the youth wriggle away.”

“The 40th Notting Hill Carnival was living up to its reputation, in this and also in the friendliness of most of the participants. This was Children’s Day, so I took my son, and will embarrass him with a couple of pictures of him dancing. But mostly it was what we have come to expect, and a little dull weather and the odd shower didn’t mar the celebrations”

I didn’t take my wallet to Notting Hill, but in a densely-packed crowd found a hand putting an empty one back into my left front trouser pocket. Perhaps he thought he had earlier taken it from that same pocket before removing the contents and was trying to replace it, or did he just want an easy way to get rid of the evidence.

I think I probably went to carnival on around twenty or thirty days over the years, though I’ve not been recently. Apart from this rather odd incident I saw very little criminality apart from the widespread smoking of weed – and I picked up enough secondary smoke some days to make me rather high.

But generally there were many more pickpockets on crowded underground trains and much more violence in the crowds around football stadiums. Press reports always greatly exaggerated the negative sides of the event and I never felt unsafe. When there were reports of trouble it was usually late in the day when I had gone home.

But I did take some simple precautions – taking a couple of notes and some coins rather than my wallet and credit cards, and being more careful than usual with my photo gear. I carried less than usual and kept it in a small ex-military shoulder bag – though in crowds I carried this around my neck and in front of my body.

Attitude is also important. Some photographers seem to me to be rather confrontational but I followed my normal friendly nature, smiling, talking and at times dancing with people. Like most of the others at the event I was there to have a good time. And to have just a can or two of Red Stripe – and some of my free annual malt fix.

You can see more pictures from Childrens Day beginning here on My London Diary.

And I went back on the following day on my own for the carnival proper – pictures begin here.

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English Results & Vedanta AGM – 2012

English Results & Vedanta AGM: On Tuesday 28th August 2012 I photographed a protest by London teachers over Michael Gove’s interference with GCSE English grading before going on to Lincoln Inn Fields for a lively protests outside the AGM of London-based mining company Vedanta.

Regrade GCSE English

Dept of Education, Westminster

London teachers protested outside the Education Ministry against Michael Gove’s intervention in the grading of GCSE English results, which had moved the mark boundary between Grad C and Grade D, meaning that many students who previously would have achieved a C grade were now graded at D.

GCSE had been introduced as a system to grade students with no particular significance to the C/D boundary, but over the years has been altered by governments to make C a pass and D a fail, both for the students and also for the schools.

Students who fail to get a C or above in English (and Maths) may be prevented from goning on to further study even in unrelated subjects, and schools which fail to get passes for the required 40% pass benchmark are at risk. Some teachers may also lose pay as a result – even though their students have actually performed at the same level.

The change in the grade boundaries is seen as part of Gove’s agenda to blame schools and teachers for ‘failing’ students and provide a rationale for closing down schools run by democratically elected local councils and replacing extending the privatisation of education by their replacement by ‘academies.’

The altered grading disproportionately affects students from working class backgrounds, whose aims to better themselves through education have already been hit by this government with the removal of EMA, the educational maintenance allowance for 16-18 year olds, and by the hike in University fees.

*Then NUT Deputy General Secretary Kevin Courtney speaking*

The grade shift was estimated to result in an increase of around 10,000 in the number of young people not in education, employment, or training, “NEET“s. and on the same day as this protest Employment Minister Chris Grayling announced that young unemployed Londoners would be forced to do three months of unpaid full-time work or have their benefits cut.

More on My London Dairy: Regrade GCSE English

Vedanta AGM Protest

Lincoln’s Inn Fields

Mining company Vedanta, owned by Indian billionaire Anil Agarwal and backed by the UK government was opposed by groups in India, Goa, Liberia, Namibia, South Africa, Ireland, Zambia and Sri Lanka because of the environmental damage, pollution and human rights abuses caused by its mining of bauxite and other minerals.

*Protesters from Goa ask ‘Where have all the trees gone!’?*

Vedanta’s activities had been condemned by Amnesty International and many organisations had withdrawn their investments including the Norwegian Government Pension Fund, Martin Currie Investments, the Church of England, the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and the Dutch Pension Fund PGGM.

But the company was still supported by over 30 major banks and financial agencies including HSBC, RBS, Deutsche Bank, Axa, Royal Bank of Canada, Credit Suisse, J P Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Lloyds Banking Group, Nordea Bank, ICICI, Citigroup, National Bank of Kuwait, ANZ and Merrill Lynch.

*Samarendra Das of Foil Vedanta speaks, John McDonnell MP listens*

In Odisha, India, the smelting of bauxite had left over 10,000 displaced people landless, contaminated drinking water and devastated vast areas of formerly fertile land, with famines every year since 2007. Only widespread and determined resistance by the indigenous Advasi people over seven years has so far prevented the devastation of their sacred Niyamgiri hills.

There had been many huge protests in Tamil Nadu where their subsidiary “has flouted laws without remorse, operating and expanding without consent, violating environmental conditions, and illegally dumping toxic effluents and waste” and had overturned court decisions against them by “large scale corruption and bribery.”

The lively protest was organised by Foil Vedanta. At one point well-dressed protester who walked up to the gate leading to the AGM and threw fake blood on the pavement before rushing away.

Shareholders attending the meeting then had to step carefully over the pool of blood to go in to the meeting until some minutes later a cleaner was sent out to clear the mess.

Four of the protesters, icnluding Bianca Jagger, dressed as usual in white, had to step over it as they went in, having become shareholders to they could attend the AGM and raise questions about the company’s actions.

More at Vedanta AGM Protest

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All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
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Notting Hill Carnival – 2006

Notting Hill Carnival – On Sunday 27th August 2006 I went to Childrens’ Day of the Notting Hill Carnival, returning on Monday 28th for the main Carnival Day.

By then I’d photographed carnival over more than a dozen years and was getting to feel I had little more to say about the event, though I was still enjoying the atmosphere. I’d had to miss the 2005 event and this year was determined to do my best.

Looking at the pictures I think I concentrated more on the actual parade than in previous years, though I think the black and white images probably show more of those of us following the performers. Below I’ll include – with the usual corrections – what I wrote about the two days back in 2006.

“The big event of August is always Notting Hill Carnival, and I was there both on the Sunday afternoon for Children’s Day and for the main event on the Monday, shooting both black and white film and colour digital (though when I’ll get round to processing the film is anyone’s guess.) [By 2006 I had largely abandoned film and I think a few months later I finally decided rather than process it myself to send it to a lab.]

“Perhaps it’s because I’m getting older, but I didn’t get the same buzz from this year’s event as in previous years, though most of the same things seemed to be around.

“Perhaps there lies the problem; most of them did seem to be the same, two years on from when I last photographed the event.

“Last year I tried to go, dragging myself to the station with a knee injury, but the pain was too much to continue. This year my knee held out, though I was glad to sink into a seat on the Underground at Latimer Road at the end of the day.”

There are many photographers at Carnival, and only a few of these pictures have ever got published. Among those that have is the one apparently showing a well-known football manager (who I didn’t recognise and whose name I’ve forgotten) in a line of women in costume.

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Gunnersbury Park & Brentford – 2018

Gunnersbury Park & Brentford: Another family outing on Friday 24th August 2018 took us to Gunnersbury House Museum, a free museum jointly owned by the London Borough of Hounslow and the London Borough of Ealing. It turned out to be considerably more interesting than I expected.

The 200 acre Gunnersbury estate was bought in 1925 from the Rothschild family by Ealing Borough Council and Acton Borough Council for £130,000, although it was all actually just outside their areas and in Brentford Urban District. They wanted to build over it, but the Rothschilds stipulated that all except a small part of it it was only to be used for leisure and recreation and it was opened to the public as a park by Neville Chamberlainn, then Minister of Health, in 1926.

Development of the site as a ‘country estate’ on the outskirts of London had begun in the late 17th century when the first large mansion, Gunnersbury House was built around 1663. The estate passed through various hands including wealthy merchant and MP Henry Furnese who had noted landscape designer William Kent give the park a makeover. Next Princess Amelia, favourite daughter of George II, had further changes made to the grounds for her famous parties there, including building a bathhouse.

The first mansion was demolished in 1801 and the estate was split into two adjoining estates each with a new mansion.

The Grade II* listing for the ‘Large Mansion’ states it was built in “1801-28 by and for Alexander Copland; remodelled 1836 by Sydney Smirke for Nathan Mayer Rothschild, the City financier and Frankfurt-born founder of the British branch of this famous international Jewish banking dynasty.”

Next door the “Small Mansion”, on the site of the former mansion was built in 1801-1802 for Stephen Cosser according its Grade II listing, though other sources place it a few years later. It was extended with a service wing in 1837-44 by eccentric “Rogue Gothic” architect Joseph Peacock (1821–1893).

*The Rothschilds had two French chefs who shared this office*

The Rothschilds bought the Large Mansion (now the museum) and its gardens and park in 1835, adding the Small Mansion and its grounds in 1889 to recreate the now Grade II* listed Gunnersbury Park.

*Large prints from Leopold de Rothschild’s Autochromes show the place as it was over a hundred years ago – with flamingos*

I walked with Linda to the park from Kew Bridge Station along Lionel Road “with some difficulty as it is now a building site and crossed the Great West Road under the overhead M4, a Ballardian trek past the old and closed castellated gate to the park to enter into a sylvan wilderness, walking past the Potomac lake and its gothic folly.”

*The garden slopes down from the house to a lake*

Older members of our party took a shorter walk from the underground at Acton Central. Lionel Road is now overlooked by Brentford Community Stadium opened in 2020.

The park is certainly worth a visit and on My London Diary you can read more about what were for me the two highlights.These were the huge Rothschild’s kitchens where meals, not generally kosher, were prepared under the supervision of two French chefs, and a display of large prints from the Autochromes taken by Leopold de Rothschild using the first practical colour photography process patented by the Lumiere brothers in 1903 and sold to the public from 1907.

*I made a new picture as we passed a cafe I photographed almost 30 years earlier on our way to Kew Bridge*

We ate, not from those kitchens but from the modern park café, “tasty but rather insubstantial, and if you visit and are hungry, I’d advise a side order of chips” – or a short walk to a cheaper place near Acton Town station.

*The Thames and Brentford Ait from under Kew Bridge*

After the meal we said goodbye to the others and took a longer walk around the park before walking back to Kew Bridge station. With almost half and hour to wait for the next train we took a short walk by the River Thames to Brentford High Street and back.

You can read more about our trip to the park and the museum and see many more pictures from the day on My London Diary at Gunnersbury Park & Brentford.

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A Day in London – 2004

A Day in London: I spent Sunday August 22nd 2004 wandering around London looking for things that didn’t seem to happen and finding other things that hardly seemed worth taking pictures of. But I did take some pictures. A few at Speakers Corner, Fast Forward a BBC Radio London event in Trafalgar Square, Gymnasts in Olympic Rings and some dancers in a dystopian vision in ‘Forward To Da Future’. Finally I went over the river back to Viva South Africa in the Coin Street Festival I’d visited the previous day.

Here I’ll reproduce (with some minor corrections) what I wrote in 2004 and post a few of the pictures that I took – you can see more on My London Diary here for Viva South Africa and here for more pictures from 22nd August.

Sunday was disappointing. Two demonstrations I’d been told about either didn’t happen at all or were so late I’d given up and gone away by the time they did. There are quite a few things like this, people publicise events, then change their mind, or sometimes they simply get the day wrong in the announcements.

I wandered into Speakers Corner to find the usual guys there, mainly religious nutters, but at least a couple with a sense of humour. My vote goes to the Olive Oil Party; we are superior to the Americans because we don’t need Viagra, we have olive oil, though I wasn’t quite clear what you need to do with it.

Then I went to Trafalgar Square, to see ‘Fast Forward’,but it seemed to be run by BBC Radio London, and was bad news, too much agitated media-hype like silly kids TV programmes on Saturday mornings. Fast Forward really was a washout, and failed to live up to the billing. Shoreditch parade the previous day had shown what people and communities can do and the real excitement and involvement it can generate; this was more about a few people on the make, exploiting the arts establishment’s guilt about race.

There were some rather clever gymnasts performing in five hoops – ‘Olympic Rings’ – hung from a frame in front of the National Gallery, but there are only so many things you can do with a hoop.

‘Forward To Da Future’ was more interesting, with lots of kids in a dance performance, the result of a dance summer school. But the woman dancer going on about meeting a man who didn’t turn up and texting on mobile phones was ultimate trivia; wasting her dance talent with inadequate material.

I made for some real music at the second day of the Viva South Africa festival on the south bank.

Viva South Africa on 21 August
More pictures from 22nd August

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Leyton & Walthamstow Colour – 1994

*S. Gold & Sons, Gold House, 69 Flempton Road, Leyton, Waltham Forest, 1994, 94-101-43*

The name was Gold and the building was in a kind of pale gold colour and blue. The company was an independent wholesaler particularly in the music business, distributing records, CDs and videos as well as confectionery. It moved to larger premises at Uplands Business Estate on Blackhorse Road Walthamstow in 2001 and closed down suddenly in 2008 putting its 200 employees out of work.

It was a family business which began outside Sidney Gold’s delicatessen in Ilford in 1955 when his two sons began selling records from racks in front of the shop. From there the moved to a stall in Petticoat Lane before deciding to set up as wholesalers in Leyton.

*Lytham House, 19, Chelmsford Rd, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1994, 94-101-46*

Just an ordinary house in a long residential terrace but enlivened by decoration by a rather idiosyncratic resident. All the houses in this part of the street have tablets between the upper and lower bays, but this one has its name, Lytham House and decoration pointed out in red and green paint.

Probably the name was chosen by the first residents when this street was built in 1894-7, but the paintwork was rather more recent, and to me suggested a Caribbean influence. The house and wall have now faded to a rather duller appearance in keeping with its neighbours but still has its decorated windows.

Shandar, Lansdowne Rd, Queens Rd, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1994, 94-101-32 — *Shandar, Landsdowne Rd, 65, Queens Rd, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1994, 94-101-32*

Shandar is a Hini and Urdu adjective for something. It is Hindi and Urdu to describe something very impressive, excellent, grand, magnificent or beautiful, and used for this high quality takeaway. The render was scraped off the wall in 2008 and the wall re-covered and is now blank.

*Dyke Court, Gosport Rd, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1994, 94-101-33*

A mural on the wall of Dyke Court shows different colour youngsters many with very odd hairstyles lamenting the loss of their Markhouse Youth Club.

Jimmy's Fish Bar, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1994, 94-101-36 — *Jimmy’s Fish Bar, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1994, 94-101-36*

You could get a steak and kidney pie for £1 and 60p of chips for a filling meal at Jimmy’s back in 1994, though I think you paid a little extra to sit at the solid wooden table to eat it in rather than take it away. But the colour scheme made me feel a little queasy.

A traditional English café with a wide range of puddings listed for 55p and a little more. Every table with an ashtray. This could well have been in Walthamstow but might have been elsewhere on my journeys around London.

A much more limited menu for this smaller cafe located somewhere in London – and again it could be Walthamstow. Two lists give the prices for TAKE AWAY and TO EAT IN CAFE.

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Maggie’s Hugs & Fortnum & Mason – 2011

Maggie’s Hugs & Fortnum & Mason: On Friday 19 August 2011 I stopped briefly on the Queen’s Walk outside City Hall on the south bank of the Thames close to Tower Bridge to photograph the ‘Hug London‘ event by cancer charity Maggie’s, before going on to a protest outside Westminster Magistrates Court where protesters arrested during a peaceful protest in luxury food shop Fortnum & Mason were facing charges of aggravated trespass.

Maggie’s Charity Hugs London

City Hall

Maggie's Hugs & Fortnum & Mason - 2011 — *Keep calm after the riots and join Maggie’s fund-raising Night Hike was the message*

Maggie’s Centres offer support for anyone affected by cancer and to their family and friends from the time of diagnosis, during and after treatment, to recurrence, end of life or in bereavement.

The cancer care charity was set up by Maggie Jencks after the recurrence of her breast cancer in 1993 and opened the first Maggie’s Centre in Edinburgh shortly after her death in 1995.

There are now in 2026 around 30 centres across the UK and four international centres – considerably more than in 2011. The main fundraising events for the charity are various challenges and the largest of these in 2011 was a London Night Hike, a a 10 or 20 mile adventure held in partnership with Open House London, with hikers getting to visit inside a number of iconic buildings on the route for food and entertainment.

Unfortunately registration for the Night Hike had opened on the day when London’s 2011 riots were taking place and this had led to a great drop in registration – although London would almost certainly be peaceful when the actual event was to take place in September.

Volunteers had come to London to try to get more people to take part , walking around London offering Londoners free hugs and handing out invitations to sign up for the Night Hike.

Maggie’s Hugs London

Support Fortnum & Mason Protesters

Westminster Magistrates Court, 70 Horseferry Road

UK Uncut were one of a number of groups taking action during the massive TUC ‘March For The Alternative‘ on Saturday 26th March 2011. They came to Oxford Street to hold peaceful protests at tax dodging shops and banks around Oxford St and to party at Oxford Circus.

I had photographed some of their protests earlier in the day but went home to change clothes before they got to Fortnum and Mason, having been hit by a paintball from a black bloc protester, possibly aimed at police. Otherwise I would probably have probably have been with them when the went into the luxury shop and might well have been arrested despite having a Press Card.

*Half the protesters went into the public gallery, though they had to change out of white suits to be allowed in*

Fortnum and Mason was occupied because it is ‘a symbol of wealth and greed‘ and made use of a tax avoidance scheme to save £10 million a year. During the protest police praised the protesters for their cooperation with the police in not attempting to leave the premises.

Chief inspector Claire Clark, the senior officer present can be seen and heard on video promising them that they would be free to leave, but apparently she already knew that they would be arrested as they left.

Police held the protesters in the store as there were battles taking place between the black block and police in the area around and the police were unable to control the situation – and there would probably have been unable to make mass arrests. Police also needed time to had made arrangements for a large number of arrests. So officers – in best police tradition – lied to the protesters.

All 145 UK Uncut protesters were arrested as they left the store and charged with the serious offence of aggravated trespass with intent to intimidate. They were then taken to various police stations and held for many hours. Some were turned out in the early hours of the morning only partly dressed, in flimsy white part transparent suits over their underclothes, often many miles from their homes

*A mother of one of those arrested in a plastic suit over underwear as her daughter was turned out by police*

Eventually charges against most were dropped, but 30 were brought to court, divided alphabetically into three groups, A, B and C. All ten in trial A were found guilty but given a conditional discharge and told to pay £1,000 each towards costs, with the judge telling them “History often vindicates those involved in such acts.” Those in Trial B were initially found guilty but five of the nine were acquitted on appeal. All in Trial C were acquitted.

I still find it hard to believe that the CPS decided it was in the public interests to bring these prosecutions having seen the videos and heard much of the evidence. There was little damage in the shop, although some people trapped in there for two and a half hours by the police may have sampled a little food. The main loss to the shop was caused by police as the protesters would have left peacefully after a few minutes of occupation had the police allowed them to do so – and there would have been little loss of business.

Clearly these arrests and trials were politically motivated. It was a peaceful protest and it was the police who closed the shop, not the protesters.

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Church Path, Town Hall & West Reservoir – 1990

Church Path, Town Hall & West Reservoir: The third and final post from my walk on April 1st 1990. The previous post was Reservoir, Castle & Lordship Lane

Church path, The Old Church, St Mary's, Church, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1990, 90-4b-61 — *Church path, The Old Church, St Mary’s, Church, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1990, 90-4b-61*

The Old Church is the only remaining Elizabethan church in London, built in 1563 when the then Lord of the Manor decided to rebuild the near-derelict parish church, including a private chapel for him and his family. The Church was extensively restored in 1827-9 by Charles Barry who almost doubled its seating and replaced its wooden spire – not visible in my picture. But although much has changed it has retained its Tudor character.

The Old Church was heavily damaged in wartime bombing in October 1940, but repairs were made quickly and it was back in use only a couple of months later. Later there were more repairs and most of the box pews were removed. In 2013 the interior was remodelled to make it a flexible arts and community space.

The Old Church is on the right of my picture, rather overshadowed by its successor; there was a call by the end of the eighteenth century for a larger building to cope with the growing population of the area, but the new and much larger church was only opened in 1858. The new St Mary’s Stoke Newington was designed by George Gilbert Scott but its spire was completed by his son, J O Scott, in 1890. The building is in the Decorated style of the late C13/early C14 made popular by Pugin and the Ecclesiologist Movement. The Old Church became a ‘chapel of ease’ and has never been deconsecrated. Both churches are Grade II* listed.

*Monument, Church path, The Old Church, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1990, 90-4b-63*

One of the several impressive monuments in the churchyard around the Old Church, but I cannot make out the names of those buried here – though one of them died in 1789.

Several people prominent in the abolition of the slave trade have their graves here including James Stephen (William Wilberforce’s brother-in-law, a lawyer and chief adviser on the anti-slavery bill) and Wilberforce’s sister and daughter. He also asked to be buried here but when he died it was decided he should be in Westminster Abbey.

Two tombs in the cemetery are Grade II listed, that of James Stephen and of the Romantic woman poet and abolitionist Anna Laetitia Barbauld (1743-1825) and her ‘beloved brother’, John Aikin (1747-1822)

*Stoke Newington Town Hall, Stoke Newington Church St, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1990, 90-4b-65*

Stoke Newington Town Hall is an impressive municipal building, designed by J Reginald Truelove as the Town Hall for the Metropolitan Borough of Stoke Newington and built in 1935-7 and still in use as council offices.

On its noticeboards are fly-posters from the TKiH, the Türkiye Komünist isci Hareketi, Communist Workers’ Movement of Turkey, illegal in Turkey. Founded in 1984 it merged with other Turkish groups in 1994 to form the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party, MLKP who still appear in force in London’s May Day March.

*West Reservoir, Lordship Rd, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1990, 90-4b-55*

I returned to the West Reservoir and took a walk around it – I think this picture shows the New River at right and was taken from a bridge over it. There appears to be a channel with a sluice gate joining the reservoir and the river just beyond the skip in the centre of the picture.

*West Reservoir, Lordship Rd, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1990, 90-4b-31*

And I think this view was from more or less the same place but looking in the opposite direction, with the New River now in the foreground and council estates and solid blocks of council flats at Woodberry Down, a huge LCC estate built immediately after the war and now redeveloped.

This wasn’t quite the end of my walk, as I made my way back to Manor House station from here, and I took my final picture of the day going down the escalator there – but it was not worth digitising. For my next walk I returned to south London.

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Solidarity With Fergusson & Talha Ahsan -2017

Solidarity With Fergusson & Talha Ahsan. Sunday 17th August 2014 I photographed a protest outside the US Embassy, then still in Grosvenor Square, in solidarity with the people of Ferguson, Missouri where there had been huge community protests after police shot unarmed black teenager Michael Brown. Later a party outside the UK Home Office celebrated the release of poet and translator Talha Ahsan from a US prison while condemning UK Prime Minister Theresa May for having allowed his extradition despite his diagnosis of Asperger syndrome.

Solidarity with Ferguson

US Embassy, Grosvenor Square

After an altercation on the street in Ferguson, Missouri, on August 9, 2014,police officer Darren Wilson chased and shot Michael Brown, killing him. Some witnesses claimed that Brown had turned to face the officer with his hands up, shouting “Don’t shoot” . Six bullets hit the front of his body, including one to his head which was immediately fatal. Wilson claimed that Brown had charged at him but witnesses dispute this.

The slogan “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot!” became widely used in the protests over the killing. There were immediate widespread protests in Ferguson, mostly peaceful but some which led to violence and looting; it was an area were there were “longstanding racial tensions between the minority-black population and the majority-white city government and police.“

*NUS Black students banner lists just a few of the Black people who have been murdered by the police*

There were widespread protests in cities across America and around the world – including this one in London. The anger at the killing was amplified by a media campaign which portrayed Brown as a ‘thug’ and labelled the community protests as riots.

Later there were more protests after a grand jury decided not to indict Wilson, following an extended examination of a vast body of evidence,. Many felt the unusual way it had been conducted had influenced the jury’s decision.

The shooting and its aftermath attracted so much attention that Amnesty International for the first time ever sent a team to investigate Ferguson, finding significant human rights abuses. Their report “cited the use of lethal force in Brown’s death, racial discrimination and excessive use of police force, imposition of restrictions on the rights to protest, intimidation of protesters, the use of tear gas, rubber bullets, and long range acoustic devices, restrictions imposed on the media covering the protests, and lack of accountability for law enforcement policing protests.”

In the UK many saw a parallel to the police killing of Mark Duggan in 2011, also unarmed and surrendering when killed by police (and where a gun was apparently planted later by an officer some yards away.) His aunt, Carole Duggan spoke at the vigil.

The London vigil was organised by ‘London Black Revolutionaries’, a recently formed group of militant black activists who called “for the US to stop violently oppressing, Black People and Black Protests” – and for an end to similar oppression in the UK. Earlier known as B.B.R.S (I think Black British Revolutionary Socialists) they were Black British and British Asian youths who had split away from the Socialist Workers Party some months before this protest and were largely based in Brixton.

Those at the vigil were from across London’s communities although a majority were black. There was some audible dissent from all sides when one of the speakers suggested that the struggle for justice was one that only black people could understand and that they should fight it alone.

More pictures on My London Diary: Solidarity with Ferguson.

Shame on You Theresa May

Home Office

Talha Ahsan, a poet and translator, had been arrested in London in July 2006 following a n extradition request made by the USA. He was held here in maximum security for over 6 years without trial or charge while a number of appeals were heard against his extradition, until this was finally rejected by the European Court of Human Rights. He and five others had argued that the charges should be heard in the UK, but the court decided they could all be extradited.

*Posters showing Home Secretary Teresa May who agreed the extradition of Talha Ahsan despite his diagnosis of Asperger syndrome – and the lack of any credible evidence against him*

The US authorities had requested his extradition alleging that in London in 1997-2004 he had worked for a London company on material for a series of websites, hosted on a server in the United States, “designed to designed to incite readers to violent jihad and to provide material support to terrorist related entities“.

Theresa May, Home Secretary at the time, approved his extradition despite his suffering from Asperger syndrome which it was argued would make it extremely difficult for him to cope with the shocking changes this would cause. May stopped another extradition request for another Asperger’s sufferer, Gary McKinnon, and the different treatment led to widespread accusations of double standards.

*Bruce Kent speaking next to a caricature of Teresa May*

Talha Ahsan had been released by a judge following a plea bargain in the US courts, but at the time of this party was still held in the USA, coming back shortly after.

He agreed to admit to charges of conspiracy and providing material support for groups in in Chechnya & Afganistan – although as in many similar cases, there was probably little substance in the allegations – but the bargain released him from other charges for which he could have spent the rest of his life in solitary. And because of the time he had already served he was due for release.

*Zita Holborne reads a poem – with ‘Teresa May’ looking over her shoulder*

A number of people came to speak and read poems – including some by Talya – at the event and you can see pictures of most of them on My London Dairy at Shame on You Theresa May,

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Reservoir, Castle & Lordship Lane – 1990

Reservoir, Castle & Lordship Lane: My walk on April 1st 1990 began at Finsbury Park Station and the first post, Brownswood Park Finsbury Park – 1990, ended on Green Lanes where this post begins.

*Reservoir, Green Lanes, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1990, 90-4a-45*

The New River Path leads from Green Lanes immediately north of the ‘Castle’ and I think I walked from this path to the bank of the West reservoir to make this picture. There have been considerable changes in the area and I can no longer identify the trees or buildings in my view.

The West Reservoir next to the New River dates from 1833, and I think this section of fencing probably dates from when it was enlarged in the 1850s or a little later. The associated filter beds have been built on, but a vigorous local ‘Save the Reservoirs’ campaign in the 1980s saved the reservoirs, with the West used for water sports and the East as a nature reserve.

*Reservoir, Green Lanes, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1990, 90-4a-46*

I think this was a part of the filter beds which have now gone. I liked the shadow of the fence and the wheel which presumably operated a valve to control the flow of water, perhaps to the pumping station.

Sand in the filter beds was first used to effectively removed most particles from the water but it was later realised that the slime which grew on top of the sand was very effective in killing bacteria to increase the safety of the water and sand filtration still plays an important role in producing our clean drinking water.

*Reservoir, Green Lanes, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1990, 90-4a-32*

I think the man in the picture is a bird-watcher rather than a photographer and is holding up binoculars to his eyes. Many migrating species take a rest at our reservoirs and birders flock to watch them.

*The Castle, Waterworks, Green Lanes, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1990, 90-4a-21*

The gothic fantasy waterworks, built to house massive steam-powered beam engines in 1854–1856 seen from close by – I needed a very wide lens to include the whole height of the tower. According to Industrial History Online “The original six beam engines, two by Watt & Co and 4 by Simpson were removed in 1953.” I think these were then scrapped. You can see similar beam engines in the highly recommended London Museum of Water & Steam in Brentford.

*House, Waterworks, Lordship Park, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1990, 90-4a-24*

On Green Lanes I walked south and turned down Lordship Park. Here I got a view of the Castle. I think the tower at right is a disguised chimney and the square section on top of that at the left may have held the tank that water was pumped into to give the pressure for supply to customers.

*Man Reading, House, Lordship Park, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1990, 90-4a-13*

Another picture in Lordship Park shows the very solid looking houses built there dating from around 1865. These are three storeys with a basement, the steps rising to an elevated ground floor, built in a Victorian Gothic style with the entrances recessed with a side window giving a somewhat clerical look; they have is some nice ornamental brickwork but in a fairly restrained fashion.

There are quite a few of these houses on both sides of thee street and I picked this view because of the man sitting reading the Sunday Mirror on the steps.

*Lion, Brothers of Islam, Lordship Park, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1990, 90-4a-16*

A final picture on this street shows the passageway between two houses with a small flowerbed looked over by a lion, and on the post at right in the freely written message ‘Brothers of ISLAM’.

My walk, now in Stoke Newington, continued – more later.

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