media policy | >Re-PHOTO

Climate Camp at Blackheath 2009

Climate Camp at Blackheath – Wednesday 26th August 2009

On Wednesday 26 August 2009 I joined Climate Campers who were meeting at several locations around London to go to an as yet unspecified location for that year’s Climate Camp.

I’d chosen to go with the Blue Group who were meeting at Stockwell Underground Station in south London, chosen as one of the starting points because of the events of 22 July 2005.

As I wrote back then, on “the escalator at Stockwell station it’s hard not to shiver at the memory of those videos showing Jean Charles de Menezes strolling down to catch his last train, and police coming though the gates in pursuit. There is a memorial to him outside the station, including a great deal of information about the event and the misinformation and covering up by police.“

Arriving there I found around 80 Climate Campers and half a dozen police being filmed and photographed by around 30 media and nothing very much happening. It was like that for the next couple of hours, during which we all went to a local park to have our sandwiches and some played games.

Eventually around 2pm we were called back to the station where we followed the leader who had a blue flag onto a train and off at Bank, where all trooped to the DLR, alighting at Greenwich. From here we trudged up the hill to Blackheath Common. Police were keeping a low profile, watching from a distance.

When we arrived the site on the common was still being secured and some people were hard at work erecting fences and vital resources – such as toilets. Legal observers were holding a meeting, but others were just making use of some comfortable furniture on the site or listening to singers.

I tried to photograph as many of these activities as I could.

In earlier years I’d had problems with Climate Camp and in particular their media policy. As I wrote “Press photographers visiting the site will be required to sign a media policy that most of us would find unacceptable and to be accompanied while on the site by a minder. (It can’t of course apply to the police photographers in their helicopter or cherry picker.) The policy appears to be driven by a few individuals with paranoid ideas about privacy and a totally irrational fear of being photographed. It really does not steal your soul!“

On the Wednesday the camp was still being set up and everyone had unfettered access. But this year in any case I’d actually been invited to take part as part of the media team for the camp – and on my later visit was provided with a sash to identify me as such – though I did still come across a little of that paranoia even when wearing it.

But there were also so many people I knew and others who recognised me from from other events that I felt very much at home walking around the site. The main problem I had was trying to keep moving rather than being drawn into lengthy conversations.

There was a meeting to welcome us all to the Climate Camp, after which the preparations for the camp continued, with water supplies being laid on, even baths plumbed in, various larger tents being erected as well as a large banner CAPITALISM IS CRISIS.

I had other things to do on the Friday and Saturday, but was able to return for a day at the camp on the Saturday, to make a record of the camp’s activities and of the campers at work and play, as well as some of the visitors who came to see what was happening. You can see my accounts and pictures from both days on My London Diary.

More on My London Diary:
Climate Camp: Blue Group Swoop
Climate Camp: Setup
Climate Camp: Saturday

Flickr – Facebook – My London Diary – Hull Photos – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photos

All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
Contact me to buy prints or licence to reproduce.

Krishna Celebrations & A Police State

Krishna Celebrations & A Police State: On Sunday 19th August 2007 I went to photograph a religious celebration in Southall, around 11 miles from where I live. I don’t drive and it takes well over an hour by public transport but I could then ride there on my bike in perhaps 45 minutes. At the time the Climate Camp was taking place near Heathrow at Harmondsworth, but having read their “media policy” I had decided not to go there, but in the event I got drawn into it a little. Here I’ll re-publish, with some slight corrections what I wrote on My London Diary in 2007 together with pictures from from the day, both in Southall and on my way home along the north of Heathrow.

On Sunday I cycled through the light rain to the Shree Ram Mandir (Temple Of Lord Rama) in King Street, Southall, which was apparently the first Hindu temple established in Britain, although recently rebuilt. They were holding their Janam Ashtami Shobha Yaatra, a procession in honour of the birth anniversary of Krishna which this year is on September 4.

I have to admit to finding the Hindu religion confusing, but processions such as this are lively and colourful events even if their full appreciation may require a rather different mindset to mine.

It is easy to share the feelings of celebration and of community, and to feel the welcome given by so many. I also met for the first time the newly elected MP for Ealing Southall who held the seat for labour in last month’s by-election, Virendra Sharma, taking part in the procession; many were eager to pose for their picture with him.

I took a route back from Southall along the north side of Heathrow, close to the Climate Camp at Harmondsworth. On my way to Southall, along the Great South West Road which runs along the south-east of the airport, I’d been stopped and searched by police at Hatton Cross.

Its a power that police are using more and more – on average around 11,000 a month in London now, and one that makes me feel uneasy. We now seem to be in a kind of police state I’ve certainly never voted for and don’t wish to live in.

I won’t appear in the Met’s figures, despite being searched in London, as the two officers concerned had been drafted in from Surrey for the day. They were polite and we had a pleasant enough conversation, but to me it still seems an unreasonable intrusion.

Under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, the police can search anyone in an area designated as likely to be the subject of a terrorist attack – such as airports. they don’t need to have any grounds to suspect you, being there is enough.

Cycling back along the pavement by the Bath Road (a shared path) there were rather more police around, but they were too busy with more likely targets to stop me. As I came along the road I found myself riding along with a woman who was obviously hurrying to get somewhere. We both stopped at the same point, opposite where three activists had scaled the side of a small building with a banner reading “MAKE PLANES HISTORY”.

She jumped over the fence between the two carriageways to approach the protesters, while I stayed on the opposite side from where I had a better view. Later she came back to talk to the TV crew beside me which was talking to one of the protesters – obviously she was proud of her daughter’s action.

And she had every right to be proud. We need action over Heathrow, action to prevent the takeover of even more land for the Third Runway. I’ve long opposed the expansion of Heathrow – and was on the local march against the Third Runway in June 2003. Now there shouldn’t even be a possibility of further expansion, but the government must look at ways of running down the activities at Heathrow, or it will be failing not just West London but the world.

Further along the road I found protesters gathering around the British Airports Authority offices, which were ringed by police. Nothing much seemed to be happening and the media were there in force, so I left the guys to it.

I’d previously been upset by the restrictive media policy adopted by the Climate Camp, which had the effect of preventing sensible photographic coverage of the event. So I was rather less interested than I might otherwise have been in putting myself out to take pictures.

Along the road I met a few groups of demonstrators and did take a few pictures of them, including some on the bridge over the road into the airport, and a couple of the Clown Army being harassed by a police photo team, but my heart still wasn’t really in it.

The British Airways offices had seemed to me a likely place for a confrontation – and obviously the police had thought so too, as teams of black clad figures paced up and down spoiling for a fight, watched over by the guys in uniform and a group of suits. At the top of the mound in front of the offices were a couple of officers on horses.

It was like some painting of the field lining up before a medieval battle, and I wish I’d stopped to take a picture, but they were so obviously looking for trouble I decided I didn’t want the aggravation that this would most likely have caused. For once you will just have to imagine it!

More pictures on My London Diary:
Janam Ashtami Shobha Yaatra
Heathrow Climate Camp Protestors

Flickr – Facebook – My London Diary – Hull Photos – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photos

All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
Contact me to buy prints or licence to reproduce.

Climate Camp Blackheath 2009

Climate Camp Blackheath 2009 – On Wednesday 26 August 2009 I joined a group of climate activists who were gathering in front of Stockwell Underground Station in south London, waiting for directions to move to wherever that year’s climate camp was to be held. They were ‘Blue Group’, at one of six locations around London, waiting to get the secret instructions and move to the site.

*We met by the memorial to Jean Charles de Menezez*

It had been chosen as one of the meeting points because of what happened there on 22 July 2005. As I wrote, coming “up the escalator at Stockwell station it’s hard not to shiver at the memory of those videos showing Jean Charles de Menezes strolling down to catch his last train, and police coming though the gates in pursuit. There is a memorial to him outside the station, including a great deal of information about the event and the misinformation and covering up by police.”

*People wait for instructions in Larkhall Park*

It was a terrible mistake made by the Metropolitan Police and the officer in charge was rewarded for it by being put in charge of London’s police. She only recently lost that job after the London Mayor made clear that he had lost confidence in her, but a huge number of Londoners had lost confidence in her and the police in 2002.

After hanging around for while, we were told to go and sit in a nearby park and wait there, and we sat down and ate our sandwiches while some played games. Eventually at 2pm instructions came and we followed the leaders onto the tube, alighting at Bank and changing to the DLR, most still not knowing where the journey would end.

*And eventually we reached Blackheat Common*

By the time the DLR arrived in Greenwich the destination had become clear, and we left the station for the long walk up the hill to Blackheath Common, an area of common land with a long pedigree as a meeting place for rebels. Police seemed happy both at Stockwell and on the journey to watch the activists from a distance and as we walked past a police station they seemed to be in hiding.

*Some rested after the walk up the hill*

The common was the site where John Ball made his famous speech with his famous “When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?” and urged his peasant audience to “cast off the yoke of bondage, and recover liberty.” But the Peasant’s Revolt ended badly in 1381, with teenage King Richard II looking on as the priest was briefly hung and then carefully kept alive to watch his genitals and bowels being removed and burnt before he was beheaded and his body hacked into four pieces.

Jack Cade was a little more fortunate after his rebels camped here in 1450, as he was killed in a battle before he could be executed, but like Ball his severed head was displayed on London Bridge as a warning to others.

*Others were busy working, setting up the fence, toilets etc*

In 2009, the authorities rather stood back and watched, including from a helicopter hovering above as the camp was set up. As I commented, “With stabilised cameras the image quality should have been high enough for them to match the faces against their database (which of course they claim does not exist.)” Later they brought in a cherry picker to take pictures from, a considerably cheaper option.

I’d largely avoided photographing previous climate camps because of their ‘media policy’, which as I wrote “appears to be driven by a few individuals with paranoid ideas about privacy and a totally irrational fear of being photographed. It really does not steal your soul!” This stated that press photographers had to sign the policy and be accompanied while on the site by a minder.

I didn’t have any problems wandering freely and taking pictures while the site was being set up, and met many people who welcomed me, having met me at previous environmental protests. And I was invited to return later to the camp as a member of the documentation team with a sash that allowed me to wander freely. So I came back two days later to take more pictures, and though there were a few people who made clear they didn’t want to be photographed I was generally able to work as normal.

There were no uniformed police on the site on my later visit – and as I noted, it “was almost certainly the most caring and most law-abiding part of South London, with no crime, no drugs and very little alcohol around.” The organisation of the site was truly impressive.

But shortly before I left I noticed that one of the police cameras on their cherry picker was following me as I walked around, and after I left the site I was “followed rather ineptly (perhaps deliberately so) by a young black man in plain clothes as I wandered around for the next 15 minutes, occasionally writing in his notebook. It seemed a waste of public money.”

*Some anarchists left after 2 police came on site*

I’d stopped for some minutes at several of the workshops that were taking place on my second visit, and had been impressed by the expertise of many, both those leading the sessions and some of those contributing to the debates. If people like these rather than the politicians had been in positions of power we would now be in a very much better place to avoid climate catastrophe, but unfortunately what we have seen is 13 more years almost completely wasted.

More pictures from Wednesday August 26th
Climate Camp: Blue Group Swoop
Climate Camp: Setup

And for an account and pictures from my day there on Saturday August 29th
Climate Camp: Saturday