Muriel Lester | >Re-PHOTO

Serenading the Bomb Makers – 2008

Serenading the Bomb Makers: Given the current increased tension over the possible nuclear escalation of the Ukraine war – something that would be disastrous to us all and totally insane and irrational, but if NATO keep poking the Russian Bear with a stick could be provoked – it seems appropriate to remember the lunchtime tour around the London offices of some of the companies involved in making the UK’s nuclear weapons on Friday 12th December 2008.

I don’t think I can improve on the piece I posted on My London Diary in 2008 – except by adding the odd word that somehow got missed out, so I’ll copy that here, with some of the pictures from the event. I got too cold standing around and left after an hour and went to take a short look at the work taking place on the Olympic site at Stratford Marsh as the light was beginning to fade.

‘Muriel Lesters’ Serenade the Bomb Makers

Serenading the Bomb Makers - 2008 — *Lockheed Martin, Carlisle Place – A man sprawls in memory of the many deaths caused by atomic weapons; security men look bored.*

Ten activists turned up in Victoria, London on Friday for a festive protest outside the offices of the US company behind the production of the UK’s nuclear weapons and the huge expansion of bomb production facilities at Aldermaston – costing £6,000,000,000 – which has never been debated or approved by Parliament.

They were the ‘Muriel Lesters*’, a London affinity group of Trident Ploughshares. Dressed in Santa suits, white nuclear inspector overalls and festive hats they called for an end to bomb production at the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE).

Appropriately, their renditions of festive songs and carols with modified anti-nuclear lyrics were largely less than tuneful (one taking part was hear to say “I’m a Quaker, we don’t sing” and who could contradict him?) They called for a stop to the illegal activities of these companies in making weapons.

First to be serenaded by the group were the offices of the US arms giant Lockheed Martin, makers of ‘bunker buster’ and ‘cluster’ bombs, the worlds largest exporter of weapons and the leading member of the consortium set up to produce the nuclear warheads for the UK Trident replacement at Aldermaston.

After an hour or so of leafleting and displaying banners on Vauxhall Bridge Road just around the corner, the group moved to the front door of the building housing Lockheed Martin and several other companies in Carlisle Place for their half hour carol ‘concert’. It was a site I knew from the ‘Merchants of Death‘ tour by CAAT earlier in the year. A number of people came in an out of the building while this was going on and some took leaflets while others hurried past, often to waiting taxis.

Half way through the performance, a police car pulled up and dropped off two constables who came to talk to the protesters. They asked who was in charge (and of course nobody was) and for a mobile number they could use to contact the group, saying “it’s standard practice for protests“. Oh no it isn’t! They were handed a leaflet with the Norwich details of Trident Ploughshares, but that wasn’t what they had in mind.

The police were informed that the real criminals were in the Lockheed Martin offices, carrying out the vast expansion in UK nuclear arms, a breach of the UK’s obligations under Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and that they were involved in an illegal conspiracy with some groups we could name down the road in Whitehall. The police chose to ignore this vital evidence but eventually they went away, reminding the protesters that while they supported the right to demonstrate, it was important to keep the pavement clear.

As they left, one member of the group stretched out “dead” on his back on that pavement as a symbol of the many victims of nuclear weapons, including those killed in nuclear strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, “bomb test veterans, and victims of leukaemias, lymphomas and cancers caused by exposure to radioactive discharges from AWE Aldermaston and AWE Burghfield in Berkshire, Sellafield in Cumbria, Rolls Royce Raynesway in Derby and other sites“

I left the group as it packed up and decided to take a short break before going on for a similar protest at the London offices of Jacobs Engineering and Fluor Corporation, two other US companies who are competing for the stake in the AWE bomb-making contract currently filled by the British Nuclear Group. The third player in the contract – the only remaining UK involvement – is SERCO.

A few more pictures here

Muriel Lester, (1883–1968), born in Leytonstone, was a leading Christian peace campaigner and writer. Among many other things she founded Kingsley Hall in Bow, was a friend of Gandhi, Travelling Secretary of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation and was detained for ten weeks in Trinidad and then several days in Holloway Prison for her activities during the Second World War.

Olympic Site – Stratford

A few more pictures from around the London 2012 site.

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Bow, Kingsly Hall, a Nursery, Grime, Quakers & more

This post continues from my previous post on this walk by me on 1st August 1988, Coventry Cross, Gandhi, Graffiti, Drag Balls …

Stroudley Walk, Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-8a-21-Edit_2400 — *Stroudley Walk, Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-8a-21*

The buildings of the Diary and the Rose & Crown are still standing at the north end of Stroudley Walk where it meets the end of Bromley High St, but the closed diary became Hussains Convenience Store and then Jalalabad Grocers and half is now a mobile phone repair shop.

The Rose & Crown had opened here around 1720, as the Bowling Green Inn, though the building here is from the 1880s. It closed in 2007, was boarded up for some years before reopening around 2014 as a coffee bar and fast food restaurant.

This was formerly the north end of Devons Road, and a sign for this painted on the brickwork at the left of the pub had virtually disappeared when I made this picture in 1988. Later repainted it has now almost disappeared again.

Kingsley Hall, Powis Rd, Bromley-By-Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-8a-25-Edit_2400 — *Kingsley Hall, Powis Rd, Bromley-By-Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-8a-25*

I wrote more about Kingsley Hall and the sisters Muriel and Doris Lester in the previous post on this walk. They used a legacy from their younger brother Kingsley to set up a house where they lived in relative poverty and served the neighbourhood as well as campaigning for peace and justice across the world. A plaque on the building records that Mahatma Gandhi lived in a small cabin here during his three month stay attending a government conference as a representative of the Indian National Congress. You can read and see more about his visit and the sisters on the Muriel Lester web site.

This image gives a better view of the whole building, which dates from 1928. It faces the Devons Estate, built for the London County Council in 1949 and described by Pevsner as being in their ‘pre-war manner, but with all the drabness of post-war austerity‘. Those moved from slums into its maisonettes and flats would have taken a far more positive view and the estate was solidly built and well-designed to the standards of the day.

Clyde House, Bruce Rd, Bromley-by-Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-8a-26-Edit_2400 — *Clyde House, Bruce Rd, Bromley-by-Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-8a-26*

Clyde House is still there at 46 Bruce Road, looking in rather better condition now. Built in 1884 it appears to have been built as a pair with its double-fronted neighbour at 48.

Children's House, Nursery School, , Bruce Rd, Bromley-by-Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-8a-11-Edit_2400 — *Children’s House, Nursery School, Bruce Rd, Bromley-by-Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-8a-11*

Sisters Muriel and Doris Lester helped to set up the Children’s House on Bruce Road 1923. Doris had trained as a teacher and they commissioned Charles Cowles-Voysey to design a building based on Maria Montessori’s ideal learning environment for young children. The school was opened in 1923 by H G Wells and is still a school, run by Tower Hamlets Council.

Inside there is a 12 metre mural painted in 1935 by Eve Garnett, the illustrator, artist and writer of the first children’s book about working class characters, The Family from One End Street, in 1937. There is now a campaign to save and restore the mural which is dirty and damaged and the web site is asking for donations to pay for this.

Regent Square, Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-8a-15-Edit_2400 — *Regent Square, Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-8a-15*

The Crossways Estate, built in 1970 was apparently at the time known as the ‘Pride of Bow’, for its three 25 storey towers and a low rise block, Holyhead Close, built over the railway line. Later it was more prosaically referred to as the ‘three flats.’

It was here that Grime developed in 2003, after Rinse FM squatted in a flat and broadcast illegally from here, and it was also where Dizzee Rascal and others grew up.

Like many council developments the area around the estate was hard to navigate, with walkways and roads often not shown on maps. My contact sheet says ‘Regent Square and gives grid reference 375827 for the first of the five images I made. The three towers were Hackworth Point, Mallard Point and Priestman Point and are on Rainhill Way.

And also like many council estates, it was subjected to a policy of ‘managed decline’ and by 1999 was in a very poor state, so bad its demolition was under consideration. Tower Hamlets decided to retain and refurbish the estate which passed to Swan Homes after a residents ballot in 2005. Its towers now refurbished and clad more brightly this is now the Bow Cross Estate.

Bow Church, station, DLR, Crossways estate, Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-8b-56-Edit_2400 — *Bow Church, station, DLR, Crossways estate, Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-8b-56*

The ‘three flats’ seen from Bow Road and Bow Church DLR station which opened on 31 August 1987.

Mornington Grove, Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-8b-61-Edit_2400 — *Mornington Grove, Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-8b-61*

Mornington Grove not only gets a mention in the London 5: East volume of Pevsner (p619) which describes these houses as “unusually grand for the area” but also has an extensive web site covering its history by Ken Ward, a resident in the street, from which this information is extracted – and which has far more detail. And it really is an interesting history – if you have the time do click the link and read more.

The land of a nursery here was bought by the Quaker meeting in Ratcliff in 1812, and houses on Mornington Road were developed by them from 1854-1889 – those on the east side in this picture being among the later development. Arthur Wellesley, the 1st Duke of Wellington was the son of the first Earl of Mornington, and the fourth Earl lived nearby on the north side of Bow Road.

Many of the houses in Mornington Road were compulsory purchased and demolished for the Whitehapel and Bow Railway (later the District Line) and others by World War II bombing of what had in 1939 been renamed Mornington Grove. Under the Quakers, at least 5/7th of the rents of the houses went to the support of the poor.

Most of the houses in the street, by then under multiple occupation, were sold by the Quakers to a housing association in 1980, becoming social housing, though many have now been sold off.

More from Bow in the next post from my walk in 1988. You can see larger versions of any of these pictures by clicking on the image which will take you to my album 1988 London Pictures from where you can browse.

Coventry Cross, Gandhi, Graffiti, Drag Balls …

Coventry Cross, Gandhi, Graffiti, Drag Balls …

Stanstead House, Devas Street, Bromley-By-Bow, Tower Hamlets 1988 88-8a-53-Edit_2400 — *Stanstead House, Devas Street, Bromley-By-Bow, Tower Hamlets 1988 88-8a-53*

My previous walk on 31st July ended at Bromley-by-Bow, and I returned there the following day to continue my wanderings, starting on Devas St and the Coventry Cross West Estate, built by the LCC in the early 1950s, and in 1988 it had recently passed from the GLC to Tower Hamlets. Like all council housing it was very much compromised by the opposition under Thatcher to social housing, with the ‘right to buy’ policies selling off properties to tenants on the cheap and local authorities being largely prevented from building more as well as being starved of cash.

The estate serves as a reminder of an age where councils were able to provide large numbers of socially rented homes before we moved to an era dominated by private profit. Many council tenants who bought their own properties found it very impossible to pay back the loans they had taken on, and sold them as soon as they were able, with many of them now privately rented as ‘buy to let’ properties with rents several times social housing rates.

The six-storey Newmill House at left is linked to the four storey Stansted by a massive archway, with another the west linking to another six storey block, Brimsdown. The estate is now managed by Poplar HARCA and has been renovated around ten years ago.

Stanstead House, Devas Street, Bromley-By-Bow, Tower Hamlets 1988 88-8a-54-Edit_2400 — *Stanstead House, Devas Street, Bromley-By-Bow, Tower Hamlets 1988 88-8a-54*

A portrait orientation view of the same arch into the estate. When built Newmill House at left, a long block running parallel to the Blackwall Tunnel Approach, contained 55 flats.

Gandhi plaque, Kingsley Hall, Powis Rd, Bromley-By-Bow, Tower Hamlets 1988 88-8a-42-Edit_2400 — *Gandhi, plaque, Kingsley Hall, Powis Rd, Bromley-By-Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-8a42*

North of the railway line, my walk took me to Patrick Connolly Gardens, now rather lost in the Devons estate, and then on to Powis Road where I made this picture of Kingsley Hall.

Kingsley Hall was opened in 1928 by philanthropists and peace campaigners Muriel and Doris Lester who opened the centre using the legacy from their brother Kingsley who died in 1914 when only 26. They had previously helped to set up a Children’s House on Bruce Road nearby in 1923. Muriel Lester (1883-1968) was one of the world’s leading pacifists, and is thought to have been unsuccessfully nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in the 1930s.

The building had previously been Zion Chapel built by Strict Baptists but was then disused. The sisters were also Baptists, but of a very different nature, they were radical and committed to a social gospel and justice issues and the hall became a centre for their community work with Muriel also serving as its pastor. They donated their wealth to serving the people of Bow and lived a simple and humble life.

Muriel had met and travelled with Mahatma Gandhi often in her work as Travelling Secretary of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation and when he came to London as the representative of the Indian National Congress Party to argue in a conference for independence he rejected the suite offered him by the government at the Hilton Hotel, saying he would rather stay with Muriel Lester at Kingsley Hall. He stayed there for three months, living in a cell on the roof in the same simple style he did in London.

*Bromley-By-Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-8a-44*

I doubt if I would have photographed this street corner were it not for the message ‘big Love’ in large letters on the corrugated iron sheeting. Though it does look as if the writer went on to write something beginning with HATE. This was somewhere fairly close to Kingsley Hall.

Edgar Rd, Bromley-By-Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-8a-46-Edit_2400 — *Edgar Rd, Bromley-By-Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-8a-46*

The fence here has several messages as well as some peeling posters. The longest text reads ‘AS LONG AS WE HAVE NOT SMASHED EVERYTHING THERE WILL BE RUINS!!’, an exceedingly philosophical example of graffiti which I’ve not seen elsewhere, though I wonder if it could be from a song lyric.

Considerably more common is the ‘VICTORY TO THE MINERS’, and I think the Female Sign – the planetary symbol for Venus ♀ – may mean the painter was a woman.

Tudor Lodge, Bromley High St, Bromley-By-Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-8a-31-Edit_2400 — *Tudor Lodge, 85, Bromley High St, Bromley-By-Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-8a-31*

This may have had some connection with Tudor House, whose grounds were bought in 1898 by the LCC to make a public park, which is now Bromley Recreation Ground a couple of hundred yards away, but more likely just with the Tudor family who lived in Tudor House and in the Old Palace closer to where Tudor Lodge used to be.

The archway informs us that this was Tudor Lodge Sports and Social Club, catering for Weddings and Funerals; over a door at left it tells us the ‘Bow Bridge Sports & Social Club Meets Here’. It was by then a large men’s social club, but the impressive cross above the doorway suggests that this was originally a Christian institution of some kind, perhaps a convent or priory

In the 1980s it became a venue for Drag Balls which had begun as the Chelsea Arts Ball, before moving to the Parchester Hall and then on to here. Later in the 90s was the home of Ron Storme’s Transvesti Extrodinaire club.

There is now a completely different modern Tudor Lodge at 95 Bromley High St on the corner with St Leonard’s Road.

How Memorial Gateway, St Leonards Priory, St Leonard's St, Bromley-by-Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-8a-33-Edit_2400 — *How Memorial Gateway, St Leonards Priory, St Leonard’s St, Bromley-by-Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-8a-33*

The only part of the parish church of St Mary with St Leonard to survive following bombing in 1942 and the building of the Blackwall Tunnel Approach Road. The church was built in 1843 to replace the former chapel of St Leonard’s Priory, a Benedictine nunnery first recorded in 1122 and destroyed after the dissolution of monasteries in 1536, after which its chapel had been used as a parish church. Chaucer wrote of the nunnery as the “Scole of Stratford atte bowe“.

The How Memorial Gateway was erected in 1893 as a memorial to the Rev G A How, vicar of the church from 1872-93. It is Grade II listed and in poor condition.

Bromley High St, Bromley-By-Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-8a-34-Edit_2400 — *Bromley High St, Bromley-By-Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-8a-34*

There is still a large tree and a telegraph pole on the corner of Bromley High St with St Leonards Street, but the lower buildings on the left of the picture were demolished a year or so ago.

Just visible in this picture is the coat of arms of the London County County on 72-4 Bromley High St (Barry wavy of six Azure and Argent on a Chief of the last the Cross of St. George charged with a Leopard of England. The Shield is ensigned with a Mural Crown Or – though it’s too small on the photo to see any details) announcing this as the Bow Bridge Estate, which was completed in 1934. I hope Poplar HARCA kept this when they demolished the building.

My walk through Bow will continue in a later post. Click on any of the images above to see a larger version in my album 1988 London Photos, from where you can browse the album.