Peckham | >Re-PHOTO

Battersea, Jesus, Bonkers & Peckham – 2008

Battersea, Jesus, Bonkers & Peckham: On Saturday 19 July 2008 I began my day at an open day at Battersea Power Station by developers proposing a comprehensive redevelopment before photographing the Jesus Army marching along Piccadilly and, going on to Camberwell Green for Bonkersfest and a brief visit to I Love Peckham.

Battersea Power Station

Battersea, Jesus, Bonkers & Peckham - 2008

Developers Real Estate Opportunities had bought the site for around £400 million and were showing the latest development of their plans for it to the public. These then involved re-building the chimneys and filling the space around with various buildings including an eco-dome and a 980ft eco-tower which dwarfed the power station – and which London Mayor Boris Johnson described as an “inverted toilet-roll holder”. You can see it in my photograph of their model on My London Diary, and to be fair I think it perhaps looks more like some high-tech lavatory brush.

This tower was soon dropped from the scheme which was approved in 2010 but building never started. The only aspect of the scheme which did eventually get built was the Northern Line extension from Kennington, partly because of a £100 million contribution from the sale of the site to a Malaysian consortium in 2012 – who ten years later opened the power station building to the public.

The central turbine hall had been open to the elements since the late 1980s when the roof was removed to lift out the machinery.

Local organisations had been formed in the 1980s to oppose unsuitable development and were then still active and asking questions about the proposals. They were concerned both about the loss of the power station as an iconic landmark and also the lack of affordable housing and facilities of any use to local people in the plans. The web site I linked to in 2008 is no longer active and the domain is for sale.

More on My London Diary at Battersea Power Station.

Jesus Army Marches on London – Piccadilly

The Jesus Army describes itself as “an evangelical Christian Church with a charismatic emphasis” while others have labelled it as a sect or a cult. There are certainly ex-members who talk openly about it, and particularly about leaving it as a traumatic experience, while others simply feel that they could not personally give the level of commitment it requires of them.

I found their march through London a dispiriting event, too uniform in many ways and I soon found it depressing to photograph. But as I told the woman who came out of the crowd passing by to hug me, “Jesus loves you too, sister” although I’m sure the guy I’ve read about in the gospels would have had no truck with this organisation. London Transport might have a problem with their logo [on some t-shirts] too!

Jesus Army Marches on London

Bonkersfest – Camberwell Green

Creative Routes, an interdisciplinary arts organisation run by and for those who have survived the mental health system and mental distress, organise the annual Bonkersfest as “a showcase of mad creativity.”

I wasn’t greatly impressed by what I saw happening this year, and left after taking a few pictures, including those of “some enterprising women were making the most of the occasion by organising a yard sale” in front of Brighton House on the edge of the green and a small memorial which had been unveiled in 2007 to the Wright family and four others killed by a direct bomb hit on the shelter here on the afternoon of 17th September 1940.

They had taken shelter while celebrating the wedding of Sidney and Patricia Wright. Bride and groom, Sidney’s parents and five sisters were among the 13 who were killed.

Bonkersfest

I Love Peckham – Peckham Square

There is an energy about Peckham that I really do like, and some of it was on display here, watched by a small crowd including the Mayor of Southwark, Councillor Eliza Mann – in pink.

There were a few things going on for me to photograph, and clearly there had been various other mainly art-related activities by local people, particularly children in the week of the festival, but it seemed to have attracted rather less interest than the previous year when I had photographer the march of the human rights jukebox.

Peckham Fight the Developers – May 2025

Peckham Fight the Developers: Last Saturday, 31st May 2025 I went to a protest in Peckham against the proposals for the redevelopment of the Aylesham Centre in the heart of Peckham by developers Berkeley Homes.

Their proposals shocked local residents in various ways. They include a 20 storey tower over 250 ft tall, and while the site would included 877 new homes, only 77 of those would be ‘affordable‘. Only a quarter of the number required in the new London Plan which calls for 50% – and for these to be ‘genuinely affordable‘, something that there is no clarity that any of those meagre 77 would be. The plans also include a supermarket and car park, some space that could be used to provide various services or offices as well as shops and a “Drinking Establishment”.

Because of the widespread opposition, apparently including all three local councillors as well as various local community groups which have come together in the umbrella group of housing campaigns and activists from across Southwark – SHAPE – Southwark Housing And Planning Emergency – it seems likely that Southwark Council will reject the application. In which case Berkeley are almost certain to appeal.

Given the Labour Party’s new policies on planning it seems unfortunately likely that in the case of an appeal Levelling Up Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister, Angela Rayner is likely to wave their proposals through despite their obvious failings and disatrous effect on Peckham.

Peckham Fight the Developers - May 2025 Anna Minton — *Peckham, London, UK. 31 May 2005. Journalist and author Anna Minton*

One of the speakers at the event was authour and Guardian journalist Anna Minton, invited to speak after her article last week, A new kind of gentrification is spreading through London – and emptying out schools which had the subhead “Thanks to ‘placemaking’, thriving communities are hollowing out, to be replaced by luxury apartments and expensive restaurants.”

Much of her article looked at the consequences of the demolition and replacement of another area of Southwark, the Heygate Estate at Elephant and Castle. This large council estate was replaced by developers Landlease with ‘Elephant Park’ with many flats being sold off-plan to international investors. Lendlease made big profits but Southwark council actually lost both a hugely valueable asset in land as well as actual money in the process.

The new site had more homes than the old, with around 2,000 largely still council-owned flats and houses being replaced by 2,704 of which only 82 are social housing. There 25% were ‘affordable’ but at up to 80% of market rent unaffordable to most locals including the previous residents of the area – and only a small fraction of the site being ‘affordable’. Replacing family homes by luxury flats has led to a large drop in births in the area, forcing the closure of the local primary school at the end of the current term. It was an exercise in ‘ethnic cleansing’ with most forced out of the Heygate having to move long distances further from the centre of London to find properties they could afford.

Minton comments “The positive rhetoric and branding of placemaking is that it transforms run-down areas into vibrant and economically successful parts of the city. The reality is that it creates sterile places, emptied of so many of the essential aspects of urban life, except the expensive activities.”

*Peckham, London, UK. 31 May 2005. Outside the Aylesham Centre*

Rye Lane on which the Aylesham Centre stands was described in 1934 as “the Oxford Street of South London” with no rival outside of Central London. At the north end of this “Golden Mile of shops” was a whole block containing the department store Jones & Higgins of which only a small part containing its clock tower remain – and under risk.

Jones & Higgins closed in 1980 and in 1985 most of it was demolished to build the Aylesham Centre. Most of the other fine shops of the past have left, but their buildings mainly survive in new uses, and the street is now remarkably vibrant largely with small shops serving the area’s multicultural community. Rye Lane remains one of London’s busiest shopping streets and I always enjoy walking along it. Off to the side are several small street markets and the amazing Copeland Park and its former cricket bat factory the Bussey Building, now a cultural centre, along with Peckham Levels, a transformed multi-storey car park, though its Derek Jarman memorial garden was in a poor state when I last visited a few years back.

The Aylesham centre is perhaps now the low point on the street and its demolition would certainly be no loss, but it would be terrible for it to be replaced by yet another sterile ‘white Elephant‘. It is a site that could offer much to the local community, including making a significant inroad into the roughly 12,000 families on the local council’s housing waiting list.

More pictures from the rally and march in my Facebook album People vs The Developers – Peckham takeover – and if you don’t have a Facebook account (still free) you can view some of them on my Alamy portofolio page.

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Filipino Health Workers, Coal Line, Tax Dodgers, Biafra & National Gallery – 2015

Filipino Health Workers, Coal Line, Tax Dodgers, Biafra & National Gallery: Ten years ago today, Saturday 30th May 2015, I began at the Daily Mail offices in Kensington where Filipino NHS workers were protesting about scandalous insults the rag had made, then went to Peckham to view the proposals for a linear park confusingly named and promoted as the ‘Coal Line’. From there I came back to central London for a UK Uncut banner drop on Westminster Bridge against tax dodgers, a Trafalgar Square protest by Biafrans and finally a rally there by staff on strike at the National Gallery.

Filipino Nurses tell Daily Mail to apologise – Kensington

Filipino health workers came to protest atthe Daily Mail over its reporting of the Victoriano Chua case which insulted Filipino NHS workers as a whole despite the vital contribution they make to the NHS. The demand the Daily Mail apologise for its racist comments and recognise the contribution that they make.

As a patient in intensive care in 2003 I had been very impressed by the care and attention I received from a Filipino nurse, and others when I was on the general ward had all been “competent, committed and caring” – along with those of other nationalities. We should be training more British nurses and improving conditions to keep them working for the NHS, but without staff from abroad at all levels the NHS would have collapsed long ago.

More pictures at Filipino Nurses tell Daily Mail apologise.

Walking the Coal Line – Peckham

The Chelsea Fringe festival began in 2012 as an unofficial fringe, an alternative gardens festival to the annual Chelsea Flower Show and has since become an international event. Anyone can take part so long as “it’s on topic, legal and interesting, it can go in the Fringe, no matter how outlandish or odd it may seem.” It is “unsponsored, unfunded, unbranded and wholly independent, with no medals or judging committees. It relies entirely on volunteer efforts and survives on its registration fees.“

*Rye Lane – the walk would start here opposite ZA Afro Foods and Peckham Rye Station*

The Coal Line project began in 2014 and became a registered charity backed by many local people as well as TfL, Southwark Council, The Peckham Settlement, Sustrans and the Mayor of London for a 900 metre linear park linking Peckham Rye Station on Rye Land with Queens Road Peckham station.

It seemed a good idea and would provide useful local short cuts for walkers and cyclists as well as a link in longer leisure walks at a relatively low cost. But its advocates over-hyped it tremendously, comparing it to the ‘High Line’ in New York.

I wrote in 2015:

“More interesting than the Coal Line are both the Bussey Building in the former industrial estate Copeland Park and the multistorey car park. Saved from demolition by a locals, the Bussey Building, reached by an alley between shops in Rye Lane, houses small businesses, artists, faith groups, art spces and a rooftop bar.The multi-storey car park on its upper floors now has a cafe, a local radio performance space and another rooftop bar, next to the Derek Jarman memorial garden, as well as better views than the Bussey across Peckham and to central London.

Part of the Coal Line is already open to the public as a small nature reserve, left by the railway line after a scheme for a massive inner-ring road was fortunately abandoned. Its legacy is a hefty wall along part of the edge of the service road by the Cossall Walk line of flats.”

More from along the Coal Line and other parts of Peckham at Walking the Coal Line.

UK Uncut Art Protest – Westminster Bridge

*Protesters at Waterloo – Rich get Richer, Poor Get Poor – Osborne and Cameron*

UK Uncut supporters marched from Waterloo to Westminster Bridge where they spread a large piece of cloth on the roadway and painted a banner telling Parliament that collecting dodged taxes would bring in more than cutting public services.

*Painting the banner on Westminster Bridge*

*The message on the banner was £12 bn more cuts £120 bn tax dodged – AUSTERITY IS A LIE’.*

I had to run to the southern end of the bridge and then rush down the Albert Embankment to photograph the banner hanging from the bridge along with the smoke from flares. It was perhaps the least interesting photograph of the event and it would have been rather better had they put it over the opposite side of the bridge to have the Houses of Parliament as a background.

While this was happening on Westminster Bridge, there was another protest against Tory plans to repeal the Human Rights Act closer to Parliament which I was sorry to have missed, with just a few people still standing on the roadway.

More pictures at UK Uncut Art Protest.

Biafrans demand independence – Trafalgar Square

Biafrans had come to Trafalgar Square on the anniversary of their declaration of independence in 1967 which began a long and bloody civil war in which as well as those killed in fighting many Biafran civilians died of starvation.

Biafrans say that the Igbo Kingdom of Nri lasted from the 10th century until 1911, although it was incorporated into Southern Nigeria by the 1884 Berlin Conference. Britain decided to unite Northern and Southern Nigeria in 1914 as the North was in financial difficulties.

Many at the protest wore t-shirts with Biafran flag and coat of arms and waved Biafran flags, still demanding independence for their country, as well as remembering those who died in the Ngerian-Biafran War.

More pictures at Biafrans demand independence.

Mass rally Supports National Gallery Strikers – Trafalgar Square

Workers at the National Gallery were on strike against plans to privatise staffing at the gallery and were supported at a rally with many trade unionists including speakers and in the body of the square.

They were also demanding the reinstatement of Candy Udwin, a PCS rep at the National Gallery, who had been sacked for her trade union activities over the privatisation. Speakers included PCS General Secretary Mark Serwotka and comedian and activist Kate Smurthwaite.

Exhibitions in the Sainsbury wing have already been guarded by privatised staff, and the security there is also run by the private company. At the end of the rally the crowd moved to protest at the Sainsbury Wing. Police stopped them entering the gallery and the doors were locked.

Many more pictures at Mass rally Supports National Gallery strikers.

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Immigration, Lions, Poverty Pay & Palestine – 2015

Immigration, Lions, Poverty Pay & Palestine: Ten years ago on Friday 13th March 2015 I photographed four very different protests in London, beginning outside an immigration tribunal in Feltham, going from there to Trafalgar Square where people where protesting against ‘canned hunting’ of lions, on to Kensington Gore where cleaners were demanding a living wage at the Royal College of Art and finally to the offices of G4S on Victoria St, Westminster for a protest against the imprisonment and torture of four young Palestinian boys by Israel.

Let Ife Stay in the UK! – York House Immigration Tribunal, Feltham

Immigration, Lions, Poverty Pay & Palestine - 2015

York House where the Immigration Tribunal is based is on an industrial estate halfway between Feltham and Heathrow on the western fringes of London and protesters had not found it easy to get there. I arrived a little late and other protesters only arrived shortly before I left, with others still on their way.

The protest had been held up at the start when security at the tribunal had told the protesters they were not allowed to protest outside the offices, and had called the police. But the police had come and confirmed that not only they had the right to protest there but also that people could take photographs outside the tribunal – though of course cameras and recording equipment were not allowed inside the tribunal.

The protesters had come to demand that 2-year-old Ife, who had Down’s syndrome, and her mother should be allowed to stay at their Peckham home where she can receive essential healthcare and support and not be deported to Nigeria. They intended to stay until after the end of the tribunal hearing later in the day.

The protesters from the Revolutionary Communist Group had brought with them posters covered with the sheets of a local petition to keep Ife here with nearly a thousand signatures, as well was posters denouncing the UK’s racist immigration laws and also calling for justice for Jimmy Mubenga, killed by racist G4S deportation officers during his forced deportation flight from Britain.

Let Ife Stay in the UK!

Save Our Lions – ban Canned Hunting – Trafalgar Square

Several hundred gathered in Trafalgar Square to protest against ‘canned hunting’, where lions are bred and raised tame on farms in South Africa for rich visitors to pet, to ‘walk with lions’ and to shoot as trophy heads.

The protesters say this degrades a noble animals and threatens wild lions, which are captured for farm breeding to improve the quality of the stock.

Only very young cubs are safe to pet and young female lions are often killed once they become too large to pet as there is much less demand for female lions as hunting trophies.

After speeches and photographs on the North Terrace I was invited to go with one of the protesters to South Africa House where he stood in the entrance with a placard and poster until security told us to leave.

Save Our Lions – ban Canned Hunting

Poverty pay at the Royal College of Art – Kensington Gore

I met with protesters from the IWGB (Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain) at the Royal College of Art where they had come at lunchtime to demand that cleaners be immediately paid the London Living Wage. Previous pressure from the IWGB had led to the RCA saying it would pay the living wage from September 2015, but the cleaners needed it now, not in sixth months time.

After a noisy protest outside the college entrance in a mews just off the main road where they were joined by around 50 students in support the marched onto Kensington Gore for a more public protest on the east side of the college facing the Royal Albert Hall.

Here there were speeches and chanting and a great deal of noise from the drums and vuvuzelas before the protesters went back to continue their protest at the college entrance.

From here they moved further down the mews and to an almost enclosed yard at the rear of the college next to a dining area keeping up a barrage of noise. After keeping up their loud protest for around an hour they finished with a warning to RCA management that they would be back and keep up the protests until their demands were met.

Poverty pay at the Royal College of Art

Free the Hares boys protest at G4S – Victoria St

British multinational private security company G4S plays a key role in running jails in Israel where thousands of Palestinians are held.

Among the prisoners being held and tortured were 5 young boys from Hares in the northern West Bank of Palestine, and the Islamic Inminds Human Rights Group were protesting outside the G4S offices on Victoria St demanding their immediate release.

The boys were arrested after an Israeli illegal settler crashed into the back of an Israeli truck and they were alleged to have caused the collision by throwing stones.

That had happened two years earlier and the boys had now been held without trial for two years for the alleged crime – for which there appeared to be no evidence.

One of the five, Mohammed Mahdi Saleh Suleiman, was convicted by a military court and sentenced to 15 years in prison on the basis of a statement obtained by torture that he was not allowed to read before being forced to sign.

In 2016 the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention published its opinion on his case. They called his detention ‘discriminatory’ and ‘arbitrary’ and called for his immediate release by Israel. Israel ignores most if not all UN opinions.

Free the Hares boys protest at G4S

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March of the Human Rights Jukebox – 2007

March of the Human Rights Jukebox: On Saturday 16th June I went to South London to photograph this event and put many pictures and a fairly long text on-line on My London Diary.

Here I’ll share the text (with some corrections and links added) and just a few of the pictures – you can see many more of these on My London Diary. You can read about the Human Rights Juke Box on the South London Gallery site, and on Isa Suarez’s web site.

So this is what I wrote in 2007:

I joined the ‘Human Rights Jukebox’ in its progress from the Camberwell Magistrates Court to Peckham on Saturday 16th June. An event in the Camberwell Arts Week, the ‘March Of The Human Rights Jukebox’ was organised by Isa Suarez, who had a one-year artists residency in Southwark in 2006.

The juke box included thoughts on people’s rights from many residents and diverse groups in Southwark, some of whom marched with banners along with it.

At the start of the event, the Dulwich Choral Society performed a specially composed piece by Suarez, using words from the ‘jukebox’. On Clerkenwell Green we stopped for a impassioned recital (in French) by a Black African poet, and in front of the old baths in Artichoke Place (now the Leisure Centre) there was a long performance by Deadbeat International as well as a short song by three musicians that left us wanting more.

Deadbeat International also performed at various other points on route, including another energetic set at Peckham Library. The march was led into Peckham by a rapper, with some forthright views on human rights.

Accompanying the jukebox were the live art group ‘mmmmm‘, Adrian Fisher & Luna Montengro, covered from head to foot in sheets of paper containing the complete text of the UN Universal Declaration Of Human Rights, in both English and Spanish as well as the pages of a world atlas.

In front of the library at Peckham, mmmmm completed the event by unpinning the sheets from each other one by one, reading the clauses and feeding the sheets into a shredder (and when this gave up, tearing them up.)

Each then poured cold water over the other and threw the shredded papers, so that they stuck to the wet clothes and skin. Finally we were all invited (in what we were informed was an Argentine custom) to jump once into the air for each of the 30 clauses of the declaration.

On the way to the event, I’d jumped off the bus at the Oval, where ‘Stop The War’ and other demonstrators were protesting. Gordon Brown was apparently expected to arrive at 12.00 to watch some kind of game there. It was a very different kind of action to the ‘jukebox’ though both were political and art in their different ways, although only one gets Arts Council funding.

Also dropping in at Peckham Library were a group of young cyclists from the go-kart track in nearby Burgess Park. They were a lively crew and everyone seemed to want to be photographed.

More pictures:
Stop The War Demo
March of the Human Rights Jukebox

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Peckham, Choudary, Vedanta & Gove 2014

Peckham, Choudary, Vedanta & Gove: Ten years ago Friday 30th May 2014 saw me rushing around London to cover four events, my day starting outside the job centre in Peckham and ending with being escorted out of the Department for Education in Westminster.

Peckham Jobcentre Penalises Jobseekers

People had come to protest outside Peckham Jobcentre because it removes benefits from claimants at twice the rate of other London job centres and they demanded to know why this was.

People are sanctioned for many reasons, often for things outside their control such as missing interviews where letters have either not been sent or not been received due to postal delays, or arriving late when trains or buses have been cancelled. Some were also being sanctioned for refusing to work without pay un unfair ‘workfare’ schemes.

Sanctioning leaves many job seekers destitute, without any source of income, often for three months, sometimes longer, removing the ‘safety net’ the welfare state is supposed to provide. There have long been sanctions on benefits, but the major changes introduced by the Coalition Government’s Welfare Reform Act 2012 have hugely increased their use, often for trivial reasons.

The new sanctions regime is yet another example of the failure by the Tories (and in this case the Lib-Dems too) to understand how people outside of the middle and upper classes get by; what it is like to live on benefits or low incomes with no resources to fall back on. And it shows that they just don’t care.

The protest was organised by the Revolutionary Communist Group though others came to support it. Speakers used a megaphone to tell people why they were protesting and people handed out leaflets to those entering and leaving the job centre as well as those walking past. They also gave out an information leaflet about UK Borders Agency raids.

More pictures Peckham Jobcentre penalises jobseekers.

London Mosque Protest For Sunni Extremist

I left Peckham to go to the London Mosque in Regents Park where Anjem Choudary and his followers were protesting on the road outside as the crowds left after Friday prayers.

Choudary had come to call for the release of militant Islamist Omar Bakri Muhammad, held in Lebanon for his support of extremist fighters Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL.) Few in the crowds stopped to listen to him and many crossed the street to avoid him. A few came to argue with him.

Omar Bakri Muhammad claimed asylum in the UK in 1986 and came to Finsbury Park Mosque, where he built up Hizb ut-Tahrir and was one of the founders of Al Muhajiroun, banned in the UK after alleged involvement in the 2005 London bombings. He left the UK for Lebanon and was told by the Home Office he could not return here.

In 2010 he was sentenced in Lebanon to life with hard labour for acts of terrorism, but was released on bail after some retracted their testimony against him. He was arrested again in May 2014 for alleged involvement in attacks carried out by militant Sunnis in Lebanon for his support for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant who he had called to bring their fight to Lebanon.

This was a segregated protest, with around 30 women covered from head to foot in black in a separate group holding up posters and joining in the chanting of slogans.

More pictures London Mosque protest for Sunni extremist.

African Liberation Day protest against Vedanta

African protesters were outside Vedanta’s Mayfair offices for an Afrikan Liberation Day protest over the London listed company owned by Indian billionaire Anil Agarwal which has cheated both Zambia over copper and Liberia over iron ore deals.

Agarwal appears in a video where he ridicules the Zambian government over the small sum he paid to buy the Konkola Copper Mines and boasting that they made him more than US$500 million every year in profit. Other sources show he avoids paying tax on these huge profits. Vedanta were also taken to court in Zambia over massive pollution of the Kafue River and a large fine was imposed, although apparently it had not been paid.

The Liberian government sold the Western Cluster iron ore deposits cheaply to a small company Elenilto in 2009. They immediately sold 51% to Vedanta, transferring the rest in a few months.

People were slow to arrive for the protest and I had to leave before it really got going.

African Liberation Day protest against Vedanta

Gove “Read-In” protest in Department for Education

I met a ‘class’ of protesters outside the Department for Education in Great Smith Street, Westminster and walked with them into the foyer where they sat down for an ‘English lesson’ in protest against Michael Gove’s political interference in the curriculum side-lining modern US books, promoting education for the needs of business rather than people.

We had not been stopped when entering although the protesters expected to be ejected as soon as they began making speeches and displayed their banner.

Unfortunately I was asked to leave before this happened as the department were unhappy with the press taking pictures in a public building where there were surely no security implications – though perhaps a high risk – if not a certainty – of the minister and the government being embarrassed.

Although they were insistent that I leave the security staff were unusually polite and rather apologetic and I got a strong impression that they were not happy at being told to keep the press out. I had already taken a number of pictures and took a few more on my way out.

The DfE had issued a statement denying that Gove had anything to do with the decision to narrow the curriculum and promote a more narrowly nationalist agenda for education – one that will sideline not only modern US literature, but also the great wealth of writers from the Commonwealth who have enriched English literature.

They stated the change was a result of consultation with all interested parties, while teachers, examiners, education and literary professionals have launched a mass campaign against what is clearly a ministerial diktat, political interference in education. For them, the DfE statement was simply an uninspired work of fiction.

Gove “Read-In” protest in DfE

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Peckham & Stockwell Protests – 2017

Peckham & Stockwell Protests – on Saturday 21st January 2017 I spent the day in South London, photographing protests in Peckham and Stockwell.

Peckham welcomes march against deportations

Immigration raids in south London had target long-established African, Asian and Caribbean communities, dividing families, deporting people who have built lives in the UK with parents, partners and children here. Protesters compared the deportation flights which followed with slave ships, with deportees shackled with a guard on each side in a cruel and divisive act of racist discrimination.

The Home Office had carried out many of these forced deportations unlawfully, and the High Court had decided that their use of the ‘detained fast track’ procedure from 2005-2014 was unlawful and went beyond their legal powers. Had we as individuals had acted illegally for so long and so persistently there would be little doubt that we would now be in prison.

But the government gets away scot-free. The 10,000 or so asylum seekers deported under the old system could in theory ask for the decision made on their cases to be set aside and lodge a new appeal, although very few are likely to be in a position to do so.

The protest was organised by Movement for Justice, but supported by many other groups including including SOAS Detainee Support (SDS), Anti Raids Network, Zimbabwe Human Rights Organization Mazimbabweans, Jewdas, BLMUK, London Mexico Solidarity, Fight Racism – Fight Imperialism (FRFI), Sisters Uncut – South East London and Lesbians and Gays Support the Migrants.

After a short rally the protests marched down Rye Lane, the main shopping street in Peckham, attracting a great deal of support from shoppers on the crowded street.

Some went into shops and handed out leaflets there and on the street. They held a short rally at the south end of the street before returning for another in the square by Peckham Library.

Peckham march against deportations

Oh! Mother march against knife crime – Peckham

Another protest march was taking place in Peckham during the afternoon. Oh! Mother, A Christian organisation based in South London which campaigns for change in communities was protesting to put an end to gun and knife crime.

Their march followed the stabbing to death in Peckham on 30th December 2016 of 24 year old Ernest Kalawa. Among the marchers were members of the dead man’s family, some of whom wore t-shirts commemorating him.

Oh! Mother march against knife crime

March against closing community centres – Stockwell

Members of Lambeth Labour were meeting in Stockwell to march to Stockwell Community Centre, one of two local community centres in Stockwell and Kennington Park which are run by Hyde Housing Association which were threatened with closure.

Lambeth Council is spending £50 million on a new town hall and had pledged £20 million to support the vanity Garden Bridge project, but the Labour-run council had made drastic cuts in community services, including library closures and selling off council estates to developers but has refused to support these community centres.

Lambeth Labour Council is one of a number of London Labour councils dominated by right-wing members who appear to have lost any sense that councils exist for the benefit of their residents rather than of the councillors.

Lambeth appear to follow in the footsteps of neighbouring Southwark, here journalist Anna Minton found that “20 per cent of Southwark’s 63 councillors work as lobbyists” for developers in the planning industry and that a significant number of Councillors and Council officers are making use of a ‘well-oiled revolving door’ to the industry.

March against closing community centres

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Open House, Sewol, Iran, Sabah, Sarawak & Orange Order 2017

Open House, Sewol, Iran, Sabah, Sarawak & Orange Order: Saturday 16th September 2017 was another busy and varied day for me in London, beginning with two visits on Open House Day and continuing with four protests.

Open House – Banqueting House – Whitehall

Though I’d often walked past the Banqueting House in Whithall, usually on my way to protests at Downing Street or Parliament Square, I’d never before been inside the building. But when I came past on Open House Day there was only a short queue and entrance was free. I had time to spare as a protest I’d hoped to photograph had failed to materialise, so in I went.

Inigo Jones designed (or copied from Andrea Palladio) the Banqueting House for the Palace of Whitehall, built 1619-22, and it is the only remaining building from the palace. It was the first neo-Classical building in England.

More about it and more pictures on My London Diary at Open House – Banqueting House.

Open House & more – Peckham

I went to Peckham to see a few things in the Peckham Festival including the Open House showing of the Old Waiting Room at Peckham Rye station which was housing a photographic exhibition of old pictures of Peckham.

The building itself turned out to be more interesting than the exhibition which lacked any real examination of the more recent past of Peckham. But there were other things to see in Peckham, and a short walk around Rye Lane and the Bussey Building is always interesting.

More at Open House & more – Peckham.

41st monthly Sewol ‘Stay Put!’ vigil – Trafalgar Square

Back in Central London, my first protest was in Trafalgar Square where a small group mainly of SOuth Koreans was continuing their series of monthly vigils in memory of he Sewol victims, mainly school children who obeyed the order to ‘Stay Put’ on the lower decks as the ship went down.

They continue to demand the Korean government conduct a thorough inquiry into the disaster, recover all missing victims, punish those responsible and enact special anti-disaster regulations.

41st monthly Sewol ‘Stay Put!’ vigil

Overthrow the Islamic Regime of Iran – Trafalgar Square

Also in Trafalgar Square the 8 March Women’s Organisation (Iran-Afghanistan) were protesting on the 29th anniversary of the massacre of political prisoners in Iraq following a fatwa by Ayatollah Khomeini calling for the death of all Mojahedins and leftists as ‘fighters against God’ and ‘apostates from Islam.’

The fatwa led to over 30,000 political prisoners, mostly members of the main opposition People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) being executed, largely hanged in groups of six and buried in mass graves.

The protesters call for the overthrow of the Islamic regime as necessary for the ‘litigation movement’ can achieve justice and build a society where such executions cannot occur and no one is suppressed, imprisoned or tortured for their ideas.

More pictures: Overthrow the Islamic Regime of Iran.

Black Day for Sabah & Sarawak – Downing St

A short distance down the road at Downing St, Sabahans and Sarawkians were protesting on Malaysia Day, which they say is a ‘Black Day for Sabah and Sarawak’, calling for a restoration of human rights and the repeal of the Sedition Act and and freedom for Sarawak and Sabah.

Among them was Doris Jones, the leader of the Sabah Sarawak Keluar Malaysia secessionist movement in London.

When Malaysia was founded on 16th September 1963 the two independent countries in North Borneo joined with the Federation of Malaya and Singapore and were given promises, assurances and undertakings for their future in the federation. These included ’20 points’ of an Inter-Governmental Committee (IGC) Report, which the prrotesters say have been cast aside, and anyone raising them is being detained under a draconian Internal Security Act.

More at Black Day for Sabah & Sarawak.

Lord Carson Memorial Parade – Cenotaph, Whitehall

The annual Lord Carson Memorial Parade, one of several annual parades by lodges of the Orange Order came to the Cenotaph for wreaths to be laid. As well as various lodges dedicated to the Apprentice Boys of Derry there were others remembering the Ulster regiments that fought on the Somme. As well as members of lodges in the Home Counties and London, these parades also include some who come from Ulster and Scotland.

Lord Carson (1854-1935) was a leading judge and politician in the UK becoming Solicitor General and First Lord of the Admiralty. He had joined the Orange Order at the age of 19, and in 1911 became the leader of the Ulster Unionists, determined to fight against home rule for Ireland by “all means which may be found necessary“, becoming one of the founders of a unionist militia that became the Ulster Volunteer Force.

But in later years he warned Unionists not to alienate the Catholics in the north, something which parades such as this clearly do in some areas of Northern Ireland. In London they are much less controversial, although I have at times been threatened by those taking part for photographing them. But on this occasion I received just a few hard stares and even some faintly welcoming grins from some who recognised me.

More pictures on My London Diary at Lord Carson Memorial Parade.

High Rise, Houses, Car Parts, and a Club

Continuing my walk in Peckham in March 1989. The previous post on this walk was Asylum, Lorry Park, Works, Museum & Office Door.

Bird in Bush Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3c-21 — *Bird in Bush Road, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3c-21*

I spent some time exploring the area around Malt Street and Ossory Road, now on the other side of Asda, where some demolition was taking place but took few photographs, none on-line, and then walked back along along the Old Kent Road to Peckham Park Road, going down this to Green Hundred Road. I found myself in a large area of council housing, much of which was fairly standard LCC five storey blocks dating from the late 1930s, solidly built, their height limited back then by the lack of lifts.

The foreground flats in this picture are from the late 60s and are on Bird in Bush Road, part of the GLC designed Ledbury Estate, and as well as these 4-storey maisonette blocks there were also four identical 14 floor H shape tower blocks, including this one, Bromyard House, which has its entrance on Commercial Way.

*Bird in Bush Road, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3c-22*

This picture was taken from close to the east end of Bird in Bush Road, and the building cut off at extreme left of the image is the former Arthur Street Board School (now Camelot Primary School.)

The design dates of these flats, also on the Ledbury estate, is from the early 1960s and was replicated across London by the GLC, using the prefabricated Danish Larsen-Nielsen system. After one at Ronan Point suffered a disastrous collapse following a gas explosion flats built using this system should have been strengthened, but somehow Southwark Council failed to do so on this estate. I’m not sure whether this had now been put right. but none have yet collapsed.

*Doddington Cottages, Commercial Way, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3c-24*

This semi-detached residence dating from 1836 which was Grade II listed together with the neighbouring Doddington Place around nine years after I took this picture.

The name possibly comes from Doddington Hall in Cheshire, built by Samuel Wyatt for Sir Thomas Broughton in 1777-90 and its parkland landscaped by Capability Brown. There is also Doddington Place at Doddington near Sittingbourne in Kent, but this was only built around 1870.

*Tustin Estate, Old Kent Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3c-11*

The Tustin Estate is on the north side the Old Kent Road immediately west of Ilderton Road. It has three 20 storey towers, Windermere Point, Grasmere Point (in the centre here) and Ambleside Point, each with over 70 flats which were approved by the GLC in 1964. There are also six low-rise blocks on the estate.

According to Southwark Council, “In March 2021, residents voted in favour of demolishing and rebuilding the low-rise buildings in a residents’ ballot. This will include replacement council homes, additional council homes and key worker housing, shared equity homes and homes for private sale. There will also be a replacement school building, new commercial spaces and a new park. All existing residents will be able to move to a new council home in the first phase of the scheme.” I’m unsure how far this scheme has so far progressed and it remains to be seen whether the council will keep its promises, which it almost completely failed to do on some earlier schemes.

*Clifton Crescent, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3c-13*

I returned to Clifton Crescent which I had photographed earlier and too a rather better and closer picture of this magnificent curved terrace. As I explained earlier, it was Southwark Council’s decision in 1972 to demolish this crescent that led to a local action group which became the Peckham Society in 1975. Fortunately they managed to stop the demolition when only No 1 had been lost. They convinced the council that retaining and restoring the properties was a cheaper option, and the lost house was rebuilt and the entire crescent, Grade II listed thanks to their efforts in 1974, was restored by 1977. The Crescent was built in 1847-51 and represents an interesting transition between earlier Regency styles and the simpler Victorian terraces.

*Car spares, Loder St, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3c-15*

From there I made my way east, going under the railway on Culmore Road or Clifton Way and then south to Loder St. This whole area has been redeveloped since I made these pictures in 1989 and is now covered with low-rise housing. I made two pictures of this car breaker’s yard (you can see the other on Flickr).The tower blocks are those of the Tustin Estate.

Hatcham Liberal Club, Queen's Rd, New Cross, Lewisham, 1989 89-3d-61 — *Hatcham Liberal Club, Queen’s Rd, New Cross, Lewisham, 1989 89-3d-61*

I walked down to Queen’s Road, I think along York Grove, stopping briefly to photograph a street corner. On Queen’s Road before catching a bus I photographed the Hatcham Liberal Club, built in 1880 in Queen Anne Dutch style and Grade II listed ten years after I took this picture. It was one of the largest of a number of late Victorian working men’s clubs and became a popular venue with a large hall at the back available for hire for parties and gigs and also for until it closed in 2006. In 2009 most of the interior was converted into flats.

*Shops, John Ruskin St, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-3d-62*

I changed buses in Camberwell, where I made a slight detour to make another visit to photograph the row of shops on John Ruskin Street as the final picture of the day and this walk.

The first post about this walk was Shops, Removals, Housing and the Pioneer Health Centre. I’ll post about my next walk in 1989, in the City of London, shortly.

Asylum, Lorry Park, Works, Museum & Office Door

Continuing my walks in Peckham in March 1989. The previous post was Bird in Bush, Wood Dene, Asylum and a School.

*Caroline Gardens, Licensed Victuallers’ Benevolent Institution, Asylum Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3c-53*

I stepped a few feet inside the Caroline Gardens Estate to photograph No 79A, which was one of two identical lodges at the ends of the main site. This one is at the north end and the plaque above the doorway has been restored and can now easily be read, ‘THIS LODGE ERECTED 1849 HENRY ENGLAND CHAIRMAN’.

*Caroline Gardens, Licensed Victuallers’ Benevolent Institution, Asylum Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3c-54*

The corner of this lodge occupies most of the right half of the picture, looking down the rather uneven pavement with some vintage street lamps to more of the Asylum buildings. I didn’t go further into the estate as I think I felt this and the earlier pictures of it were enough. The buildings of the Licensed Victuallers’ Benevolent Institution (Caroline Gardens) in Asylum Rd are Grade II listed and as my previous post mentioned were acquired by Southwark Council in 1960.

Lorry Park, Asylum Road, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3c-55 — *Lorry Park, Asylum Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3c-55*

The lorry park on Asylum Road was something of a contrast to the elegance of the Asylum buildings, though I liked its selection of lines and blocks, the trailers, the fence, barrier and posts and wires.

I can’t see any trace of this now and but I think it was probably on the east side of the street where there is now a large car park for Lidl.

*Wales Close, Asylum Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3c-56*

On the west side of Asylum Road was this dead end back street, not named on my map from the 1980s but was where Wales Close is now. The tall blocks in the background are on the Ledbury Estate on Commercial Way.

Streets such as this were very much a reminder of London as a city full of industry with many areas like this full of small manufacturing businesses of all trades, as well as larger companies and great industrial estates.

*Livesey Museum, Old Kent Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3c-43*

Asylum Road ends at the Old Kent Road and the Livesey Museum was at No 682, just a short walk towards central London. The Livesey Museum was commissioned by George Livesey, chairman of the South Metropolitan Gas Company, in 1890 as a library for workers of the local gasworks and later entrusted to the people of the old parish of Camberwell as a public library. It was damaged in wartime bombing but restored and opened as the the Livesey Museum for Children from 1974 to 2008.

Southwark Council wanted to sell the building off, but found that they were not the owners, as it was owned by a covenanted trust. It was squatted in 2010 but then became home to Treasure House, providing special education to vulnerable young adults in Southwark.

*Offices, Malt St, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3c-32*

I kept walking along the Old Kent Road towards Bermondsey, taking a few pictures including of Christ Church next to the museum and the murals on the North Peckham Civic Centre by Polish artist, Adam Kossowski. Plans for the demolition of this building were approved by Southwark Council in 2019, preserving the mural, listed in 2017.

I haven’t digitised my black and white picture as I thought I had taken better images in colour, but if so I’ve yet to digitise those either. The former North Peckham Civic Centre was the Twentieth Century Society’s Building of the Month for November 2020, and has been described as ” by far the finest 20th Century building on the Old Kent Road.” and was once described by Southwark Council as a building of ‘Architectural or Historic Interest’. But that seems not to be enough to save it, although it was still standing a few months ago.

The doorway to Offices I photographed at 500 Old Kent Road, on the side of the building in Malt Street has since disappeared, along with the row of late Victorian terrace housing in my next frame which I think were also on Malt Street. 500 Old Kent Road is now a part of the address of Asda Old Kent Road Superstore at 464-504, and Malt Street is considerably wider to give easier vehicle access to the Asda car park.

More on this walk in March 1989 to follow. The first post about this walk was Shops, Removals, Housing and the Pioneer Health Centre.