The previous post on this walk I made on Sunday 29th January 1989 was Laundry, Timber and Glengall Road. My walk ended on the site of Peckham Arch at Canal Head, but the arch was only built five years later. Despite local opposition Southwark Council seems now determined to demolish this local landmark.
Houses, Peckham Hill St, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1i-34
These houses are at 10-16 Peckham Hill St. 10 and 12 appear to be lived in although 12 seems to be in poor condition, while 14-16 are derelict with broken windows and corrugated iron over the ground floor door and window of 14. Now the all look rather tidier and expensive. I think all these houses probably date from around 1840 or a little later. A terrace of smaller houses at 34-40 a little further south is listed and looks to me roughly of similar date. These are larger and grander houses, with two boasting substantial porches. The one at right I suspect has at sometime been rebuilt – perhaps after war damage and looks as if this was done in a plainer style.
Love One Another, flats, Commercial Way, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1i-35
Plain flats with small balconies – large enough to perhaps put out a clothes horse or stand watching the street and enjoying a cigarette or a cup of tea. But the boarded up window at lower left and in one of those above the graffitied ‘LOVE ONE ANOTHER’ suggested to that this block was being emptied out for demolition. I wondered too what message had been painted over on the balcony – probably something short and crude.
Commercial Way is quite a long road, but my contact sheet gives a 100m grid reference which places these flats close to Cator St, and these flats, probably dating from the 1950s, have been replaced by more recent buildings.
Shops, Peckham High St, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1i-24
I walked down the path following the former canal to Peckham High St, where you can still recognise the building that was Julian Jewellers, now a mobile phone shop, which also spills over into what was in 1989 Candyland. “SWEETER THAN THE REST – SPECIALISTS IN CUT PRICE CIGARETTES – 80 PECKHAM HIGH STREET” with two large cigarette adverts. Stiletto Expresso looks very closed in my picture – did it once sell shoes or coffee?The building in its place bears a slight resemblance but is now around twice the height.
The building at extreme right, mostly out of frame is also there, and until recently recognisable, but recently everything above the ground floor has been covered by an advertisement. The ground floor is now Mumasi Market.
The building on the left edge was demolished when the Peckham Arch was created in 1994., and I was standing where it now is to take this picture. The arch is now again under threat after an earlier proposal in 2016 for its replacement by a block of flats was defeated by determined local opposition. But Southwark Council still appear determined to remove it, despite it having become a landmark feature of Peckham, now much loved by residents and a great space for community activities.
The council make clear why they want to remove the arch, basically so they can build more flats in “a significantly larger development on site” with “more commercial and/or community space on the ground floor“. They do make a few other minor points, such as the current inconvenient cycle route, which could easily be remedied with the arch still in position. They claim that 80% of local residents in 2016 did not want to see the arch retained, which seems at odds with the views expressed by residents to the local press.
Whenever I’ve been in Peckham on a Saturday afternoon there has been something happening under the arch (and it’s particularly useful when it be raining.) Here’s one example:
Wikipedia states “The Arch was constructed in 1994 and was designed by architects Troughton McAslan as monument to and as instigator of regeneration in a borough which had suffered from years of decline.” It’s article goes on to quote various criticisms of the 2016 plan to demolish the arch. Although it has proved itself an ‘Asset of Community Value’, Southwark Council turned down the application by local residents to have it listed as such as they wanted to demolish it, though it seems impossible to read the reason they gave on the spreadsheet on the council site.
My walk on Sunday 29th January 1989 ended here on Peckham High Street, a convenient place to catch a 36 bus back to Vauxhall for my train home. The first post on this walk I made on Sunday 29th January 1989 was Windows, A Doorway, Horse Trough and Winnie Mandela
The Elite Laundry at 48a Willowbrook Road was on the edge of the canal walk and had obviously been closed for some time when I made this picture. It has since been demolished but the property in the left half of the picture, behind the roadside structure made mainly of corrugated iron sheeting has been renovated and is now on the Surrey Linear Canal Park. For some time it was the Willowbrook centre, a community planning and education centre of Southwark Council but they decided to sell it in 2017. It is Grade II listed as Willowbrook Urban Studies Centre.
The canal bridge a little further down Willowbrook Road is almost identical to that on Commercial Way, and both were built for the St Giles Camberwell vestry around 1870. This was then named Hill Street Bridge, though the 2015 map still refers to it by the older name of Taylor’s Bridge. The map also names the wharf here as Langdale Wharf. It was the site of timber merchants William Sharvatt & Son Limited.
Timber from the Surrey Docks was the main cargo of the barges which came down the Grand Surrey Canal, and this yard will once have been a wharf on the canal. I’m unsure exactly where on Colegrove Road it was as this side of the street is now a large run of modern flats and I think all the buildings shown, both those on the wharf and the more distant flats have been demolished.
Glengall Road and Latona Road were still full of the industrial units that grew up around the Grand Surrey Canal, twith the large building on the corner and the adjoining property on Glengall Road in 1989 being occupied by Hays Chemicals Ltd. These buildings still remain, now occupied by Gadmon Industries, a German company specialising in steel tubing and pipelines, but those further down Glengall Road at the left were demolished in 2022.
Some of the older factories and warehouses in the area had been replaced by more modern buildings, which I have now also been demolished. I think this particular warehouse was built on the actual filled in canal where it went under Glengall Bridge, no trace of which remains. I’m unsure what these stacks are, but I think they were probably made from wood. The peeling paint at left looked to me like a map of some unknown part of the world.
The house at left is 41 Glengall Rd, which has since been extended. The factory buildings have been replaced by a modern equivalent built with a slight echo of the previous structures and is not the Glengall Business Park. The canal ran just to the south of here. I think this was the Glengall Works, where Chubbs moved their Patented Safe Manufactory in 1868, producing fire and burglary resistant safes and strong-room doors. They closed the factory in 1908 moving all production to their Wolverhampton works.
Travellers Camp, Surrey Linear Canal Park, Glengall Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1i-54
Caravans were parked on a part of the canal park. The building at left is still there but the block of flats was demolished as a part of the North Peckham regeneration scheme.
Houses on Glengall Road were built on open fields to the south of the Old Kent Road between1843-and 1834 in what was then called Glengall Grove to emphasize its rural nature – though a short walk would have taken the new middle-class occupants to some noxous industries beside the canal. The street was planted with lime trees, some of which survive.
These houses are thought to have been designed by the well-known architect Amon Henry Wilds who also designed other houses in the area including some still remaining on the Old Kent Road. But I don’t think there is any sign of his trademark decoration and perhaps he was not personally involved in their construction though providing the look of the houses.
The listings date from 1972, but in 1989 some of the properties were still in a poor state of repair. This picture shows houses which are part of a terrace at 36-50, a later development probably from the 1860s. Having spent some time photographing the houses at the top of Glengall Road I was walking back down the street when I made this picture.
Derelict House, Peckham Hill St, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1h-22
These two large semi-detached houses are still there on Peckham Hill Street but now restored and in a very different condition. I think they are at Nos 102-108. Built around 1820 they were Grade II listed in 1972 and are part of the Peckham Hill Street Conservation Area designated in 2011. Although that at right seemed still occupied the left-hand pair looked to me as if it had been left empty to decay and I suspect may have once been squatted.
Bonar Road was constructed across the back gardens of some of the houses in Peckham Hill Street and led to a depot for the Metropolitan Borough of Camberwell formed in 1901. Although this is now a part of the conservation area, no part of the Bonar Garage has survived. The house with the chimneys at left is I think onf of the listed buildings in the picture above, but whatever building had the square brick chimney on the right side has been demolished.
A number of schemes for canals south of the Thames in London were proposed in the late 18th century and two were approved by Acts of Parliament in 1801. These were the Kent and Surrey Canal (later known as the Grand Surrey Canal) and the Croydon Canal from Rotherhithe. The horse-drawn Surrey Iron Railway roughly following the course of the River Wandle from Wandsworth to Croydon was also given approval the same year. A canal scheme for this was turned down as there were too many mills relying on the water from the Wandle.
The Grand Surrey Canal was authorised to go from Rotherhithe to Mitcham, with provision for branches, including to Vauxhall, but the proprietors had ambitions to extend it as far as Portsmouth. They began at the Thames in Rotherhithe and soon became a part of the new Surrey Docks scheme with an expanded basin and ship lock completed in 1807 into what became Stave Dock, with the canal running what became Russia Dock. Plans to join with the Croydon Canal at Deptford rather than that canal having its own line from the Thames provided an incentive to open the canal as far as the Old Kent Road by 1807.
The Croydon Canal, not being involved with the new docks, got on with digging and the stretch from the Surrey Canal at Deptford was opened to West Croydon in 1809. It didn’t last too long never attracting a great deal of traffic and closed in 1836, though many of us will have travelled along parts of it as it was bought by the London & Croydon Railway company for their line from London Bridge to a station on the former canal basin at West Croydon. Parts of its route not needed for the railway are now parks and nature reserves.
The Grand Surrey Canal company had run out of money and needed another Act of Parliament in 1807 to raise money to go further and were able then to extend the canal to Camberwell, opening this section in 1810. Apart from the entrance lock there are no locks on the canal, but they would have been necessary to go further, and the company could not afford the extra expense, and this was the furthest it ever got, despite the original plans and dreams.
Two more Acts of Parliament were needed to enable the company to raise money to cover costs and a short branch to a a large basin at Peckham was added, ocpening in 1826. Other plans put forward for extending the canal to Vauxhall and even Reading failed to attract investors.
But the Surrey Docks were developing and the canal got a new entrance lock in 1860, close to the earlier lock but leading into a new basin, Surrey Basin. There was a new entrance lock into the canal itself at Russia Dock. When Greenland Dock was extended in 1904, a lock from there became the start of the canal, almost a mile from its original entrance from the Thames.
Surrey Docks were mainly used for timber, and this also made up much of the traffic on the canal, but an important customer was George Livesey’s South Metropolitan Gas Company with its Old Kent Road gas works relying on coal being brought to it on the canal on its own fleet of barges. Production of gas stopped on the site in 1953.
Other traffic on the canal also fell off dramatically, with many of the industrial sites which had sprung up beside it at various wharves along its length turned to road transport and new companies moved in which had no need for bulk transport. The canal became disused and most of it was filled in by 1960. The section down to the basin at Peckham now occupied by Peckham Library is a pedestrian and cycle route called both the Surrey Canal Walk and Surrey Canal Linear Path.
London Canals has a good account of the canal with some old photographs along with more recent images of various remaining features.
Close to the canal was the Willowbrook Estate constructed by the London County Council in the early 1960’s and handed over to the London Borough of Southwark in 1980. It became a part of Southwark’s drastic 1995 Five Estates Peckham Masterplan and the large block at the left of this picture, the 112 home Tonbridge House was demolished, along with Tilbury Close while most of the lower maisonettes remain. The regeneration of the estate had begun in 1988 and was completed by 1995, although there has been considerable refurbishment since the estate voted to be taken over by Willowbrook TMC in 1998.
My 1989 walk in Peckham will continue in a later post.
Camberwell Fire Station,Peckham Road, Peckham, Southwark, 198989-1h-45
The Grade II listed Camberwell Fire Station by Edward Cresy Junior dating from 1867 is the earliest surviving purpose-built fire station in London, possibly in the country. Two of the three ground floor appliance bays of this gothic building have been converted to windows. It is now South London Gallery Fire Station, a contemporary arts centre for the South London Gallery. It was replaced by a more modern fire station, now demolished, in 1920.
It was only listed in November 2008, and the official listing names it as Former Peckham Fire Station. The h listing text explains that “There are a small number of surviving fire engine sheds dating from the first half of the C19: simple, single cell buildings were designed to house a fire pump and built by local vestries or by public subscriptions. The Metropolitan Fire Brigade stations are of a different order: publicly-funded, multi-storey buildings designed to provide accommodation for the newly-created fire brigade officers and to house engines, horses and equipment. “
Peckham Lodge, Amalgamated Society of Engineers, Peckham Rd, Grummant Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1h-31
The Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers had their headquarters here from 1900 until 1996 when they became a part of Amicus. Their slogan ‘Be United and Industrious’ is above the door in Grummant Rd. The building was threatened with demolition in 2007 but has so far survived.
Shops, Peckham High St, Sumner Ave, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1h-32
The western start of Peckham High Street and a very down at heel side street, a dead end leading around to the back of the shops. Along it can be seen some buildings of St James the Great R C Primary School. There was a school entrance here, and a footpath still leads to Sumner Street along the side of a brick school wall. What was open space here, Jocelyn Street Park, has now become, despite some local protests, Peckham Flaxyard, a council development with a total of 168 homes, of which just over half are for social rent, and a 24 for shared ownership, with around 48 for sale or rent at market prices. Part of this site was formerly occupied by a factory making laundry machines.
The corner shop was built with an entrance to suggest it was a building of some status and it looks as if it dates from around the end of the Victorian era.
Shops, Peckham High St, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1h-33
The rather grandiose building at left, in 1989 an Opticians, is now the Kentish Drovers, a Wetherspoon’s pub. Until the 1990s there was a pub of the same name on the opposite side of the road with the same name. Stockmen on foot driving flocks of sheep and herds of cows up from Kent to Smithfield market might take a rest or a reviving drink in Peckham before continuing their dusty slow journey to London Bridge and on to market.
I think the doorway at No 77 is probably also a part of the pub, though the door isn’t in use. Everything to the right of this – Hyper Records, Francis Chappell & Sons Funerals, Nature Trail Health Foods and the Soujourner Truth Youth Association at 83 Peckham High Street has since been demolished along with other buildings up to 89. This now the large covered space leading to Peckham Library, Peckham Square, Peckham Pulse and the Surrey Canal Walk.
Shops, The Crown, pub, Peckham High St, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1h-36
The Crown pub was at 119 Peckham Hight St. The building is still there, on the corner of Mission Place but no longer a pub. There appears to have been a pub here in 1851 and was advertising drag nights when I photographed it. It apparently morphed into a bizarrely decorated Irish pub, with a tractor in the window and tables and chairs nailed to the ceiling complete with glasses and playing cards, but apparently Sally O’Brien’s was not a success and the pub soon closed, becoming a series of shops and agencies and most recently a Tapas restaurant.
Junction, Peckham Hill St, Peckham High St, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1h-21
The Bun House, a pub at 96 Peckham High St on the left of this picture has the date 1898. It remained in business as a pub until January 2012 but is now a betting shop. There was a pub on this site at least by 1871. The rest of the frontages along the High Street also remain.
At right is M Manze’s Eel & Pie House, still in business, although temporarily closed in 1989. The vacant shop next door has had a number of occupants and is now a clothing shop. The crossing in the centre is still there but has only a short vestigial length of railings in a rather fancier style than those utilitarian ones in my photograph.
This junction is a convenient place for me to end this post which has mainly been on Peckham High Street. More on this walk shortly.
I went back to where I had finished my walk on 27th January 1989 two days later on Sunday 29th January, beginning with a couple of pictures of the former St Giles Hospital which I used in the final post on that walk.
I walked up Havill St to Southampton Way. Across the road was Rainbow Street with this building with bricked up windows and doorway on a large house converted to commercial use. Rainbow Street was not present in 1870 but appears on the map surveyed in 1893 and this building was almost certainly built between those dates, after the window tax was repealed in 1851 and so the bricking up of windows was for practical reasons – and clearly was the doorway.
This building is now home to a small 24hour supermarket on the ground floor with two of the top floor windows now opended up and a door replacing the right-hand ground floor window presumable giving access to living accommodation above the shop. The large notice area is still there, though without notices when I last saw it.
Rainbow Street was for some time the home of Great Train Robber Buster Edwards who many of us saw regularly at his florists stall near Waterloo after his release from jail in 1975.
Further south on Southampton Way was this house with iron screenwork, lions and mosaic path which made it stand out. In the background is the North Peckham estate. Unfortunately this doorway was altered around 2012. The estate was redeveloped under the Five Estates Peckham Masterplan approved by Southwark in 1995, which resulted in the net loss of 1184 social-rented dwellings. The chimney was for the estate heating system.
This house is at the corner with Peckham Grove and I think probably dates from the mid-19th century, possibly from around the time the houses nearby in Peckham Grove (now Newent Close) were developed from 1837 on. Unfortunately this doorway was altered around 2012, although the lions, steps and mosaic are still there. The houses around the corner were built in 1843 and are listed as is a lamp post on the corner outside this house.
House, 46, Peckham Grove, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1h-54
This is now called “Listed House” and is at 46 Peckham Grove although its neighbours are also covered by the listing of 40-46 and attached railings. Built in 1843 and now flats.
Lamp post, Horse Trough, flats, Southampton Way, Peckham Grove, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1h-41
And this is the Grade II listed Gothic Revival late 19th century hand pump converted in the 20th century to an electric lamp post, with a horse trough and drinking fountain beside it. Across Peckham Grove is the London Borough of Southwark’s Samuel Jones Industrial Estate and beyond that the North Peckham Estate.
The lampost and the rest of the corner along with tall chimney are still there, but the rest has been replaced by new housing.
The message on the horse trough, ‘”BLESSED ARE THE PITIFUL” – THE WORK OF ST LUKE’S BAND OF MERCY’ seems a little strange to me. It is a translation of Matthew 5 v7, more normally ‘Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy’ and means that those who show pity are to be blessed rather than those to be pitied. Some translate it as ‘Blessed are the humble’, but in this context it rather seems to me that St Luke’s Band Of Mercy were showing pride rather than humility. But horses need water and were doubtless grateful.
Men and women need water too. In my youth every park had its drinking fountain, providing not only water but also fun for kids as we used them to spray each other. Since then we have had decades of them being removed on grounds of hygiene (and I sometimes wonder how we survived back then.) Recently we have seen a huge fad of ‘hydration’, with people walking and running around our cities clutching water bottles – and the growing provision in a few places of free water bottle filling stations.
At the end of Southampton Way I came to Peckham Road and opposite me was Winnie Mandela House. Once described in the Daily Telegraph as a “viciously ugly 1960s office block” with a “shabby façade”, Winnie Mandela House looked more to me a 1930s art deco factory building, and not without its own charm.
Its former name was ‘Pelican House’, the words almost legible on either side of the clock, and now back under that name has been imaginatively converted to provide eighty new affordable housing apartments for shared ownership and rent for Amicus Horizon Group with the lower floors housing an arts café and gallery.
At right of this picture is the frontage of Kennedy’s Sausage Factory. Occasionally on my walks I felt hungry and would stop at one of their shops to buy a sausage roll. But they were closed on Sundays.
I crossed the road to take this second picture from the wide pavement outside.
The factory was was begun by The Surrey Association for the General Welfare of the Blind in 1885, and rebuilt in this form in 1936 (by which time it was the London Association for the Blind – and later became Action for Blind People) with new offices in Pelican House completed in 1952.
The factory employed blind men in the production of handmade baskets, the manufacture of casein and metal knitting needles, and injection moulded plastics. Production moved to Verney Road Peckham in 1974 and Pelican House was sold in 1976.
I find it hard to define a clear boundary between Camberwell and Peckham, and this part of the walk had been on the borderlands. From here on I was clearly walking into Peckham for the next part of my walk.
From Camberwell Road I hurried along Bowyer Place and New Church Road to take my next pictures along Southampton Way, going past The Brewers pub (since closed and converted to residential use) and then down Parkhouse Street and on to Wells Way. None of the nine pictures I made on this section of the walk seemed worth putting on-line, perhaps I was hurrying too much.
The view in this photograph has not changed radically, with the row of houses along Wells Way at right still much the same. You can still see the St George’s Tavern some way down Coleman St on the corner of Rainbow St, though it has lost the signage on the wall. It has apparently been there since at least 1851, though it was closed and boarded up, but re-opened in April 2021. But the estate towering above the end of the road is no longer there.
1JKC and St Georges Tavern, Coleman Rd, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-1f-32
I didn’t expect to see a Bentley with a personalised number plate on the street close to the ‘friendly neighbourhood pub’. I wondered who might own it, and there were certainly some very dubious characters in the area at the time. The registration plate 1KJC would have been expensive to buy – and now probably well into five figures if available, a serious vanity symbol.
The pub at that time was still owned by Taylor Walker whose Barley Mow Brewery in Limehouse and 1,360 pubs and off-licences and were bought by Ind Coope in 1959 – and brewing ceased the following year. The name was revived and used by another pub owning company for its London pubs from 2010 but then they were taken over by Greene King in 2015 and again re-branded.
Houses, Newent Close, Peckham Grove, Camberwell, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1f-35
6-22 Newent Close, Peckham, were Grade II listed in 1972 as in Peckham Grove, Peckham. The nine linked villas date from 1838. This is a remarkable Regency (or rather immediately post-Regency as Victoria came to the throne in 1837) enclave in the area. These houses are on the west side of the street.
Houses, Newent Close, Peckham Grove, Camberwell, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1f-36
The other end of this short row of houses with the blocks of the North Peckham Estate at the right. These houses were clearly rather run-down when I photographed them.
Houses, Newent Close, Peckham Grove, Camberwell, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1f-22
The houses on the east side of the street have these weighty porches. At right is a part of the Gloucester Grove Estate, one of the five estates often known collectively as the North Peckham Estate. Although this gained a terrible reputation, many former residents have fond memories of living there and the quality of their accomodation.
Houses, Newent Close, Peckham Grove, Camberwell, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1f-24
Another view of houses on the east side of Newent Close. The long block at right is I think part of the actual North Peckham Estate, completed around 1972. The five estates were all part of the largest regeneration scheme ever approved in 1994, and were demolished at a cost of £260m over the next ten years or so.
Houses, Newent Close, Peckham Grove, Camberwell, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1f-26
Another view of this remarkable street with the Gloucester Grove Estate in the background at left. I did take one picture of Nailsworth House on the North Peckham estate but haven’t digitised that.
Eventually I managed to drag myself away and stop taking pictures of the remarkable short section of street at the top of Peckham Grove – now surrounded by rather mediocre looking properties from the regeneration of the North Peckham estates. I walked back towards Wells Way and down to Cottage Green – where the next post on this walk will begin.
I Still Quite Like Peckham. Every time I visit Peckham I’m impressed by the vibrancy of Rye Lane, though perhaps if I lived there I might sometimes want to get away from the music, both live and recorded that assailed me from almost every street corner and some places between when I walked down to the Peckham Rye Station a few Saturdays ago.
I didn’t take any photographs then – I was hurrying to catch a train, nor on my previous visit a few weeks earlier on my way to Nunhead Cemetery, but I have on some previous occasions, particularly on Saturday 11 Aug, 2007 when things were rather different and the ‘I love Peckham’ festival was in full swing. Here’s the piece I wrote about this on My London Diary and just a few of the pictures I also posted – you can see many more on the web site. The links I’ve left in the piece are all to other posts on that site, and I’ve kept the lower case only style I then used, but have corrected the odd typo.
I Love Peckham
Peckham, Saturday 11 Aug, 2007
‘i love peckham’ is a festival backed by southwark council and based around the centre of peckham. although peckham has had a bad press – particularly over the murder of young damilola taylor in november 2000, and more recent violence on the streets, many parts of it are pleasant streets and vibrant shopping areas. recent investment – particularly since the murder – has led to a number of improvements.
one of the more succesful regeneration projects has been in the bellenden road area which is home to a number of artists including tom phillips and antony gormley, both of whom have been involved in brightening up the streets.
but there are still estates with corners that can hide dangers, and times when its wise to cross the road to avoid the dealers in their cars. it’s an area where it pays to be streetwise.
as well as the activities in the square by the library and at the top of rye lane i photographed on saturday there were also other events, including a series of shop window displays.
Like the other folks carrying built-in cameras on their latest mobile phones i did photograph some of these, but often felt that some of the other windows which had their normal displays were more interesting. but then i’ve always had an interest in shop windows, which feature strongly in projects such as ‘ideal café, cool blondes and paradise.
Kensal Green, 1988 from Ideal Café, Cool Blondes & Paradise
on the main stage by peckham library were performances by indian musicians, a samba group and some young dancers from peckham. around the square were a number of sofas specially decorated for the occasion, many of which were greatly appreciated.
this was the third annual i love peckham festival, but the previous ones had been blighted by british weather; today the sun shone on us at least most of the time, and the beach at times looked almost tropical.
The Human Rights Jukebox at Camberwell Green, 16 June 2007
i stopped off on the way home at the south london gallery, where the installation of isa suarez‘s human rights jukebox was coming to an end. i was pleased i’d stopped by to watch the video of the event and to have a beer and talk to a few of those involved with the project, including isa herself. i still find it mildly amusing to see myself on film, and there were glimpses of me (mainly my back) taking pictures, walking in the march, generally scurrying around and rather too lengthy a shot as i munched on a wholemeal sandwich.
despite these few moments, it was interesting to see the event again and from a different viewpoint. i was sorry i had to rush off to be home with friends. more pictures
Nurses, Coal, Art, Biafrans & Sunflowers – Saturday May 30th 2015 was another varied day of events and protests across London.
Filipino Nurses tell Daily Mail to apologise – Kensington.
I began the day travelling to High Street Kensington, just a short walk from the offices of the Daily Mail. It has the largest circulation of any UK newspaper but is also the UK’s least reliable source of information. Recently The Factual analysed 1,000 articles from each of 245 major news sources from around the world although mainly from the USA and including international news organisations such as Reuters and AP. The Mail came out with the third lowest score of any with a Factual Grade of 39.7% compared to the average of 61.9%. In a table listing all the results, even The Sun does a little better, as do the Daily Express and RT News, though all of these are way below average while The Guardian was above average along with the BBC, though neither among the top scorers.
We don’t have a free press in this country, we have a press largely controlled by a small number of billionaires who, as these figures show, use it largely as a source of disinformation and the promotion of their prejudices – including homophobia, racism and misogyny. Articles are more generally written as click-bait rather than with any desire to inform or educate, and it was hardly surprising when in 2016 it was sanctioned by the International Press Standards Organisation for violating professional norms for accuracy and in 2017 Wikipedia editors decided it was a “generally unreliable” source.
I was there for the start of a long protest by Filipino health workers outside the 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 demanded the Daily Mail apologise for its racist comments and to recognise the contribution that they make, keeping our NHS afloat. As someone who a dozen years earlier had been looked after in intensive care by a Filipino nurse I feel very grateful to them, though angry at the UK government for not training enough nurses and doctors – and in particular for removing the training bursary for nurses which has now made the situation much worse. But I did feel they were asking the leopard to change its spots.
I left the Filipinos as their protest was still building up and journeyed across London to Peckham Rye where we were invited to take a tour of the proposed Peckham Coal Line elevated linear urban park between Peckham Rye and Queens Road Peckham stations as a distant part of the Chelsea Fringe Festival events – something vaguely related to the annual flower show.
The Coal Line was frankly hugely over-hyped, particularly in comparing it to New York’s ‘High Line’, and the walk was largely close to but not on the actual proposed line. The former coal sidings on the viaduct which inspired the project are next to a working rail line and could only be seen looking down from neighbouring buildings.
As I commented: “The walk is essentially an urban linear park that would make a useful short cut for some local walkers and cyclists, and could also be a part of a longer leisure walk from Brixton to the Thames. I hope it comes into existence, as the cost would be relatively low and it would be a useful addition to the area.“
But I still enjoyed an interesting walk, visiting both the Bussey Building in the former industrial estate Copeland Park south of the line and the multi-storey car park to the north which now houses a cafe, a local radio performance space and another rooftop bar next to the Derek Jarman memorial garden and has good views of Peckham and central London. And having followed the official route to Queens Road Peckham I walked back a different way vaguely along the Coal Line at ground level, finally travelling more closely along it in an Overground train that took me to Canada Water and the Jubilee Line to Waterloo.
UK Uncut met outside Waterloo station for their mystery protest taking direct action at an undisclosed location. Police liaison officers tried to find out where they were going and what they intended to do, but nobody was talking to them. Finally they set off and marched the short distance 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.
They lifted up the banner and then ‘dropped’ it over the side of the bridge. It was a long run to take a picture of it hanging from the bridge, and I’m not sure worth the effort. It would have been better to have lowered it on the downstream side so as to get the Houses of Parliament in the background.
Another group of protesters in Parliament Square were protesting against the plans to get rid of the Human Rights Act, and some of the UK Uncut people had joined them before the end of the ‘Art’ protest. In May 2022 the government announced it was getting rid of the act and replacing it with a ‘British Bill of Rights’ which will allow the police to “perform freer functions“, Leading charities concerned with human rights have condemned the changes as affecting “the ability of individuals to hold the government and public bodies to account by bringing cases when their human rights have been breached.” They state “The Human Rights Act has greatly benefited a vast number of people from across society, improving their health and wellbeing; ensuring their dignity, autonomy, privacy, and family life; and overall improving their quality of life.” Many see the changes as yet another move towards fascism and a police state.
Biafra came from the Kingdom of Nri of the Igbo people, which lasted from the 10th century to 1911 and was one of Africa’s great civilisations before the European colonisation.
Biafra was incorporated into Southern Nigeria by the colonialists in the 1884 Berlin Conference and then became part of the united Nigeria in 1914. Biafrans declared independence from Nigeria in 1967, but lost the long and bloody civil war that followed, with many Biafran civilians dying of starvation.
Mass rally Supports National Gallery strikers – Trafalgar Square
After a large rally in Trafalgar Square, National Gallery staff striking against privatisation marched towards the Sainsbury Wing, holding a sit down and short rally outside after police blocked the doors to the gallery. The gallery doors were then locked.
Candy Udwin, a PCS rep at the National Gallery had been sacked for her trade union activities in connection with the plans to privatise gallery staff and the opposition to it by staff. Exhibitions in the Sainsbury wing have already been guarded by privatised staff, and the security there is also run by the private company. After 100 days of strike action the dispute was finally resolived in early October 2015 after the appointment of a new gallery director with terms and conditions of service protected and Udwin returning to work.
May 30th, 2015 was one of those days where I travelled around London stopping off for various reasons en-route. As always on such occasions I give thanks to the GLC for their efforts which resulted in the London-wide travel card before they were sadly eliminated by Mrs Thatcher, leaving the city largely rudderless for a crucial 15 years when it fell behind other cities in the world – except of course for the financial City of London which further cemented its reputation as the corruption capital of the world.
London is very much a world city, and my first event, outside the Daily Mail offices in Kensington reflected this, with protest by Filipino health workers over their coverage of the case of Victorino Chua, a nurse found guilty of murdering two patients and injuring others. The newspaper used the case to insult Filipino NHS workers who have for years formed a vital part of the NHS. When I came round in intensive care in 2003 it was to see a Filipino nurse who greatly impressed me with his care and attentiveness over the next few days.
It had taken around an hour for me to get to Kensington, and the journey across London to Peckham Rye was around another 50 minutes. I was there not for a protest but for the proposed Peckham Coal Line, an elevated linear urban park whose proponents compared in extremely misleading publicity to New York’s ‘High Line’ walk. And while the public were invited to walk the Coal Line, we were largely unable to do so as it is still an active part of the railway network – and one I took a train along after following around its length and back on existing local roads and paths.
Despite that it was an interesting walk, including a visit to the roof of the multi-storey car park and the Derek Jarman memorial garden. Part of the proposed walk is already open to the public as a small nature reserve, cleared beside the railway line for a massive inner-ring road – part of the proposed London Ringways motorway scheme which was fortunately abandoned after the terrible impact of building its earliest sections including the A40(M) Westway in Notting Hill became clear.
A train from Peckham Rye station took me along the route of the Coal Line to Queen’s Road Peckham and then on to London Bridge, and the Underground to Waterloo where I met with UK Uncut who were to go to an undisclosed location for some direct action. This turned out to be Westminster Bridge, where the protesters blocked the road.
The then unrolled a large yellow banner and began to fill in the slogan that had been marked out on it with black paint. After some parading around on the bridge with it, they then lowered it over the upstream side of the bridge and lit a couple of smoke flares. I’d run down across the bridge and a little along the embankment in front of St Thomas’s Hospital to take pictures of the banner drop.
The banner drop was really on the wrong side of the bridge for photographs and it seemed something of an anti-climax. It was hard to read the banner and its message ‘£12 bn more cuts £120 bn tax dodged – Austerity is a lie’ ” was perhaps a little understated. I think may of those present had expected something rather more direct, both in message and action. I went on with many of them to join another protest in Parliament Square which was just coming to an end, against government plans to get rid of the Human Rights Act.
It was then a short walk to Trafalgar Square, where on the anniversary of the 1967 declaration of Biafran independence, Biafrans were calling on the UK government for support in getting back the country which they claim was taken away from them by the Berlin Conference in 1884 and incorporated into Southern Nigeria. They say Biafra was successor of the Kingdom of Nri of the Igbo people, which lasted from the 10th century to 1911 and was one of Africa’s great civilisations before the European colonisation. As well as backing the call for independence the protest also remembered those who died in the Nigerian-Biafran War.
In the main body of the square, striking National Gallery staff and supporters were holding a rally after PCS rep Candy Udwin was sacked for her trade union activities against the plans to privatise gallery staff.
At the end of the rally, people moved towards the Sainsbury Wing, where security is already run by a private company and exhibitions guarded by outsourced staff. Police blocked the doors to stop them entering, and they sat down to hold a further rally blocking the gallery.
