Tag: pedal power

Brick Lane, Brockwell Park & Lambeth Peace Month – 2007

Brick Lane, Brockwell Park & Lambeth Peace Month: Sunday 9th September 2007 was a slightly disappointing day for me, perhaps because I expected more and tried to do too much. I was going to London maiinly to meet a couple of friends and probably should have just done that and enjoyed some time with them – and perhaps a few beers. Even have left the cameras at home.

But the Green Fair and the Interfaith Picnic were interesting and I did manage to take a few pictures of aspects of London which now, looking back, are of more interest than I thought at the time. So here are some of the photos and what I wrote back in 2007 – and links to more pictures on My London Diary.

Brick Lane

Spitalfields.

Not a lot was happening around lunchtime in Brick Lane, so I took a few snaps and went elsewhere.

Sunday none of the three events I visited really turned out to be what I expected. I started in Brick Lane where a music festival was on offer. It didn’t really seem to have started when I was there and I couldn’t be bothered to wait.

I took a few pictures in the market which takes place every Sunday
So I took the underground to Blackfriars to get a train to Herne Hill

More pictures on My London Diary

Brockwell Park Urban Green Fair

Herne Hill

Herne Hill

Then I went on to the Urban Green Fair at Brockwell Park (a short journey on the train from Blackfriars [to Herne Hill station.])

I’m not sure who would want a wooden mushroom, though some you could sit on.
An apple press would be useful, but this Italian one was rather larger than I needed

This was a bit more interesting but did seem to be rather too much people trying to sell things, and I had hoped for more music and performances.

I met again the great pedal-powered Rinky-Dink sound system

More pictures

Interfaith Peace Picnic – Lambeth Peace Month

Windrush Square, Brixton

Imam (centre) with assistant and Toaha Qureshi from Stockwell Green Islamic Centre

I met Dave and Bob at the Green Fair, and Dave told me that there was an Interfaith Peace Picnic just about to start in Windrush Square in Brixton. So I jumped on a 37 bus for the few stops there.

All the different groups present offered generous amounts of free vegetarian food, and it pained me to have to refuse most of it. I’d not heard of the Caribbean Hindu Cultural Society before; based on Brixton Hill it is apparently the oldest Hindu group in the country.

Members of the Caribbean Hindu Society, Lambeth, address the peace picnic.

The event was organised by the South London Interfaith Group, and also present were the Archdeacon of Lambeth, the Imam and others from the Stockwell Green Islamic Centre along with some from local churches.

Representatives from various groups gave short performances of different kinds (including a powerfully sung ‘Lord’s Prayer’ by one of the more senior Hindu men) and the whole event, as intended made “a visible public statement of respect and cooperation.”

All was very worthy and worthwhile, but there was perhaps little to photograph.

More pictures on My London Diary.

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All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
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Pedal Power Bike Rush – 2009

Pedal Power Bike Rush: On Monday 1st June 2009 I put my Brompton on the train and came to London to photograph Climate Rush’s mass bicycle ride demanding the the UK government take effective action to counter climate change and global warning. As we have been feeling in recent days, neither our government or most others around the would has done anything like enough despite the great majority of scientific advice and the many protests such as this. You can read a longer account of this protest together with many more pictures on My London Diary at Pedal Power Bike Rush.

Pedal Power Bike Rush

Westminster

Climate Rush was a direct action group led and inspired by women, modelled on the Suffragette Movement of a hundred years previously and had first emerged in a rush to Parliament on the 100th anniversary of the 1908 ‘Suffragette Rush’ when 40 women were arrested as they attempted to rush into The Houses of Parliament.

Tamsin Osman

Then, as for this pedal power protest their key demands were an end to fossil fuel use and for the government to make policies in line with climate science and research.

Hare Krisha came with food and a sound system

Earlier in the day I had not been with them as they protested outside a conference at Chatham House in St James’s Square ‘Coal: An answer to our energy security’, attempting to block the entrance with a sculpture made of bikes and a banner ‘NO NEW COAL – CLIMATE RUSH’ demanding that no new coal-fired power stations be built – and existing ones shut down. (It was October 2024 before this finally happened, years too late.) Five of the protesters had been arrested.

I joined around 300 Climate Rush cyclists and a tandem-hauled sound system outside the conference venue and after around an hour of further protest there, with a short speech by Climate Rush founder Tamsin Osman we set off on a ride, pausing briefly outside BP’s headquarters where she spoke briefly about their huge contribution to global warming and related crimes.

Other climate criminals the ride halted at for protests and where people came to talk about their activities including the British Airports Authority at Victoria and the the government’s clumsily-named Department for Business Enterprise & Regulatory Reform (BERR), responsible for promoting much of its anti-environment climate warming activity.

Helpfully these were marked out by rows of police standing outside, and police pedal cyclists riding with the Climate Rush were also helpful in stopping traffic at various points to facilitate the ride.

More information about Climate Criminals 0utside the RBS in Lower Regent St
On The Mall

Many riders wore white dresses and hats evoking the Suffragette era with red sashes with messages including ‘CLIMATE CODE RED’, ‘DEEDS NOT WORDS’, ‘NO AIRPORT EXPANSION’, ‘ACTION ON COAL NOW!, ‘TRAINS NOT PLANES’ and ‘PEDAL POWER.’

At the Dept for Business Enterprise & Regulatory Reform

The riders also slowed down to hand out copies of a newspaper ‘HERE COMES THE SUN’, with information about climate change and what people can do as well as celebrity exclusives from Quentin Tarantino, Paris Hilton, Colin Firth, Vivienne Westwood, Daisy Lowe, Stephen Hawking, Giles Deacon, Gavin Turk, Katherine Hamnett and Queens of Noize, quotations from Gandhi, Einstein and more.

At the end of the ride, the cyclists went around Parliament Square and then onto Westminster Bridge where they brought out a very long banner with the text ‘Remember Remember the 5th of December’ – the date of the next National Climate Demonstration – and hung it over the side of the bridge before settling down to have a picnic. This was continuing when I left for home.

More at Pedal Power Bike Rush.

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