London Pride: I think the Pride March on Saturday 3rd July 2004 was around the 12th Pride I had photographed and I was certainly beginning to feel it had lost the edge it had in the earlier years. It’s now some years since I bothered to apply for accreditation to cover the annual event, and didn’t bother to apply for one of the armbands my union were offering. It’s perhaps ten years since I last went.
I used to enjoy photographing the annual event, and you can see many of my pictures from those years on the Internet Archive and in the Café Royal Books publication ‘Pride Not Profit – London 1993–2000‘. I had a small show of some of the work at the Museum of London and a larger selection was projected as part of the Museum’s travelling show ‘Queer is Here‘ which began with a Museum showing in 2006. You can see the full set from this show online at Ten Years of Pride.
For the last few years I’ve intended to go to Soho to cover the buzz there after the march, but somehow I’ve always found other things to do. But perhaps I’ll be there tomorrow, if only to meet up with some old friends and have a drink together.
Anyway, here is what I wrote back in 2004 and some of the pictures I took on the march from Hyde Park. For some reason I can’t now remember I left the march to go to Paternoster Square close to St Paul’s Cathedral and took a few pictures of the buildings there before returning to the Pride Festival in Trafalgar Square.
London Pride
Pride is certainly not what it used to be. It’s lost the edge which came from protest and is now simply a parade, recognised by Ken [Livingstone, Mayor of London] and the police.
Good time people out for a good time rather than a crusade for a cause, although there were still a few banners on display against remaining areas of discrimination.
This years event also seemed rather small, considerably less than the press estimates before the event, although quite a few more came to the rally in Trafalgar Square.
I don’t know how long they stayed, as the speeches were platitudinous beyond belief. Ken welcomed us to his square in one of the better attempts, and generally received an enthusiastic response, although there were quite a few voices of dissent and more who were taking very little interest.
Here are a few pictures here which I didn’t upload in 2004:
There are also more online on My London Diary, beginning here.
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