Posts Tagged ‘south London’

March For Homes – 2015

Wednesday, January 31st, 2024

March For Homes: St Leonard’s Church to City Hall

Defend Council Housing, South London People’s Assembly and Unite Housing Workers Branch had called for a march to draw attention to the crisis in housing, particularly in London where council housing lists are huge and many councils are failing to meet their legal requirements to rehouse homeless families.

March For Homes

These requirements generally do not extend to single homeless people and in London alone over 6,500 people had slept rough at some time in the previous year with around one in twelve of 16-24 year-olds having been homeless at some point. Government figures comprehensively and deliberately underestimate the numbers.

March For Homes

It isn’t really a housing crisis, but a crisis of affordable housing. There are more than enough empty properties to house the homeless, but those who need housing are unable to afford the high rents or house prices being asked.

March For Homes

There has been a huge surge in building high-rise properties in London, with whole areas like Battersea and Nine Elms as well as elsewhere across inner and outer London being increasingly filled with them, but almost all are high-price properties, many sold overseas before the buildings are completed not as homes but as investments. Others are low specification student housing and also do nothing for the housing crisis.

March For Homes

What is needed is a crash programme of housing at social rents for family units of all sizes. Developers have become adept at evading what laws there are about providing social housing in new developments, fiddling the books to claim they cannot make sufficient profits which ridiculously lets them off the hook.

Much of the UK problems over housing go back to the Thatcher administration which both sold off council housing piecemeal under ‘right to buy’ but also stopped councils replacing what they had lost.

In earlier years both Tory and Labour councils had built generally high quality low cost housing though of course there were some examples of poor planning (often when councils were forced to cut costs) and shoddy work as well as unfortunate government encouragement of high-rise system building, which many of us were campaigning against in the 60’s and 70s.

But perhaps even more importantly under Tory administrations council housing became something just for what they regarded as ‘feckless’ and the ‘dregs of society’, those unable to fend for themselves. We got this ridiculous concept of the ‘housing ladder’ and very much it is a ladder that expresses “pull up the ladder, Jack. We’re alright“.

Municipal housing can provide housing for all at low cost and provided a rational approaching to providing decent housing for all, getting away from the poor conditions and high cost of private rented housing at much lower cost than owner occupation.

The March for Homes on Saturday 31st January was actually two marches, one from the Elephant in South London and the other from East London which I photographed at Shoreditch, calling for more social housing and an end to estate demolition and evictions. On My London Diary at March for Homes: Shoreditch Rally I published a very long list of some of the various groups which supported the march, as well as some of the speakers at the rally there. Eventually the march set off on its way towards City Hall, making its way towards Tower Bridge.

Class War left the march briefly to protest as it went past One Commercial St, where they had been holding a long series of weekly ‘Poor Doors’ protests against the separate door down a side alley for the social housing tenants in the block. They had briefly suspended the protests a few weeks early when new owner for the building had offered talks about the situation, but these had broken down.

Approaching the Tower of London the protest was joined by Russell Brand riding a bicycle. He had earlier lent support to a number of housing campaigns by residents in estates threatened by evictions.

By the time the march was going across Tower Bridge Class War had rejoined it, and their banners were in the lead.

The march was met on the other side of Tower Bridge by the South London March for Homes, a similar sized protest called by Defend Council Housing and South London People’s Assembly which had started at the Elephant, marching past the former Heygate Estate. The two marches merged to walk on to Potters Fields for the rally outside City Hall.

We had been marching most of the day in light rain, and this got rather heavier for the rally outside City Hall. Together with a large crowd being jammed into a fairly small space it made photography of the rally difficult.

While the rally was still continuing some of the protesters began to leave Potters Fields to protest more actively, led by Class War and other anarchit groups and accompanied by the samba band Rhythms of Revolution.

They moved onto Tooley Street and blocked it for a few minutes, then decided to move off, with police reinforcements who had arrived than taking over their role of blocking the road as the protesters moved off eastwards.

I watched them go, and later heard that after a brief protest at One Tower Bridge, a new development mainly for the over-rich next to Tower Bridge they had taken a long walk to join occupiers on Southwark’s Aylesbury Estate.

But I was cold, wet and tired, and my cameras too, having been exposed to the weather for several hours were becoming temperamental and I waited for a bus to start my journey home.

Much more on My London Diary:
March for Homes: After the Rally
March for Homes: City Hall Rally
March for Homes: Poor Doors
March for Homes: Shoreditch to City Hall
March for Homes: Shoreditch Rally

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A Submarine, Flats, Pub, Dog, Ducks & Milkmaid

Tuesday, June 13th, 2023

A Submarine, Flats, Pub, Dog, Ducks & Milkmaid is the final post on my walk on Friday afternoon, May 5th 1989. The previous post was Around Camberwell New Road – 1989

Camberwell Submarine, boiler room, Akerman Rd, Lambeth, 1989 89-5b-35
Camberwell Submarine, boiler room, Akerman Rd, Lambeth, 1989 89-5b-35

I crossed over Camberwell New Road to the southern side, turned own Vassall Road and then left into Langton Road. I’ve not digitised the one picture I took of a house here, nor the single image I made in Lothian Road, but I continued further south along here, lured by the sight of an unusual object in the centre of Akerman Road.

Two vertical concrete towers rose up from a more organic looking low concrete body. Later I was to learn that this was known as the Camberwell Submarine.

Camberwell Submarine, boiler room, Akerman Rd, Lambeth, 1989 89-5b-21
Camberwell Submarine, boiler room, Akerman Rd, Lambeth, 1989 89-5b-21

I had no idea what this structure was, though clearly it was providing ventilation for some below ground installation. Was it Lambeth’s nuclear bunker, perhaps an underground city? Was there some secret tunnel underneath – though the nearest Underground line was well over a mile away. Later I looked it up to find others had made similar speculations to mine, but of course the real purpose is rather more prosaic.

This is the visible structure of the below ground Myatt’s Fields North Boiler House designed by Michael Luffingham in the mid-seventies for Lambeth Council, and described at the time as Hollamby’s submarine after his boss, borough architect Ted Hollamby. An attempt was made to get it listed ten years ago but failed.

Camberwell Submarine, boiler room, Akerman Rd, Lambeth, 1989 89-5b-23
Camberwell Submarine, boiler room, Akerman Rd, Lambeth, 1989 89-5b-23

I could only walk around the outside of the submarine and although it had doors at each end, both were locked. In 2007, Mike Urban of Urban75 was photographing it and was invited inside by a maintenance worker and his post reveals some of the hidden secrets of the interior.

Flats, Akerman Rd, Lambeth, 1989 89-5b-26
Flats, Akerman Rd, Lambeth, 1989 89-5b-26

These are some of the flats on the Myatt’s Fields North which were heated by the submarine. The estate later got a very poor reputation and much was demolished and replaced in controversial redevelopment in 2014, mentioned in a previous post.

Loughborough Hotel, Evandale Rd, Brixton, Lambeth, 1989 89-5b-14
Loughborough Hotel, Evandale Rd, Brixton, Lambeth, 1989 89-5b-14

I turned down Evandale Road and walked down to the Loughborough Hotel on the corner with Loughborough Road. The earliest record of a pub here – on the corner with what was then Cromwell Rd – was in 1864, and it was built on the site of Loughborough House which was demolished in 1854. This had been the Manor House of Lambeth Wick, home to the 1st Baron Loughborough, Henry Hastings. He had been given his title in 1643 for fighting for the Royalists in the English Civil War and returned to live here after a period of exile in 1661.

In 1900 the hotel was replaced by this splendid new building, designed as an entertainment palace with a large ballroom on the first floor. The name ‘Hotel’ simply meant it was a posher establishment than an inn, and it never had rooms where people could stay.

The nature of entertainment at the hotel changed from the late 1960s as did the local population. The Island Disco, a South Pacific Island themed disco opened in 1967 and various other night clubs followed including the legendary Latin and African music club, the Mambo Inn. There were drag nights too from !969.

All this finished in 2005, when the upstairs room s were turned into flats. The ground floor pub finally closed in 2007 and the former bar is now a café and possibly at times an art gallery.

Fiveways, Loughborough Rd, Akerman Rd, Brixton, Lambeth, 1989 89-5b-15
Fiveways, Loughborough Rd, Akerman Rd, Brixton, Lambeth, 1989 89-5b-15

I turned east along Loughborough Road and made my way to Fiveways, the junction with Akerman Road, Lilford Road and Fiveways Road. This shows the house on the corner with Akerman Raod, which has since been considerably refurbished. This was once the end of a long terrace from the Loughborough Hotel with ground floor shops, but those at this end and some others have been converted to residential.

Dog, Ducks & Milkmaid, Lilford Rd, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-5c-62
Dog, Ducks & Milkmaid, Lilford Rd, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-5c-62

I continued along Lilford Road, where at number 15 I photographed this small menagerie. I’m pleased to see that the ducks are still there on the short pillars at the front door, though now looking a little worn, but the milkmaid and dog have gone.

Auto Stores, Camberwell Rd, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-5c-63
Auto Stores, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-5c-63

By now it was getting a little late and I was getting hungry and I made my way quickly along Knatchbull Road towards Camberwell Green to catch a bus back to Waterloo for my train home. I only took this one last picture, though I’m not sure exactly where it was taken around Camberwell Green, though my contact sheet says Camberwell Road.

This is the third and final post on the walk which began with Naked Ladies, 3 Doors & A New Walk. But two days later I was back again on a new walk in South London which I’ll write about shortly

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Die-In At The Elephant

Sunday, May 21st, 2023

Die-In At The Elephant: In the early evening of Wednesday 21st May 2014, several hundred cyclists came to the Elephant and Castle, one of South London’s major transport junctions, following the death 8 days earlier there of a cyclist, 47 year-old Abdelkhars Lahyani, killed when he was run over by a heavy goods vehicle. The HGV driver was arrested on suspicion of causing death by careless driving.

Die-In At The Elephant

Road design in London and elsewhere in the UK has always been about design for the movement of cars and lorries, with little regard given to the safe movement of cyclists and pedestrians, and campaigner Donnachadh McCarthy described this death as “a designed-in killing” rather than an accident.

Die-In At The Elephant

The traffic system at the Elephant & Castle, one of south London’s busiest and more complex junctions, had been redesigned a few years ago at a cost of £3 million, but the changes made had not made proper provision for cyclists.

Die-In At The Elephant
A cycle lane to nowhere – a dead end for cyclists

The junction is in the London Borough of Southwark, and their transport plan had argued against safe routes which would segregate cyclists from traffic. It stated that including them in traffic is useful to slow traffic flows; it may, but at the expense of regarding them as expendable, using vulnerable and unprotected human beings as some kind of traffic bollards.

Die-In At The Elephant

The protesters marked out in chalk a “bypass lane” across the wide area of pavement close to the Strata Building at the junction with Newington Butts where the killing had taken place which would provide a segregated safe route for cyclists.

Die-In At The Elephant

This chalked lane was soon filled with chalked messages about cycle safety and the protesters laid down their bikes on both sides of it before staging a die-in, leaving the lane with its chalking as a ‘sacred space’ in memory of the killed cyclist.

Afterwards there was a rally where the names of the 14 cyclists killed in London in 2013 and the six so far in 2014, after which poems by Seamus Heaney written about his feelings when his younger brother was killed in a road accident. Another speech was read out, written by a cyclist still in hospital with serious injuries after having been driven over by an HGV on a City road on the same day as Lahyani, and there were other speakers.

The final speech was by Donnachadh McCarthy, who set out very clearly the failures that were leading to the deaths of cyclists, and also thanked the police for their cooperation in the event. At the end of his speech he talked about the great advantages of cycling for personal health and for the environment: “Cycling is a gift: cleaner planet; safer lives.” But only if we make our cities safe to cycle in. As he pointed out as well as the roughly 60 cyclists and 300 pedestrians killed in London traffic accidents since the last election, an estimated 13,000 had died before their time because of traffic pollution.

My London Diary – May 2014

The junction in 2023 remains a dangerous place for cyclists, and no improvements appear to have been made here or elsewhere at the Elephant. It has bicycle symbols painted between the two lanes leading up to and advance waiting box at the traffic lights, though much of the paint had been worn by traffic when I last looked. Past the lights are some more road markings for bikes, but these can only be reached by cycling in the traffic.

More about the protest, speakers etc and many more photographs at Cyclists protest Death at the Elephant

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Peckham and East Dulwich 1989

Wednesday, May 10th, 2023
Courtyard, Peckham Rye Station, Rye Lane, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-4h-35
Courtyard, Peckham Rye Station, Rye Lane, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-4h-35

The day after my walk around King’s Cross, in part on a walk led by GLIAS, on Sunday 9th April 1989 I was back in London on my own, south of the river for a walk beginning in Peckham.

People have often asked my why I photographed the areas of South London, and although I tell them I also photographed the North, East and West, my interest was certainly was certainly inspired by a remarkable book, London South Of the River, by Sam Price Myers, published in 1949, illutstrated by some fine wood engravings by Rachel Reckitt.

Back in 1989 there was relatively little graffiti in the area, but much of the walls in the 1930’s building at the centre of the picture where an arcade leads left towards Rye Lane was covered fairly colourfully last time I visited. You can just see a little of the station at right through the first arch. The second arch on Station Way leads to Blenheim Grove,

Courtyard, Peckham Rye Station, Rye Lane, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-4h-36
Courtyard, Peckham Rye Station, Rye Lane, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-4h-36

Myers does not have a great deal to say about Peckham, but has an engaging enthusiasm for the subject matter. His short section on the area does, like me start at Peckham Rye Station, though I had probably not arrived by train but on a bus to Peckham from Vauxhall. The book also contains some decent photographs, though greatly weakened by the rather pallid reproduction of the era, by a number of photographers including Ursula Hartleben and Bernard Alfieri.

My copy, bearing the stamp of the Illustrated London News Editorial Library, was certainly £4 well spent, and I find a copy in rather better condition now offered for sale on the web for £555; the advert shows several of Reckitt’s illustrations, and another was posted by a friend on Twitter. You can still find copies of the book in similar condition to mine for a rather more reasonable price.

This picture is looking north up Station Way from outside the station entrance towards Holly Grove. My interest on this occasion was obviously rather more in the 1930s building than the Victorian station,

Shop, Blenheim Grove, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-4h-21
Shop, Blenheim Grove, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-4h-21

This was another part of the 1930s development in front of the station between it and Rye Lane, here with shops and flats above. I walked the few yards east into Rye Lane and continued south down this, taking few pictures as I had photographed this area on previous walks.

Matrix Gym, Rye Lane, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-4h-23
Matrix Gym, Rye Lane, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-4h-23

Continuing south, Rye Lane merges into Peckham Rye, and I often confused the two. The numbers on the door frame here are 257-261 and this was a part of the former Co-Op building at the bottom of Rye Lane, now demolished and replaced.

Lock, Peckham Rye, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-4h-12
Lock, Peckham Rye, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-4h-12

The giant lock with its legend YALE LOCKS was became labelled the entrance to Ezel Court (which I think was just the flats above the shops), but I assume that at one time either 56 – here dealing with pets – or the shop to the left had sold locks. In recent years these have become a Mini Super Market and a restaurant. I had photographed this earlier in the year and another picture appears in my post Peckham Rye to Goose Green – 1989.

Houses, Kelmore Grove, East Dulwich, Southwark, 1989 89-4h-13
Houses, Kelmore Grove, East Dulwich, Southwark, 1989 89-4h-13

I continued down Peckham Rye to the junction where I turned to the west along East Dulwich Road. In 1879 this there were really substantial villas along the south of East Dulwich Rd, but by the early 90s Oakhurst Grove, Kelmore Grove and The Gardens at the back of these had been laid and lined with substantial family homes.

These beautifully decorated late Victorian houses are on the south side of Kelmore Grove, with slightly plainer examples on the other side of the road. Although only two storey, these are substantial semi-detached houses with a wide frontage with a large room on each side of the central hallway.

Houses, Oakhurst Grove, East Dulwich, Southwark, 1989 89-4h-14
Houses, Oakhurst Grove, East Dulwich, Southwark, 1989 89-4h-14

The houses in Oakhurst Grove have alternate bays and rather curious towers in what are semi-detached three storey houses. The two doors in each pair are adjacent with only a room on one side and although taller they are less grand than those in the picture above. But they also have some fine brickwork and decorative elements.

This walk will continue in later posts.

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2015 March for Homes – Shoreditch to City Hall

Monday, January 31st, 2022

2015 March for Homes – Shoreditch to City Hall. A year before the march Against the Housing and Planning Bill featured in yesterday’s post there was another march about housing at the end of January, the March For Homes.

Outside Shoreditch Church

The event called by Defend Council Housing, South London People’s Assembly and Unite Housing Workers Branch involved two separate marches, one coming from Shoreditch in north-east London and the other from the Elephant & Castle in south London converging on London’s City Hall close to Tower Bridge for a final rally.

Max Levitas, a 100 year old communist veteran of Cable St

I couldn’t be in two places at once and chose to go to Shoreditch, partly because I knew people from several groups I had photographed at a number of housing struggles would be marching from there. The event was certainly enlivened by the arrival of activists who had marched from Bethnal Green, including supporters of Class War, Focus E15 and other groups.

Many couldn’t get into the churchyard

The Shoreditch Rally was held in a crowded area in Shoreditch churchyard at the front of St. Leonard’s, Shoreditch, the ancient parish church of Shoreditch, and I took the opportunity to go inside and have a look at the church before the rally. The list of speakers there showed the wide range of community support for fairer housing policies, including more social housing desperately needed in London and included Jasmine Stone of Focus E15, Lindsey Garratt from New Era, Paul Turp, vicar of St Leonards, Nick from Action East End, Paul Heron of the Haldane Society of Socialist Laywyers, Max Levitas, a 100 year old communist veteran of Cable St, a speaker from the ‘Fred and John Towers’ in Leytonstone and Tower Hamlets Mayor Lutfur Rahman.

Tower Hamlets Mayor Lutfur Rahman

Tower Hamlets benefits from having been formed from some of the London Metropolitan Boroughs with the best records of social housing – such as Poplar, where in the 1920s councillors went to jail to retain more money for one of London’s poorest areas. Unfortunately Rahman, the borough’s first directly elected mayor was removed from office in April 2015 after he was found personally guilty of electoral fraud in his 2014 re-election. Many of the other charges made against him in the media were dismissed by police after investigation.

It was raining slightly as over a thousand marchers set off for City Hall behind the March For Homes banner.

As the march came to the junction with Aldgate High St, Class War split off for a short protest at One Commercial St, where they had held a lengthy series of weekly ‘Poor Doors’ protests against separate entrances for residents owning or leasing at market rates and the smaller section of social housing tenants who had to enter through a door down a side alley. Class War had suspended their 20 weeks of protest for talks with a new owner of the building a month or so earlier, but these had broken down without a satisfactory resolution and the protests there restarted the following week.

As the march approached the Tower of London it was met and joined by Russell Brand riding a bicycle,

and on Tower Bridge, Class War came up to lead the march.

I rushed ahead to meet the South London march as it turned into Tooley Street for the last few yards of its march.

The rally in front of City Hall was large, cold and wet. By now the rain was making it difficult to take photographs, with drops falling on the front of my lenses as I tried to take pictures, and my lenses beginning to steam up inside. But I persisted and did the best I could, though the rain-bedraggled speakers in particular were not looking their best.

The rally was still continuing when some of the activists, including Class War and the street band Rhythms of Revolution decided they needed to do something a little more than standing in the rain listening to speeches. They moved onto Tooley Street and blocked the road. More police arrived and blocked the road even more effectively as the activists moved eastwards to protest at One Tower Bridge, a new development mainly for the over-rich next to Tower Bridge and then left for a long walk to the occupied Aylesbury Estate. But I decided it was time to go home.

More on My London Diary:
March for Homes: After the Rally
March for Homes: City Hall Rally
March for Homes: Poor Doors
March for Homes: Shoreditch to City Hall
March for Homes: Shoreditch Rally

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8th May

Saturday, May 8th, 2021

Maypole Dance, Hayes, 2012

I sat for some time wondering what to write about today. Perhaps the obvious choice would be to point out that this is the 76th anniversary of VE Day – and I did attend some events to mark the 60th anniversary back in 2005, both on Saturday May 7th in Ilford and May 8th in Bromley. Sixty years on from the event itself, this was probably the last occasion when a significant number of actual veterans were still around in their 80s and 90s and able to take part.

‘Little Sanctum’, Hayes, 2005

But looking at the pictures I found it too depressing – and things now have got even worse when with none left who actually fought in WW2 to provide some realism celebrations related to the war have grown more militaristic and jingoistic, more based more on the propaganda of films and TV series and the claim “two world wars and one world cup” than the reality of a fight against fascism – and where Little Englander views have defeated the vision of a united Europe, particularly in the Brexit campaign.

Hayes, 2010

I needed something to cheer me up a little, so instead some pictures from the London May Queen crowning which takes place around this time of year on the second Saturday in May, which in 2010 was May 8th. It was an unusual year in that the weather was terrible, with cold driving rain making the usual outdoor ceremonies on Hayes Common and the parade around the village impracticable, and the event took place with a smaller number taking part inside the crowded village hall. So I’ve added a couple of pictures from other years which show a more normal view of the day.

Hayes, 2010

I’ve written about the event – with help from some of those involved – in various posts on My London Diary, and also in the book, London May Queens, still available as a reasonably priced download or expensively in print from Blurb. Getting to know some of the organisers and taking an interest in the history of the event enabled me to overcome some of the now inevitable suspicions around a male photographer photographing young girls and I was there in 2008 by invitation of some of the mothers involved.

Hayes, 2010

May Queens have a long history, although the traditional May festivities were rather different and bacchanalian. Like many English traditions, this was revived in a bowdlerised form by the Victorians, largely as a festival for children and young people. The ‘Merrie England And London May Queen Festival’ came a little later, founded in 1913 by Joseph Deedy, a master at Dulwich School, and at its peak, I think in the 1930s, involved 120 ‘realms’ from different areas mainly around south London each with their own May Queen, with well over a thousand children coming together for the crowning of the London May Queen at Hayes.

Hayes, 2010

Deedy wrote some rather quaint texts which are still used in the various stages of the ceremonies around Hayes, as well as setting the general principles and rules for the realms and the event. Girls work their way up through the organisation based on length of service, progressing though various roles, first in the local realms, and then in the London May Queen group. They can join from age three, and can remain involved until they are 18. Organisers see it as a way of encouraging social skills and developing self-confidence in the girls who take part. They often take part in local fetes, visits to care homes, and other activities as well as enjoying tea parties. The crowning of the London May Queen is the culmination of a series of events on previous Saturdays when the different realms crown their own Queens.

Hayes, 2010

Working inside the crowded hall in 2008 was difficult, but I was pleased to have the opportunity, and it provided some variety in my coverage of the event – as did the various crowning events in some of the local realms. Covid will doubtless have prevented the 2010 and 2021 events taking place but I hope it will resume for 2022. It’s a charming survival from an earlier age and one which invokes a community spirit which enriches local life.

Hayes, 2008

There are too many posts on My London Diary featuring May Queen Events between 2005 and 2013 to list them all, but you can find them easily on the web site as they are all on the pages from April and May. Here are just a few of them.

London May Queen 2005
London May Queen 2008
Merrie England & London May Queen 2010
London Crowns 100th May Queen 2012
London’s 101st May Queen 2013
I posted even more pictures than usual from these events as I wanted to share them with those who had taken part and tried to include everyone in the pictures.

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

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Show Workers Some Love

Sunday, February 14th, 2021

On St Valentine’s Day, Feb 14 2019, the Security and Receptionists Branch of the IWGB union and students launched their campaign for Goldsmiths University of London to directly employ its security officers, with a protest outside and inside the university buildings. The protest, on St Valentines Day, called on the university to show its workers some love.

I was pleased to be invited to go to photograph the event, and thankful that unlike many union pickets it was to take place at lunchtime rather than at the kind of ungodly hour of the morning that many of our worst paid have to clock in. I’m afraid I decline all requests that would involve me getting out of bed well before dawn and leave those to younger photographers who live closer, in part because travel until after the morning peak into London costs more than any likely return from reproduction fees.

Goldsmiths is in New Cross, a rather run-down area of South London that I’ve known for years and is rapidly sprawling over the whole area. Long ago, before I started taking photographs I made the pilgrimage to Chris Wellard’s Jazz & Blues Record Shop on Lewisham Way, probably the finest in the world until its closure in the mid-70s, later demolished for a new block for the college just a few yards further down the road. Goldsmiths has never quite gained the same reputation, though I have been there for the odd (sometimes very odd) meeting and event since. And more often to visit a late artist and photographer friend whose studios were just a little further on down the road at Lewisham Arthouse.

A group of students stood outside the old college building, waiting for the event to start, and eventually members of the IWGB arrived. Chris Wellard’s advertising always use to contain strict instructions to take the BR Southern trains from London Bridge rather than use the Underground (now the Overground) and perhaps they hadn’t observed these.

But things soon warmed up, and after some short speeches, including a warning from IWGB General Secretary Jason Moyer-Lee that this was a peaceful protest and we should be careful not to cause any damage a show of hands was voted to protest inside the building. We walked inside and made our way through the campus, stopping at various areas where people were eating lunch to for the union leaders to speak briefly – and to considerable applause from most – about the campaign.

The protesters then walked down to New Cross Road, where the university management no has its offices in the former Deptford Town Hall, and sat down in the busy road outside for a few minutes blocking all traffic.

Walking back into the university campus, they group briefly occupied the foyer of the Ben Pimlott Building, before walking back to the front of the main building for a final rally.

It had been a lively and highly noticeable protest, bringing the claim for security staff to be directly employed by the university with similar terms and benefits to others at Goldsmiths to the attention of a large number of students, staff and management.

Exactly a year later, on Valentines Day 2020, the IWGB Security Guards & Receptionists Branch tweeted (with a short video):

More pictures at Bring Goldsmith’s Security In-House.

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.


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South of the River

Sunday, June 28th, 2020
Cafe, Norwood Rd, Herne Hill, 1991 TQ3274-001
Café, Norwood Rd, Herne Hill, 1991

I think I only took my first pictures on colour negative film in 1985. When I began in photography at the start of the 1970s it was quite clear that colour neg was just for amateur snaps and social photography, but real photographers – if they stooped to colour – did it on transparency film.

Cafe, Loughborough Junction, 1989, TQ3275-001
Café, Loughborough Junction, 1989

Most publications – books, magazines, newspapers etc – . still used only – or mainly – black and white, and when colour was used it was almost invariably from colour transparency. Images taken on colour neg were only used at a last resort, and usually then duped onto transparency for repro, or occasionally printed onto black and white paper to be used. You could get special panchromatic black and white paper which gave some chance of normal tonality, but it was a pain to use as normal darkroom safelights fogged it, and often normal black and white paper was used despite the often very poor tonality it gave.

Shops, Flaxman Rd, Loughborough Junction, 1987 TQ3276-002
Shops, Flaxman Rd, Loughborough Junction, 1987

Though colour transparency was great for repro, making prints from it had its limitations – as did using transparency film. I found myself too often having images with empty black shadow areas or unusably blown highlights as it the film had a limited exposure range. You could get great punchy saturated colour prints, fine for advertising (which was never my scene) but it was difficult to achieve subtlety. Fed up with telling printers what I wanted and being told it wasn’t possible I began making my own prints, working at times with complicated unsharp masking for Cibachromes. My German project I deliberately printed on outdated Agfa direct reversal paper.

Shops, Denmark Hill, Camberwell, 1989 TQ3276-004
Shops, Denmark Hill, Camberwell, 1989

In the 1980s, Fuji shook up colour negative (and, to a lesser extent transparency film), producing new film and print materials that gave greater fidelity, longer print life and greater flexibility in the darkroom. Seeing the prints that other photographers were making (and the fact I wasn’t actually selling my slides professionally) was a conversion experience. Since then I don’t think I’ve ever taken pictures on slide film.

Hairdresser, Coldharbour Lane, Camberwell, 1989, TQ3276-007
Gee P. Johnson, The People’s Salon, Coldharbour Lane, Camberwell, 1989,

At the same time I was beginning a major black and white project to photograph the fabric of London, and saw my colour work as separate to that, but dependent on it. I don’t think I ever went out to visit a place or area to take colour pictures, but simply did so when opportunities arose as I visited various areas.

I didn’t have a particular interest in cafes or hairdressers, but saw these and other shops and offices as example of small businesses with relatively low start-up costs which reflected both the aesthetic of their owners and of the people of the area which they served. Gee P Johnson’s unisex ‘The People’s Salon’ for me expressed that sense well.

TQ3276-013
Daneville Rd, Camberwell, 1989, Southwark,

Filing selected trade prints in albums according to their grid references was a way to explore the differences between different areas across London – and I chose to do so in these 1km wide south-north strips. It was also a kind of cataloguing system for my work, though not always as well documented on the prints it should have been.

Garage, Camberwell Station Rd, Camberwell, 1989 TQ3276-017
Garage, Camberwell Station Rd, Camberwell,

These examples come from the first thirty or so images in my Flickr album TQ32 London Cross-section, which contains a little over 300 pictures. I’ll perhaps look again at some more shortly.

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

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