St George

Diamonds, Peace & St George – 2016

Diamonds, Peace & St George: St George’s Day, 23rd April, celebrates the death of this Cappadocian Greek soldier in the Roman Army martyred on this day in AD 303 for refusing to recant his Christian faith. We know little about his life, but can be sure that he never killed a dragon.

As I commented back in 2005, “St George keeps busy as a patron saint of Canada, Catalonia, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Lithuania, Malta, Palestine and Portugal, as well as a number of cities including Moscow and Venice, a whole raft of trades including farmers and soldiers, as well as herpes and syphilis. It’s perhaps surprising he still has time for England, although until recently you would hardly have noticed it in any case.“

It is also at least 23 other national days around the world, a few of which are related to the birth of Shakespeare who was most probably born on April 23, 1564. But I won’t be celebrating National Talk Like Shakespeare Day, World Table Tennis Day, National Cherry Cheesecake Day or any of the rest, though I suppose there is just an outside chance I might dabble with German Beer Day (though I’m more partial to British Bitter, increasingly a rare species, which has its day on June 15th.)

My day began with two protests against the selling of blood diamonds from Sierra Leone at leading London stores, before I went to Trafalgar Square to briefly visit the unimpressive St George’s Day event there. I ate my sandwiches in the Peace Garden at the Imperial War Museum before going to a St George’s Day procession in Southwark from St George’s Cathedral to the church of St George the Martyr, and finally went to a pub in Southwark with a couple of friends where I met and photographed two St Georges.

Sierra Leone Blood Diamonds at Selfridges – Oxford St

Diamonds, Peace & St George - 2016 — *Octea mine diamonds in Sierra Leone, Tiffany sell them in Selfridges and children in Kono die*

People from the Kono district of Sierra Leone protested at Selfridges on Oxford St as part of a global demonstration against the financial partnership of Tiffany & Co with Octea, the largest diamond mining company in Sierra Leone. They say people in Kono suffer and die because of Octea’s diamond mining.

Octea, wholly owned by Israeli billionaire, Benny Steinmetz is operated by former mercenaries and has been allowed to operate without a licence and tax free. The protesters say it’s operation defies all national and international legal norms and ethics.

Sierra Leone Blood Diamonds at Selfridges

Sierra Leone Blood Diamonds at Tiffanys – Sloane Square

From Selfridges the group went on to Tiffanys. Police told them they could not protest on the wide pavement there but must go across to protest in a pen set aside for them in the square opposite.

After some argument they did so, although there seemed to be no reason other than lessening the impact of the protest for the police to move them. Why UK police should take the side of Tiffany and support illegal diamond mining by Octea that defies all national and international legal norms and ethics is hard to understand.

Sierra Leone Blood Diamonds at Tiffany

St Georges Day in Trafalgar Square

St George was there and you could have your picture taken with a dragon and the square was filled with long tables where you could sit and eat food from the many stalls set up around the edges of the square.

Everyone got handed little St George’s flags, but there seemed to be little going on and little real atmosphere. Perhaps things might have picked up later in the day, but I didn’t feel like returning.

St Georges Day in London

Peace Garden

Instead I ate my sandwiches in the Samten Kyil (Garden of Contemplation) in Geraldine Mary Harmsworth Park commissioned by Tibet Foundation, designed by sculptor Hamish Horsley and opened by the Dalai Lama in 1999. A few yards from the Imperial War Museum it was conveniently just across the road from where my next event was to start.

Peace Garden at War Museum

St George in Southwark Procession – St George’s Cathedral to St George the Martyr

A procession for St George’s Day, led by St George, a Roman Emperor, the Mayor of Southwark and others and with a dragon at its rear made its way from the St George’s RC Cathedral to the Church of England St George the Martyr in Borough High Street. It was a part of ‘A Quest for Community’ with the aim of ‘Taming the dragon of difference’ and was followed by a play outside St George the Martyr telling the true story of St George, a Roman solider from Palestine who chose death rather than give up his Christian faith.

*From right to left: St George, Emperor Diocletian, the priestess or haruspex and the emperor’s daughter*

I’d not been inside this building before and we had an interesting tour of the building before the procession. Designed by Augustus Pugin it was gutted by incendiary bombing in 1942, left it with only walls and one chapel standing but was rebuilt to the same plan, finishing in 1958.

The route was an interesting one and along streets I had previously photographed – and went past the blue plaque where photographer Bert Hardy was born – and I was able to tell the Mayor something about one of Southwark’s more famous.

We arrived rather late at St George the Martyr and I had to leave shortly after the beginning of a play about St George being performed there by local children – possibly something of a relief.

St George in Southwark Procession

St Georges in the Kings Arms – Newcomen Street

Two of my photographer friends had been going to come to the St George procession, but had apparently been unable to find St George’s Cathedral. Instead we had arranged to meet afterwards at the King’s Arms, a traditional British pub just off Borough High Street.

Among those drinking there were not one but two St George’s and I photographed both of them, one with his fortunately rather friendly dragon.

Pictures at the bottom of the My London Diary page St Georges Day in London.

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All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
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St George’s Day 2005

St George’s Day – I’m not sure if I will be doing anything to celebrate St George’s Day today. Most of the celebrations around London seemed to be taking place on Sunday. I was planning to attend an event fairly close to where I live, but I started the day with one of my more impressive nose bleeds and decided to stay home rather than risk dripping blood over the streets.

So instead of pictures from a couple of days ago, today I’m posting some from 23rd April 2005, 19 years ago. I began that day with a visit to Tate Modern and a walk along to Clink Street where I photographed some stencilled graffiti -including one by Banksy – before crossing the river and heading to the celebrations taking place in Covent Garden.

St George's Day — *‘IT HAPPENED ANYWAY’ – Millions on the street failed to stop the Iraq invasion*

With the pictures is the rather tongue in cheek text that accompanied them in 2005 on My London Diary, edited to respect normal use of capital letters and any spelling errors. There are a few more pictures on My London Diary.

St George keeps busy as a patron saint of Canada, Catalonia, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Lithuania, Malta, Palestine and Portugal, as well as a number of cities including Moscow and Venice, a whole raft of trades including farmers and soldiers, as well as herpes and syphilis. It’s perhaps surprising he still has time for England, although until recently you would hardly have noticed it in any case.

St George Until recently was left to the nutters, football supporters and racists (three highly overlapping groups.) Those elites who run the country generally found patriotic display about Englishness rather beneath them – only our Celtic fringe and ethnic groups have a ‘culture’, the rest of us are too modern and intelligent for such primitivism.

Its the kind of thinking that led the Arts Council to refuse to support Morris Dancing, while pumping thousands into steel drums (as they should – but there is nothing wrong with supporting our English heritage as well.)

This year, the Royal Society Of St George (posh patriotic nutters with the Queen as their patron, started in our American colony around the 1770s) were organising celebrations in Covent Garden, and after a morning at Tate Modern I went to see.

Although I think Morris ought to be supported, I’m not a great fan of the dancers, though its OK outside the pub on a sunny day for half an hour a couple of times a year so long as I don’t have to take part.

The Moulton Morris, performing as a part of the event were more impressive than most, both for their costume and the dancing, and also for the half a dozen young people taking part. Somehow there seemed to be less beards and sandals than most sides.

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

St George’s Day 2016

April 23rd 303 was not a good day for George from Cappadocia. Diocletian, then the senior Roman Emperor had previously purged the Roman Army of Christians but had not really otherwise bothered too much about them, but he was persuaded by fellow emperor Galerius to take a harder line, and after consulting the oracle of Apollo began a general persecution across the empire on February 23, 303, which continued for the next 10 years or so.

For some reason George had escaped the previous army purge was was still serving as a member of Emperor Diocletian’s personal bodyguards. Tradition has it that he refused to recant his faith and was sentenced to death, being beheaded at Nicomedia on 23rd April. Rather different versions of his life (and death) grew up in the Greek and Latin churches. But certainly many Christians were killed by the Romans and George certainly represents one of many brave men who died rather than recant, most probably in the earlier years of Diocletian’s reign.

*St George, Emperor Diocletian, the priestess or haruspex and the emperor’s daughter*

Legends built up around him, few of which like that of the dragon (an 11th century addition) will have been true. It’s unlikely that he was subjected to more than twenty separate tortures over the course of seven years or that his martyrdom led to “40,900 pagans were converted to Christianity, including the empress Alexandra.” You can read more about him on Wikipedia.

His martydom began to be celebrated in Lydda in Palestine where he was thought to have died, and pilgrims came there and later to Cappadocia where he is thought to have come from. He was made a saint by Pope Gelasius I in 494, who said his was one of those “whose names are justly reverenced among men, but whose actions are known only to God“.

*St George fights the dragon on the Passmore Edwards Public Library, long closed*

His fame spread across Christendom, though it was only in the ninth century that the first church was dedicated to him in England – and not until 1152 that he displaced Edward the Confessor as the patron saint of England, although he had become a part of some English battle cries in the Hundred Years War (1337-1453) and among the Crusaders, when many went from England to fight against the Muslims in Palestine between 1095 and 1291.

St Georges Day was made a major feast here in 1415 and 1421, a holiday where church attendance was compulsory and other festivities took place. Later its celebration declined, particularly after the union with Scotland, and had more or less died out by the 20th century.

In recent years there has been something of a revival, spurred on in part by the increasing festivals of other communities, sometimes supported by local councils. There has been an increasing emphasis too on our national teams, particularly the English Football and Rugby teams, with minor fixtures being promoted through the mass media in a way that in earlier years was reserved for the major sporting events – the Grand National, the FA Cup FInal and the Boat Race.

The St George’s Flag had become something seldom seen outside football matches, except in the hands of small racist right-wing groups who called themselves patriots. Unfortunately recent years have seen a growth in these, and some have organised celebrations of St George’s Day, but there has also been a growth in less political events, with even English Heritage encouraging celebrations. Radio 3 has celebrated it, and both Conservatives and the Labour Party have campaigned for it – with Labour calling for it to become a public in both 2017 and 2019 manifestos.

The pictures here are from 23rd April 2016, I started the day photographing a couple of protests over the sale of illegal ‘blood diamonds’ from Sierra Leone at Selfridges in Oxford Street and Tiffany in Sloane Square before going on take pictures about St George’s Day, beginning around lunchtime in Trafalgar Square, where despite the support of mayor Boris Johnson little was happening. I went to the Roman Catholic St George’s Cathedral in Southwark, calling in briefly at the peace garden in the Imperial War Museum across the road as I waited for people to arrive for the St George in Southwark Procession.

This, led by led by St George, a Roman Emperor, the Mayor of Southwark and others and with a dragon at its rear made its way from the St George’s RC Cathedral to the Church of England St George the Martyr in Borough High Street.

I’d not been inside this before and went in with those taking part for a short address before we came out and the procession formed up. It wound its way through the back streets of Southwark and I was pleased as we went past the Priory on Webber Street to be able to tell the mayor something about Bert Hardy who had recently got a blue plaque there. I’d only met Hardy a couple of times, but one of my friends had worked at Grove Hardy as a printer.

The procession ended with a play in the yard beside St George the Martyr, but I left before it finished. Earlier I’d agreed to meet a couple of photographer friends at the start of the procession, but I think they had got lost on the way there, but I’d now arranged to find them on London Bridge. There seemed to be little going on at the George Inn on Borough High St, but at the King’s Head we walked into the bar and were seated by the window when St George walked in with a few mates. It obviously wasn’t the first pub they had visited. After he had got a pint I went and asked if I could take a few pictures, and he began posing, though moving rather too much in the low light.

After I had taken his picture a rather friendly dragon came up to the bar, followed by a second St George, and I photographed the two St Georges together. And as we left the bar, there in the street was the second of them with his dragon friend – and I took a few more frames.

More on most of these events and the other two protests I photographed that day:
St George in Southwark Procession
Peace Garden at War Museum
St Georges Day in London
Sierra Leone Blood Diamonds at Tiffany
Sierra Leone Blood Diamonds at Selfridges

The details of the life and death of St George (as you can read in Wikipedia) are recorded in accounts dating back to around 1600 years ago, though details vary and the Pope in 494 CE who officially made him a saint called him one of those “whose names are justly reverenced among men, but whose actions are known only to God.“

According to the early texts, George was born in Cappadocia, now a part of Turkey, where his father came from, but his mother was a Palestinian Christian. Cappadocians were generally historically regarded as Syrians, though St George’s family are usually said to be of Greek descent. St George became, like his father, a Roman soldier, becoming a member of the elite Praetorian Guard, and was beheaded in the eastern capital of the Roman Empire on 23 April 303CE, 1718 years ago, during Emperor Diocletian’s purge of Christians who refused to recant the faith.

His behaviour and suffering apparently convinced one prominent Roman woman, Empress Alexandra of Rome, possibly the Emperor’s wife – to become a Christian – and to share his fate. The purge failed to have its intended result, and around 21 years after George’s execution, Christianity became the preferred religion in the Roman Empire under Emperor Constantine.

George’s body was buried in Lydda in Palestine and Christians there soon became to regard him as a martyr. Some legends say that his martyrdom resulted in the conversion of not just the Emperors’s wife but 40,900 other pagans.

The dragon came along considerably later, only appearing in legends around 700 years after his death, apparently terrorising the city of Silene in Libya, which there is no evidence that St George ever visited. The dragon in my picture above, from a St George’s Day procession in Southwark, seems to have come from Chinatown. But dragons can fly.

The traditional patron saint of England was the last king of Wessex, Edward the Confessor who died in 1066, and it was only in 1552 that as a part of the English Reformation that St George officially became the only saint recognised in England, although along with various other countries English armies adopted him during the crusades and in our battles with the French in the Hundred Years War from 1337-1453. Surprisingly we didn’t drop St George although we lost rather badly.

St George’s Day remains an official feast celebrated by the Church of England, usually, though not always, on April 23, as Easter sometimes interferes. Rather more is made of it by some other countries and churches.

The St George’s cross, widely used by football supporters and right-wing extremists in England, comes from the 10th century in the city of Genoa in Italy, becoming used in England in 1348 when Edward III founded the Order of the Garter and made St George its patron saint. It has never been officially adopted as the national flag, though now widely used as such. It is of course a component of many other flags, including the UK’s national flag.

Over the years I’ve photographed many different celebrations of St George’s Day in and around London, and the pictures come from a few of these in 2005, 2009, 2011 and 2016.

2005 St George’s Day
2009 St George & the Dragon
2009 England Supporters,Trafalgar Square
2009 The George Inn, Southwark
2009 The Lions part: St George & the Dragon
2009 St George’s Day – Trafalgar Square
2011 St George’s Day in London
2016 St George in Southwark Procession
2916 St Georges Day in London

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.