St John's Wood | >Re-PHOTO

Pensions, Cuts, Murdoch & Cafe Jiro – 2011

Pensions, Cuts, Murdoch & Cafe Jiro: Thursday 23rd June 2011 – Trade unionists march against public sector pension cuts, a protest against Murdoch being allowed to take over BSkyB and one of my favourite artists turns a St John’s Wood gallery into his café.

20,000 March for Pensions & Against Cuts

Public Service unions had organised a march against pension cuts and itt was joined by many thousands of union members as well as many others protesting against cuts in public services made by the Tory coalition government.

There was a large crowd waiting when I arrived in Lincoln’s Inn Fields over an hour before the march was due to begin and more were arriving as it left a little early as the organisers and police worried about overcrowding in London’s largest square – around 28,000 square metres.

Before we left there had been speeches by several union leaders and the march was led to Parliament by Christine Blower NUT, Mark Serwotka PCS and Mary Bousted ATL along with MP John McDonnell.

The Hutton review had clearly shown that the government was lying when it said that public service pensions were not affordable. This report had said it expected “benefit payments to fall gradually to around 1.4 per cent of GDP in 2059-60, after peaking at 1.9 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2010-11.”

There seemed to be a huge number of police on the street for a peaceful march, particularly one that was mainly composed of teachers and civil servants with only a token presence from militant students and anarchists.

Police had earlier been busy in Lincoln’s Inn Fields where they appeared to be conducting stop and searches on any young male demonstrators in black clothing.

Things did get just a little agitated when for some reason police decided to stop the march on Strand for around 20 minutes and it got very noisy on Whitehall as it passed Downing St.

I stood outside Westminster Central Hall for around an hour as more and more marchers arrived from the main march I had been on and a number of others from various parts of London. Police and march stewards there objected to Charlie Veitch and other ‘Love Police’ haranguing the crowd in his usual deadpan fashion upholding his right to freedom of expression and they moved away.

Westminster Central Hall is a large venue but far too small for the numbers at the event and there was a large overflow rally in Tothill Street at the side of the church. A group of 20 or 30 black-clad protesters there were told by police they must remove their hoods and dark glasses and there were some arguments. I heard later in the day there were a few scuffles with them and police in Whitehall and they were kettled for a few hours in Trafalgar Square.

More on My London Diary at 20,000 March for Pensions & Against Cuts.

Save UK Democracy From Murdoch – Dept Culture, Media & Sport

Outside the Department of Culture, Media and Sport was a protest organised by on-line global campaign network Avaaz and my union the NUJ against the decision by Jeremy Hunt to let Rupert Murdoch to take over BSkyB.

This was an emergency protest organised within minutes of the news breaking early that morning, and the email calling it went out when many were already on their way to work or to attend the pensions protest, so numbers were small.

Obviously some planning had taken place earlier and there was a tall stilt walker with a large but rather inappropriately avuncular head of Rupert Murdoch, surely one of the ugliest figures in world media and pursuing a clear aim of world domination, toying with two large string puppets representing David Cameron and Jeremy Hunt.

But most of the posters were clearly last minute, with laser-printed sheets being glued onto generic NUJ placards. NUJ members were “appalled – like most of the thinking population – by the thought of the UK’s largest commercial broadcaster falling into Murdoch’s hands, and the threat that this poses for in particular for news coverage, but also for a diverse and broadly based media culture. “

“They want the government to act in the public interest rather than as puppets for Murdoch’s interest and don’t want Sky News to become another Fox News.”

Save UK Democracy From Murdoch

Café Jiro 2011 – Queen’s Terrace Café, St John’s Wood

In the evening I was at The Queen’s Terrace Café, which had opened in April 2011. This was no ordinary café, but a cultural café, run by Mireille Galinou, who for some years had run a charity called the London Arts Café, which never quite managed to open a café but did organise a dozen or so exhibitions and numerous other art events in London.

London Arts Café and The Queen’s Terrace Café are no longer with us, but you can still read online about many of the the activities the London Arts Café organised during its existence from 1996-2007. For some of this time I was Treasurer of the organisation and also wrote the web site.

One of the most enjoyable art shows I went to in 2009 was Café Jiro, an installation in the Flowers Gallery in Cork St, London by a friend of mine, the Japanese artist Jiro Osuga who grow up in north London. The 2011 was a smaller and more intimate version of that show, with one of the large wall-size panels from the Flowers show, along with a number of other works specially produced for this space – including three in the smallest room.

The small gallery was packed for the opening – and for me a great opportunity to meet some old friends, and it was good to see Jiro’s work in a real café environment. You can read more about the show on a 2011 post in >Re:PHOTO.

Café Jiro 2011

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Sheep Drive Across the Thames – 2006

Sheep Drive Across the Thames: The sheep drive from Southwark Cathedral to Smithfield Market on Saturday 17 June, 2006 organised as a part of the London Architecture Biennale and if not really leading the sheep, accompanying the sheep over the Millennium Bridge were architects Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano in Biennale “Trust me, I’m an architect” T-shirts as well as Freemen from the Butcher’s Company.

The right dates back to the establishment of Freemen of the city, and was first recorded in 1237. Freemen were allowed to drive their sheep across London Bridge – then and for many years the only bridge across the River Thames – without paying the normal Bridge Toll, giving them an important commercial advantage when taking sheep from south of the river to the Wool Exchange or Smithfield Meat Market.

It wasn’t just sheep but applied to any livestock such as cattle, pigs, chickens, ducks, geese although some of these might be difficult to drive, and so far as I’m aware there have been no modern revivals involving anything but sheep.

Freeman also gained other important privileges, such as immunity from being taken to serve on ships by the press gang and being allowed to carry your sword drawn against muggers when walking around the City.

In 2006 there were no signs of the press gang and I didn’t see any of the Freemen present carrying swords. Nor were any convicted of murder or treason and allowed to claim the rather doubtful privilege of being hung by a silk rope.

So far as I’m aware first modern revival of the sheep drive came during the Millennium celebrations when the Lord Mayor Sir Clive Haydn Martin arranged for the driving of some pedigree sheep across London Bridge by some members of the Livery Companies – though carefully avoiding the two who might have sheared or slaughtered them, the Woolmen and Butchers.

The London Architecture Biennale in 2006 made use not of London Bridge, but the pedestrian Millennium Bridge and this was certainly the first sheep drive across this, fortunately long cured of its initial wobbles, though I did rather wonder if the event might exceed its design loadings. This was perhaps why the police insisted on holding up spectators until the flock had cleared the bridge, much to the annoyance of me and the other press who felt a Press Card should have let us through.

Since 2006 there have been more sheep drives – in 2008 by World Tradeers and in 2009 for the 800th anniversary of Old London Bridge, by the City whose then Lord Mayor David Lewis was the grandson of a Welsh sheep-farmer. And in 2013 it became the Great Annual Sheep Drive organised for Freemen of the City by the Worshipful Company of Woolmen, held on London Bridge in September (though in recent years on Southwark Bridge.)

In 2006 around 30 sheep had brought to a pen at Southwark Cathedral by farmer Andrew Sharp who was a stallholder in Borough Market, and came with several shepherds to help and was also aided by members of the clergy including the Bishop of Southwark, Tom Butler.

Also facing the cathedral were a small and noisy crowd of animal rights protesters. As I commented, “here the sheep were being treated well, by people who so obviously cared for them. You can’t be a successful sheep farmer without having a feeling for and and understanding of them and a dedication to care for them.” Probably for the sheep the most disturbing thing of their day out in London was the shouts of the protesters.

I took pictures of the start of the procession and then of the flock and those accompanying it as far as the south end of the Millennium Bridge. Some of the protesters had followed as well. Police then stopped everyone then behind the sheep of while the crossing continued. A few minutes later we were allowed to proceed and I caught up with the sheep as they reached St Paul’s Cathedral and walked with them to Smithfield Market.

The drive ended in Smithfield, with the Sheriff of London opening the Bartholomew Fair by cutting a number of pink ribbons. I took a few pictures around the fair, and of the flypast taking place for the Queens official 80th birthday before going to St John’s Wood where mounted soldiers were coming back to barracks with a gun carriage before joining a guided tour around the trees in the area.

More pictures from the Sheep Drive as well as the other things I photographed on the day beginning here on My London Diary

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St John’s Wood

Long ago St John’s Wood was a real wood, part of the Forest of Middlesex, and was the property of the Knights Hospitaller of St John of Jerusalem who were based in Clerkenwell. Pregiously it had belonged to the Catholic Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon (better know as the Templars) who were suppressed in 1312. Henry VIII grabbed the land in 1539 when he dissolved the monasteries during the Reformation, but Charles II gave it to one of his mates in settlement of a debt of £1300, and eventually most of it was sold to a city wine merchant, Henry Samuel Eyre in 1733, and much of the area remains the Eyre Estate. Other parts belong to Harrow School.

Development on the Eyre estate began in 1809 The area was developed as an area for the growing upper middle class, with many detached and semi-detached villas with large gardens, the first garden suburb anywhere in the world. Some later were replaced by blocks of flats and terraces of housing, but the area remains one of the most expensive around London. It’s not an area where I often felt at home.

In 2011 I was able to go behind some of the high walls and photograph the ‘Secret Gardens of St John’s Wood‘ in a project initiated by Mireille Galinou of the Queens Terrace Café and shown there in November 2011, but there were still many impenetrable behind high walls, some protected by security guards with suspicious bulges in their clothing. But in 1988 I kept to the streets.

These flats are at the west end of Abercorn Place at its corner with Maida Vale at the rear of Wellesley Court, architect Frank Scarlett, built in 1938. Perhaps surprisingly the St John’s Wood Conservation Area is carefully drawn to exclude this set of expensive private flats.

Nugent Terrace, St John's Wood, Westminster, 1988 88-7e-43-positive_2400 — *Nugent Terrace, St John’s Wood, Westminster, 1988 88-7e-43*

There are still shops in Nugent Terrace, but I think this rather high-class cobblers is long gone. I was amused at how the figurines chosen matched the area.

Hill Rd, St John's Wood, Westminster, 1988 88-7e-46-positive_2400 — *Hill Rd, St John’s Wood, Westminster, 1988 88-7e-46*

This remarkable mansion block, Mortimer Court, on the corner of Hill Road and Abbey Road is certainly not typical of the area, and I have to apologise that my picture fails to record the full horror of its architecture, best appreciated from the opposite side of Abbey Road. It can be seen on the web sites of many of London’s estate agents.

Onslow Ford, memorial, sculpture, Andrea Carlo Lucchesi, Abbey Rd, Grove End Rd, St John's Wood, Westminster, 1988 88-7e-35-positive_2400 — *Onslow Ford, memorial, sculpture, Andrea Carlo Lucchesi, Abbey Rd, Grove End Rd, St John’s Wood, Westminster, 1988 88-7e-35*

English sculptor Edward Onslow Ford RA (1852—1901) was one of the leaders of the British New Sculpture movement of the 1880s, becoming famous for portrait busts and roundels of many leading figures including Ruskin, Millais, Thomas Huxley and Herbert Spencer. A number of his statues including that of Rowland Hill remain on public display.

He produced a long series of “bronze statuettes of adolescent girls in poses loosely derived from mythology or allegorical themes” some of which were also sold widely in smaller scale copies for Victorian homes, though they might not be appreciated now. The monument in St John’s Wood, close to his home was sculpted by his former studio assistant Andrea Carlo Lucchesi and based on one of Ford’s sculptures.

Abbey Rd Studios, Abbey Rd, St John's Wood, Westminster, 1988 88-7e-21-positive_2400 — *Abbey Rd Studios, Abbey Rd, St John’s Wood, Westminster, 1988 88-7e-21*

It is probably a punishable offence to go to Abbey Road and not take a photo of the now famous studios, though I resisted any urge to photograph the famous pedestrian crossing nearby.

Abbey Road Baptist Church,Abbey Rd, St John's Wood, Westminster, 1988 88-7e-24-positive_2400 — *Abbey Road Baptist Church,Abbey Rd, St John’s Wood, Westminster, 1988 88-7e-24*

The Baptist Church on Abbey Road was founded in 1863 by a Mr Stott, a preacher from Hyde Park, who engaged leading church architects Habershon & Pite to build this Grade II listed structure in a ‘Free Byzantine’ style.

In 1874 the Abbey Road and St John’s Wood Mutual Benefit Building Society was formed in what was then the Free Church. This later became Abbey Road and St John’s Wood Permanent Building Society and in 1944 joined with The National Building Society to beceome the Abbey National Building Society, which sadly demutualised in 1989 and in 2004 become wholly owned by the Spanish Santander Group.

Abbey Rd, St John's Wood, Westminster, 1988 88-7e-25-positive_2400 — *Abbey Rd, St John’s Wood, Westminster, 1988 88-7e-25*

This adjoining pair of gate-posts is no longer on Abbey Road, and the block of flats at No 20 have had something of a face lift since 1988. But to me they looked so much like an adult and child – and were perhaps a deliberate attempt to outdo the Joneses.

Abercorn Place, St John's Wood, Westminster, 1988 88-7e-11-positive_2400 — *Abercorn Place, St John’s Wood, Westminster, 1988 88-7e-11*

This small group of three houses on Abercorn Place at the corner of Violet Hill stood out among the fairly varied architecture of the street for the flower motifs above their first floor windows – a reminder, like the name Violet Hill, that this was the first garden suburb.

The gateposts, one of which is at right of the picture I think used to have a more obvious pattern on them, unfortunately out of focus in my image, which made them appear less crude.

My wanderings around St John’s Wood on a Saturday in July 1988 will continue in a later post. You can click on any of the pictures here to go to a larger version in my album 1988 London Photos, from where you can browse the album.