St Magnus the Martyr

Big Brew, Childrens’ Carnival & London Bridge – 2009

Big Brew, Childrens’ Carnival & London Bridge: On Saturday July 11th 2009 I’d been commissioned to photograph a bishop at fair trade events in Finchley, then rushed to Newham for a children’s carnival procession. Gettingg back to London Bridge for its 800th birthday celebration was made difficult by the planned closure of both District and Jubilee lines and I only made it minutes before the event ended.

Big Brew

Finchley and Edgware

The Diocese of London had organised a day of ‘Big Brew’ events at Anglican churches across Greater London promoting fairly traded goods, particularly tea and coffee. Fair Trade is a movement and system that ensures the farmers and other workers get a fair return for their work, safe working conditions and ensures that money from their products gets invested into their local communities for healthcare, education and other development opportunities. Both I and my wife had been active supporters of the movement since our student days, long before the Fairtrade certification mark was first introduced in 1988.

I had been persuaded to photograph two events organised by the parish churches in Finchley and Edgware which the Bishop of Edmonton, the Right Revd Peter Wheatley, a strong supporter of the fair trade movement would be attending.

St Mary’s Finchley had tables and chairs on the pavement with tea, coffee and a large assortment of delicious looking cakes. As well as the bishop, Barnet Mayor Councillor Brian Coleman and the leader of the opposition were there too.

But for me the main attraction were the waitresses in caps and aprons and the ‘Mad Hatter’s Tea Party’ performed by children from the Church’s drama group.

Things were a little quieter at St Margaret’s Edgware, where I went on with the Bishop. We met the local MP Gareth Thomas and were offered the chance of ringing the church bells. Or at least they posed for a photograph pretending to ring them. It was very dark and needed a tricky bit of flash.

More pictures on My London Diary: Big Brew

Newham Childrens’ Carnival Procession

East Ham

Newham Carnival seemed rather smaller than when I photographed it in 2007, but it was still a lively procession, with lots of kids having fun. The Mayor, Sir Robin Wales, came and joined in, though I found his performance rather embarrassing.

Keir Hardie was the country’s first Labour MP, elected in West Ham South in 1892. The County Borough of West Ham, now a part of Newham, elected England’s first Labour-controlled council in 1898. And in 2009 every one of its 60 councillors was Labour. Robin Wales became council leader in 1995 and became its elected mayor in 2002. In 2018 he was de-selected as Labour’s mayoral candidate following a bitter dispute inside Newham Labour party and is now a leading member of Reform UK.

Wales seemed very much to regard Newham as a personal fiefdom and used events such as this very much as PR opportunities.

In the Wikipedia article you can read a little – in a very bland fashion about some of the controversies of his reign as local dictator. Under his leadership Newham gained large amounts of high cost private developments but failed to deal with the incredible housing problem in the area – telling people if they couldn’t afford to live in Newham they should move. As his critics said, we want social housing not social cleansing.

I walked some way with the carnival procession, but then took a bus, which was held up even more than usual by the traffic congestion the procession created. Normally I would have taken the District line, but this was closed for engineering work. And at Canning Town, rather than the Jubilee line (also closed) I had to use the much slower Docklands Light Railway, so I arrived rather late for my next event.

Newham Childrens’ Carnival Procession

London Bridge – 800

London Bridge

The Romans had built bridges across the Thames but these wooden structures did not survive. As I wrote (with minor corrections) in 2009:

“It was Peter de Colechurch who decided a stone bridge would be a better bet well over a thousand years after the first bridge, and started building one in 1176. It was a lengthy job, and was only finished 33 years later, and it was also very expensive.

To get back the cost houses were built on the bridge (as well as a chapel in the middle) and it soon became a thriving medieval shopping centre. There was actually very little space left for traffic to get across it, traffic moving in both directions on a 12 foot wide roadway (and in 1722 we got our first Highway Code, with the Lord Mayor laying down that carts coming from Southwark should stick to the west side, and those going south from the City drive on the east.)

*This was part of the roadway across the 1209 London Bridge*

You can get a good idea of its width from going to the church of St Magnus the Martyr, as its entrance porch is the only remaining part of the bridge, and if the church is open you can go inside and view (sometimes through a rather thick haze of incense) a large model of the whole bridge.

That bridge – with pretty well constant repairs and several major disasters – lasted until 1831 when a new bridge designed by John Rennie opened for business, around 100 ft upstream… The current bridge opened in 1971″

London Bridge – 800

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Blessing The River Thames

Blessing the Thames London Bridge, Sunday 11th January, 2009

Fr Philip Warner was impressed by the annual Blessing of the Waters ceremony he saw in the Orthodox churches of Serbia. When he became the priest at St Magnus the Martyr at the City end of the old London Bridge he decided to begin an annual ceremony to bless the River Thames.

His parish and that of Southwark Cathedral meet at the centre of the current London Bridge, and in 2004 processions from both churches met there on the Sunday closest to Epiphany (January 6th) for a short service.

Prayers were said for all those who work on the river and in particular for those killed close to this point in the 1989 sinking of the Marchioness. Incense was swung around liberally, but dispersed by the breeze. The river was then blessed by throwing in a large wooden cross. Water was then sprinkled over those taking part in the ceremony before all those present were invited to process to one of the churches for a lunch.

I photographed this event in 2007 and 2008 as well as 2009, though it was only in 2008 that I was able to stay for the lunch, that year at St Magnus. By the third of these years the event had grown, with too many photographers, mainly amateurs, coming along and getting both in my way and in the way of those celebrating. I felt I had already taken enough pictures by then and crossed it off my list of annual events to cover.

*The bishop prepares to throw the cross in the river*

When I first began photographing events in London, both protests and cultural events, there were few photographers at most of them except the large national marches. At many smaller events I would find myself the only person with a camera, and of course everything was still on film. But in the last 15 or so years things have changed.

Back then even when there were more of us taking pictures we were all photographers and at least doing so in a professional way. We tried to respect the others and so far as possible keep out of each others way, though of course that wasn’t always possible. Sometimes there were arguments between those of us who liked to work close to our subjects with wide-angle lenses and those who carried giant, heavy, usually white, telephoto zooms and always wanted to use them from a distance. But generally we worked together.

*And everyone (except me) goes back to Southwark Cathedral for lunch*

Then came cheap digital cameras and camera phones. Everyone now has something that can take picture, and can readily share them on social media. And there has been huge movement from taking still images to recording video. Video leads to a different attitude, with many becoming unaware of anything outside the screen of their phone around them. At any event now I can be sure that at least one person will walk in front of my lens talking into their phone totally oblivious of my presence and blocking my view.

Of course I don’t claim any special right to take pictures, and others have the same rights as me. But unless we respect the rights of others it becomes difficult and frustrating to work; we have to work together.

More pictures from 2009 Blessing the Thames.

Protests on January 11th

In 2009 I was sorry not to have time to stay for the lunch at Southwark Cathedral, particularly as two of my friends were present, one a frequent worshipper there. But there were a couple of protests to photograph. The first was a march by Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain against the Israeli attacks on Gaza, aimed at Arab dictators who collude with Israeli terrorism and going to Egyptian, Syrian and Saudi Embassies.

More at Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain Gaza march.

And it was the 11th of January, and the anniversary of the setting up of the US torture camp at Guantanamo in 2004 was marked by a late afternoon protest at the US Embassy, still then in Grosvenor Square.

More at Guantanámo – 7 Years

Blessing the Thames & Southwark Walk

*The Bishop of Woolwich throws a wooden cross into the River Thames to bless the waters.*

Sunday 14th January 2007 was a pleasant day for me. The weather was good, a bright winter day and I was up in London to photograph a very positive event, the Blessing of the River Thames, with plenty of time too for me to wander around one of my favourite areas of the city, south of the river in Southwark.

In the first ten years of this millennium I photographed a wide range of religious events that take place on the streets of London, particularly by Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims. But there seem to be rather fewer Christian festivals that are celebrated in public, though I think there have been more in recent years, with more public events in particular each year on Good Friday.

*The procession comes from Southwark Cathedral*

But the Blessing of the Thames is a recent addition, begun in 2004 by Father Philip Warner when he was appointed to the City of London church of St Magnus The Martyr, inspired by similar ceremonies he had experienced in the Orthodox Church in Serbia.

*And is met by those from St Magnus at the centre of the bridge*

St Magnus The Martyr was Sir Christopher Wren’s most expensive parish church and the traveller’s route into the City of London across the medieval London Bridge, in use from 1209 to 1831 led directly through its entrance porch under its tower after the church was rebuilt around 1676. Until 1729 when Putney got a bridge it was the only way across the river except by boat downstream of Kingston Bridge.

The church is one of the most interesting in London and well worth a visit, and among its treasures includes a very large modern model of the Old London Bridge. This was completed by ex-policeman David T Aggett in 1987, a year after his heart transplant, and found a willing home here after the Museum of London turned it down. A member and past Steward of the Worshipful Company of Plumbers, Aggett died a year ago at the age of 91.

You can find out more about the various editions of London Bridge from various bloggers including Laura Porter on Londontopia. Close to the south end of the bridge (which had a chapel on it dedicated to St Thomas which was the official start of pilgrimages to Canterbury) was the Church of St Saviour and St Mary Overie, until the dissolution in 1538 part of Southwark Priory and since 1905 Southwark Cathedral.

Processions from both churches met at the centre of the new London Bridge completed in 1972 for a brief service with prayers for all those who work on the river and in particular for those killed close to this point in the 1989 sinking of the marchioness close by, which climaxed with the Bishop of Woolwich throwing a wooden cross into the River Thames to bless the waters.

*Ofra Zimballsta, Climbers, 1996-8, Borough High St*

I’d come up earlier to take a walk around Southwark and Bermondsey and photograph some of the buildings, both old and new, in the area. Back in the 1990s when Desk Top Publishing was in its infancy I had written and published a walk leaflet (now a free download though a little out of date) on West Bermondsey which sold several hundred copies, and it was interesting to visit a part of this again.

When first produced, this walk was printed on a dot-matrix printer, though later copies were made on a black and white laser – an HP Laserjet 1100 still in use over 20 years later on my wife’s computer running Ubuntu.

I think I asked 20p for the leaflet, and using cheap third-party laser toners on cheap thin card it cost only a couple of pence to produce, though printing on dot-matrix was slow the laser speeded up things considerably – once the page was in printer memory it rattled off copies fairly quickly.

In 2007 there were few photographers at the Blessing of the River, but blogging was growing fast and more and more people were using camera phones. The following year I wasn’t able to get such good pictures as there were too many people jumping in front of me and obscuring my view. Photographers do sometimes get in each other’s way, but we do try to respect others, something which doesn’t even seem to occur to the newcomers.

But rather than go for a walk I did go with those celebrating the event and have lunch in the crypt of St Magnus, after which I took a few pictures inside the church, then rather thick with incense.

Scroll down the January 2007 page on My London Diary for more pictures of Blessing the Thames & Southwark Walk.