teddy bears | >Re-PHOTO

Brian, Bears, Morris and May Queens: On Saturday 13th May 2006 I went to Parliament Square where I photographed resident peace protester Brian Haw and Morris Dancers, going on to more dancers performing in Trafalgar Square as a part of a Westminster Day of Dance. From there the Underground took me out to Hanger Lane from where I walked to Brentham to photograph the 100th anniversary of the first Brentham May Queen crowning.

Brian Haw at Parliament Square

Brian and the Bears

Brian, Bears, Morris and May Queens - 2006

Brian Haw lost the appeal by the government over his protest in Parliament Square, the court deciding that the Serious Organised Crimes And Police Act did apply to his protest after all, despite it having started around 4 years before the act came into force. It seems to be a decision that reflects more on the ability of the government to apply pressure rather than one that suggests an independent judiciary.

At the moment, Brian is still there, his protest now regulated by the police, but it seems rather likely that at some moment the feel convenient they will decide to terminate it. On Saturday morning I went to have a short word with him and take some more pictures, particularly of some of the bears who are with him.

His protest from the start has been about the killing of children, at first by the effects of sanctions, then by the war, and the teddy bear symbolises this (I think of one of the most poignant images from the Second World War, by Cecil Beaton, of a child in a hospital bed with a teddy bear.) I hope to be back to see Brian tomorrow, with a few friends, if he is still there. [He was, and depite constant harassment remained there until ill-health forced him to leave in 2011, dying in a German hospital six mohnths later.]

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Westminster Morris Dance Day

St Margarets & Trafalgar Square

For several years there has been a dance festival in Westminster in May, with teams of Morris Dancers from around the country. I caught up with them briefly dancing in front of St Margaret’s Church next to Westminster Abbey, then a little later in Trafalgar Square.

Although i’ve never had a great desire to take up Morris myself, it certainly is one of our English traditions, going back at least 500 years – the first written record of it is in 1448.

It was still alive in many villages in the nineteenth century and a revival started in the early twentieth century particularly through the work of Cecil Sharp, who collected over 170 different dances around the country and started the English Folk Dance Society in 1911. Sharp and Mary Neal published books of dances, and in the 1920s and 30s, country dancing became a part of most young school children’s week. How I hated it in the 1950s!

It is perhaps that enforced participation that led to Morris Dancing being thought of as something false and lacking in credibility. In a curious anomaly, our Arts Councils refuse to support English ethnic dances while (quite rightly) giving aid to foster dance and related activities among minority ethnic groups. Despite this, Morris Dancing has continued to grow both in the UK and now increasingly abroad, particularly in Canada and the USA.

All the teams in Trafalgar Square were men, although there are also many women dancers. One of the things that comes out in my pictures is that the dance is at times a very athletic event. Many of the traditional dances use swords or staves and have a link to martial arts. Morris also has a strong link to another English tradition, the ale house.

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Brentham Centenary May Day Festivities

Brentham Estate, Ealing

May continued for me with another May Queen. Last year (2005) I had photographed the oldest continuing May Queen event at least in the London area, the Merrie England and London May Queen Fayre at Hayes, Kent, held continuously since 1913. This year I went instead to Brentham, where a May Fayre with maypole dancing was held in 1906, and its centenary was held this year.

For this event, the organisers had managed to find and invite along many former May Queens, including some from the 1950s. Some had come long distances to be there, including one now living in America.

Brentham was one of the earliest “garden village” estates, built by ‘Ealing Tenants’ a co-partnership housing scheme started in 1901 and largely completed by 1915. The road layout was designed by Raymond Unwin and Barry Parker, and it was in many ways a model for other and better known garden villages.

The Brentham May Queen is less formalised that the south London events, with little or no long speeches and ceremonies (unlike Hayes it was not set up by a Dulwich schoolmaster.)

As well as the May Queen Elect and previous May Queens, each with a small group of attendants, there is also a herald who leads the parade (aided today by a brass band) Brittania, Sailor and Soldier, and, leading the large group of around 150 young girls dressed in white with flowers, a Jack In The Green, covered with leaves, with just bare legs and sandals visible.

*The crowning of the 2006 Brentham May Queen*

After the parade around the area, there was a short ceremony in one of the fields by the River Brent in which last year’s May Queen crowned the new queen, and a very short speech. Following this were country dances and dancing round the maypole, but I left before this began.

Many more pictures begin here.

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Lettings Scam, Bears, Bahrain & John Lewis: Saturday 14th July 2012 was another day I spent travelling to protests around London. On the Holloway Road Harringey Private Tenants Action Group protested against letting agents who take hundreds of pounds from people looking for homes but do nopthing for them, PETA marched from Waterloo to Marble Arch against bears being killed to make busbys for the guards, a protest at the Bahraini embassy in Belgrave Square against killing and jailing of political prisones. Finally I went to John Lewis in Oxford Street where cleaners were calling to be recognised as partners in the business and to be paid the London Living Wage.

Tenants Protest Letting Agents Scam – Drivers & Norris, Holloway Rd

Lettings Scam, Bears, Bahrain & John Lewis - 2012

I photographed protesters standing in the rain outside letting agents Drivers & Norris on Holloway Road, condemning them for taking over £300 from home seekers and providing nothing return but refusing to return the payment.

Harringey Private Tenants Action Group stated:

Agency ‘fees’, reference ‘checks’, admin ‘fees’, leaving ‘fees’ are all costs that have been created over the past few years by and for Letting Agents like Drivers and Norris, to increase their profits and exploit the basic nee of tenants to find a home. We, as private tenants, will not accept this anymore. We have a right to really affordable, secure and decent housing just like anyone else.

Police came and tried to get the protesters to end their protest, claiming it might distract drivers on the busy main road. The protesters told the police firmly that they were simply trying to suppress lawful protest and if they considered there was any real danger they should divert traffic from the area and that instead of wasting police time here they should be investigating the Drivers & Norris scam rather than harassing protesters.

I commented that there was no real reason for any police presence as there was “unlikely to be any breach of the peace. But I suppose it was an easy number to drink tea in the estate agents“.

On My London Diary I pointed out that agents had profited enormously from high property prices in London, now well above what people on average or lower wages can afford, and that successive governments had weakened the security of private tenants and cut the provision of social housing creating the current dire housing problems. Many new developments were also being aimed at overseas investors to enable them to take advantage of the rapidly rising property prices while often leaving the properties empty.

Tenants Protest Letting Agents Scam

PETA ‘Spare the Bears’ March – Marble Arch

PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) had stated:

It can take the entire hide of one Canadian black bear to make just one cap. Bears can be shot several times before they die, and some escape and bleed to death. In some Canadian provinces, there are no restrictions on the shooting of mothers who have nursing cubs, leading to the slaughter of entire families during hunts.

We need to send a clear message to the Ministry of Defence that the slaughter of wildlife for The Queen’s Guards’ ceremonial headwear is unacceptable and that the time has come for them to go fake for the bears’ sake.

I’d called in to the start of the march next to the Shell Centre at Waterloo before going to Haringey, but hadn’t taken any pictures, deciding instead to meet them at the end of the march. It took them much longer than they had expected and I’d almost given up when I saw them coming up Park Lane and rushed to take pictures.

It was perhaps a too regimented protest with so many identical placards and bear masks provided by PETA which made it difficult for me to find anything really different to photograph.

They had also been asked to wear black clothes, but at least had been told to bring their own teddy bears.

More pictures at PETA ‘Spare the Bears’ March

Solidarity with the Bahraini prisoners – Bahraini embassy, Belgrave Square

The Al Khalifa family has ruled Bahrain since the late 1700s and in 1820 made a treaty with Britain – since renewed on various occasions, becoming a British protectorate. The country became independent in 1971 – when the USA took over what had previously been the Royal Navy base – and the family is still in power.

Various attempts to extend democracy in Bahrain led to little change in the ruling family’s control and to an uprising in 2011 with large protests and a brutal crackdown with many protesters tortured and around 120 killed. Mohammad Rahdi Mahfoodh was one of the ‘martyrs’ and was hit by a police vehicle and died from deliberate lack of care in a military hospital and mourners at his funeral were attacked.

Speakers at the protest including Jeremy Corbyn were there and people were still arriving for the protest opposite the embassy which was just beginning when I had to leave for my next event.

More pictures at Solidarity with the Bahraini prisoners.

John Lewis cleaners step up protest – Oxford St

The flagship John Lewis store on Oxford Street is cleaned by people employed by Integrated Cleaning Management (ICM) who employ them on far worse conditions than if they were directly employed by John Lewis, and on the legal minimum wage, then more than two pounds an hour below the London living wage.

Unlike others who work in the store the cleaners do not take part in the bonus scheme in which John Lewis shares its profits with its workers (the ‘partners’) although their work is essential to the operation of the store.

The cleaners also complain about poor management by ICM with discrimination and abuse at work, and are currently threatened by a 50% cut in their hours.

They had been long campaigning for equality of treatment and to be directly employed by the company they actually work for – John Lewis – and had held a one-day strike the previous day which had ended with a rally and a brief invasion of the store, though had caused no damage. But this perhaps explained the large numbers of police present, with small groups around each of the shop entrances.

John Lewis senior management watched the noisy but peaceful protest from inside the store. The management were still refusing to talk with the cleaners Union, and another one-day strike was caused the following week.

Many more pictures on My London Diary at John Lewis cleaners step up protest.