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PFI Hospital Threat & World Peace – 2013

PFI Hospital Threat & World Peace: On Saturday 21st September 2013 I went to Whipps Cross Hospital in Leytonstone for a protest march and rally against plans for massive cuts and closures there because of the huge and continuing repayments to bankers who financed the PFI (Private Finance Initiative – protesters call it Private Fraud Initiative – for the replacement of another London Hospital. Later I went to Trafalgar Square where young professionals were celebrating World Peace Day with the help of the Olympic volunteers in the Pandemonium Drummers.

Save Whipps Cross Hospital

Whipps Cross to Walthamstow

PFI Hospital Threat & World Peace - 2013 — *Nurses with placards at the rally in Town Square, Walthamstow*

Whipps Cross Hospital is a large, well-managed and highly successful hospital serving a large area of north-east London, financially viable and highly regarded in the local community.

It was saved from closure in 2007-8 by a well supported local campaign but in 2013 was under threat again, not for anything to do with this hospital, but because of huge debt repayments under the PFI agreement which enabled the building of a new Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel, also a part of the Barts Health Trust.

PFI was a scheme to take new government investments off of the government’s books by getting private finance for large developments – and saddling the taxpayer with huge repayments to the bankers over the next 50 or more years.

New Labour leapt into these schemes for short-term political advantage (in this case a shiny new replacement hospital for the ancient Royal London in Whitechapel) in exchange for long-term economic disaster, apparently in the hope that ‘something would come up’ or that we would enjoy a period of huge expansion and inflation. What did come up was the financial crisis and depression, and the result if no action is taken will be to require the sacrifice of the NHS as we know it.

The protesters said we had already paid for that new hospital five times over and payments would continue for another 35 years or so. The financiers used their expertise to run rings around the civil servants in the negotiations over the PFI contracts, locking the hospital into inefficient but highly profitable long-term contracts for maintenance and other services and were receiving annual repayments of £115m a year (£2.21m per week.)

Whipps Cross and the other hospitals in the Barts group – Newham, Mile End, the London Chest Hospitals and the Royal London itself – have already seen drastic cuts in staffing and services, leading to closures of wards and failure to meet standards. At Whipps Cross these have caused systemic failings in elderly care and maternity, failing to meet 10 of the 16 national standards for quality and safety, for which the hospital has received three formal warnings.

Barts Trust was losing £2m a year and needed to make further cuts, totaling £77.5m per year, which would fall heavily on Whipps Cross.

Around 500 people turned up outside the hospital to march through Leyton to a rally in Walthamstow. They demanded an end to the mismanagement and cuts by Barts Hospital Trust and for the government to take action to cancel or at least severely cut the PFI debt.

*Charlotte Monro disciplined by hospital management for her trade union activities*

Hospital managers had two months earlier banned Unison’s Waltham Forest health branch chair Charlotte Monro from representing her members and she and nurses rep Rod Villaggio both got huge cheers when they spoke at the Walthamstow rally. The action was supported by other trade unionists including Fire Brigade Union General Secretary Matt Wrack who made a powerful speech.

More on My London Diary at Save Whipps Cross Hospital.

World Peace Day

Trafalgar Square

*Dancers and drummers on the North Terrace*

Young professionals from Junior Chamber of Commerce for London or JCI (Junior Chamber International) celebrated the UN’s World Peace Day, promoted by Peace One Day in Trafalgar Square by dancing to a band in blue hats with lightbulbs, some of the Pandemonium Drummers, volunteers who took part in the 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony.

This was World Peace Day, fixed as 21st October in 1999 thanks to the efforts of the organisation Peace One Day which was also behind this event.

Both Peace One Day and Chambers of Commerce support many good charitable projects, but I remain unconvinced that they – or events like this do anything to promote world peace. Certainly we don’t see them taking part in protests against arms manufacturers or the DSEi arms fair or at the annual Hiroshima Day events. And I don’t imagine them lobbying to reduce our military spending or against our participation in wars around the world.

World Peace Day

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Leyton & Walthamstow Colour – 1994

*S. Gold & Sons, Gold House, 69 Flempton Road, Leyton, Waltham Forest, 1994, 94-101-43*

The name was Gold and the building was in a kind of pale gold colour and blue. The company was an independent wholesaler particularly in the music business, distributing records, CDs and videos as well as confectionery. It moved to larger premises at Uplands Business Estate on Blackhorse Road Walthamstow in 2001 and closed down suddenly in 2008 putting its 200 employees out of work.

It was a family business which began outside Sidney Gold’s delicatessen in Ilford in 1955 when his two sons began selling records from racks in front of the shop. From there the moved to a stall in Petticoat Lane before deciding to set up as wholesalers in Leyton.

*Lytham House, 19, Chelmsford Rd, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1994, 94-101-46*

Just an ordinary house in a long residential terrace but enlivened by decoration by a rather idiosyncratic resident. All the houses in this part of the street have tablets between the upper and lower bays, but this one has its name, Lytham House and decoration pointed out in red and green paint.

Probably the name was chosen by the first residents when this street was built in 1894-7, but the paintwork was rather more recent, and to me suggested a Caribbean influence. The house and wall have now faded to a rather duller appearance in keeping with its neighbours but still has its decorated windows.

Shandar, Lansdowne Rd, Queens Rd, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1994, 94-101-32 — *Shandar, Landsdowne Rd, 65, Queens Rd, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1994, 94-101-32*

Shandar is a Hini and Urdu adjective for something. It is Hindi and Urdu to describe something very impressive, excellent, grand, magnificent or beautiful, and used for this high quality takeaway. The render was scraped off the wall in 2008 and the wall re-covered and is now blank.

*Dyke Court, Gosport Rd, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1994, 94-101-33*

A mural on the wall of Dyke Court shows different colour youngsters many with very odd hairstyles lamenting the loss of their Markhouse Youth Club.

Jimmy's Fish Bar, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1994, 94-101-36 — *Jimmy’s Fish Bar, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1994, 94-101-36*

You could get a steak and kidney pie for £1 and 60p of chips for a filling meal at Jimmy’s back in 1994, though I think you paid a little extra to sit at the solid wooden table to eat it in rather than take it away. But the colour scheme made me feel a little queasy.

A traditional English café with a wide range of puddings listed for 55p and a little more. Every table with an ashtray. This could well have been in Walthamstow but might have been elsewhere on my journeys around London.

A much more limited menu for this smaller cafe located somewhere in London – and again it could be Walthamstow. Two lists give the prices for TAKE AWAY and TO EAT IN CAFE.

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Muslim Extremists Call For Sharia Zones – 2011

Muslim Extremists Call For Sharia Zones: On Saturday 30th July 2011 I photographed the march by around 70 men from ‘Muslims Against Crusades’ who marched from Leyton to Walthamstow calling for the setting up of Sharia Controlled Zones in the UK which ‘Islamic rules’ would be enforced by Muslims.

As I stated, “Muslims Against Crusades are a very small extremist fringe Muslim organisation led by Dr Anjem Choudary, a follower of the jailed Omar Bakri and co-founder with him of al-Muhajiroun, banned by the UK in 2005, spokesman for Al Ghurabaa, proscribed in 2006, and former leader of Islam4UK, banned in 2010.”

I go on in my post on My London Diary to briefly examine the other ten or so organisations that were claimed to support the march, all of which were linked to Choudary. They included some set up after al-Muhajiroun disbanded when threatened with a UK ban in 2005, though the actual ban only came in 2010. Muslims Against Crusades were banned shortly after this march in Novermber 2011.

I’d been photographing Choudary, at other extremist Muslim events for some years, and listening to his speeches and like many others had concluded that he was allowed to continue (and perhaps even funded) by our security services as someone who let them easily keep tabs on other Muslim extremists in the UK.

The authorities patience with him finally ran out in 2015 when he was charged with inviting support of Islamic State, a proscribed organisation and sentenced to five years in prison in 2016. Released on licence in 2019, by 2021 he was again involving himself in Muslim extremism.

In 2023, Canada and the US became involved, and he was charged with “membership of a proscribed organisation and directing and encouraging support for a proscribed organisation” and in 2024 he was found guilty of “directing an organisation concerned with the commission of acts of terrorism” and sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 28 years.

It seemed to many of us that this trial could have been held in 2010 when the UK government banned Al-Muhajiroun.

Muslims Against Crusades (one of a whole string of organisations set up by Choudary as others were proscribed) had told the press before the event that there would be around a thousand of them on the march, but only around 2 arrived by the time it was due to start, with another 70 or so turning up later – some having had problems in finding Leyton.

Before the event there had been for some weeks “a poster campaign in several East London Boroughs including Waltham Forest, with small posters being stuck on bus stops and lamp posts declaring the area a ‘Sharia Controlled Zone’

These stickers stated that the area was now under ‘Islamic rules’ and that these prohibited drinking alcohol, drug taking, smoking, prostitution, gambling, musics, concerts and pornography.” Of course

A picture showing one of these became one of my most pirated images, published without permission or payment on right-wing extremist web sites around the world as if these zones every really existed. Unfortunately although I was able to get a few taken down by Internet Service Providers they simply appeared again on other hosts; getting payment for my work proved financially unfeasible.

A speech by Choudary before the march made clear that Law in these Sharia zones would be enforced by the kind of cleric-led officers and vigilantes that we see in countries such as Iran, although he did not make clear if we could expect to see stoning, hanging and amputations.

The march was through an area with a high Muslim population and many stopped to watch it, though I saw no expressions of support. As one shopkeeper told me, activities such as this give Muslims a bad name.

*Police kept some who wanted to protest against the march shut in a pub*

There were a couple of places where a few right-wing extremists had come to oppose the march though many had followed the advice on most right-wing web forums to ignore it. Police kept them away from the marchers and I saw no incidents.

*Bill Baker of the English Nationalist Alliance*

Police did allow a few members of the English Nationalist Alliance to protest on the opposite side of the street as the march reached central Walthamstow and I went across to photograph them and talk with their leader Bill Baker who was holding several placards. He asked me to make clear that they are not an anti-Muslim organisation but simply opposed to the kind of Muslim extremism represented by Choudary, and proposals to bring Shariah law to Britain.

Again, more about them on My London Diary, where I quote one of their placards:

Sex, Drugs, Beer & Rock and Roll, it’s our Western way of life, so get over it or leave, simple as that.

As I commented, ” I’d prefer to leave off those last five words and simply call for toleration.”

The march ended with a lot of shouting between the two groups, but was generally peaceful, and I think the few scuffles at the rally involved young Muslims objecting to the extremists.

You can read more and see many more pictures in the much longer account on My London Diary: Muslim Extremists March For Sharia Zones

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Walthamstow Housing Action & Class War at the Ripper Museum – 2015

Walthamstow Housing Action & Class War at the Ripper Museum: On Saturday 21st November 2015 I spent an hour covering a lunchtime rally and march about the housing problems in the London Borough of Waltham Forest before rushing to Whitechapel where Class War were holding another of their protests outside the sensational tourist attraction celebrating the horrific acts of ‘Jack the Ripper’.

Homes for All against social cleansing

Leyton & Walthamstow

Walthamstow Housing Action & Class War at the Ripper Museum

People met in Abbots Park Leyton for a rally organised by Waltham Forest Housing Action before they marched to a longer rally in the centre of Walthamstow. over the severe housing problems faced by those living in the borough of Waltham Forest.

The council has a housing waiting list of over 20,000 families, and although there is considerable home building taking place in the borough only 400 of 12,000 homes planned in Walthamstow in the next 5 years are for low earners.

As in most of London’s boroughs, mainly held by Labour councils, the ‘regeneration’ schemes begun under New Labour has led to the loss of social housing, pricing most local people in the many lower paid and middle-income jobs which are essential for the city to run. Regeneration has led to social cleansing with poorer residents being forced out to areas further from the centre.

The campaigners called for an end to housing evictions in the area – then taking place at twice the average rate for London, and the capping of private rents which are on average much higher than the maximum set by housing benefit, as well as a huge increase in social housing.

Housing benefit acts as a huge public subsidy for landlords, passing money to them. The public and those who live in rented accommodation would be much better served by money being spent of building social housing which would give a return to local councils from the rents.

Private rents allow landlords to get housing benefit and the excess rent paid by the tenants to pay off the loans they take out so they can buy property and get the benefit of increasing their capital – at our and the tenant’s expense.

Rising rents have increasingly made it impossible for many key workers – teachers, firefighters and others – to afford to live in the boroughs they serve.

*Press TV interviewed one of the campaigners who holds a placard ‘I have moved 4 times in 3 years! I want secure affordable housing’*

Although Press TV covered the event there was (as usual) no interest shown by mainstream UK media

Among the trade unions supporting the march were the National Union of Teachers and the Fire Brigades Union – who provided their fire engine as a platform for speakers and to lead the march.

Local politicians also came for the event along with Green Party Deputy Leader Dr Shahrar Ali. Among local groups with banners were residents of Residents of Fred Wigg and John Walsh towers on the edge of Wanstead Flats in Leytonstone., where the 234 social housing units are to be replaced by only 160 and new private flats were to be sold to raise £30 million.

I left as the march was on its way to Walthamstow to go to Whitechapel.

More on My London Diary at Homes for All against social cleansing.

Class War at the Ripper ‘Museum’

Cable St, Whitechapel

I met Class War as they arrived outside the Jack the Ripper tourist attraction in Cable St with their ‘Womens Death Brigade‘ banner for another in their series of protests against the ‘museum’ which celebrates the brutal and macabre killings of working class women in Whitechapel in 1888.

*Owner Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe’s partner Julian Pino and an employee in the shop*

The murderer was an insane serial killer who ripped open the bodies of his victims, removing the uterus and heart and a whole industry has arisen over trying to establish his identity, spurred on by the particularly gory details of his crimes.

*An officer tells Puno to stop phoning ‘999’ as the police are already here*

Although the police at the time were unable to solve the case, they appear to have given up after Montague Druitt drowned himself in the Thames shortly after the final one of these murders. But those aiming to profit from the whole series of articles, books and films have done their best to build up doubt and uncertainty, putting forward others, often very unlikely such as painter Walter Sickert, as the criminal.

The protest was noisy but peaceful with many of those taking part wearing masks of the shop’s owner – who had lied about the site becoming a museum to celebrate women’s history to gain support and planning permission.

It was enlivened by the arrival of activist singer/guitarist Cosmo who performed three appropriate songs which raised everyone’s spirits, and even the police obviously enjoyed the protest.

Shop owner Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe had left a shop worker and his partner Julian Pino inside the ‘museum’ to face the protesters and their was one spot of farce when a police officer went inside to tell him to stop continually phoning ‘999’ as the police were already there.

A man claiming to be a local resident and seemed to be a friend of the ‘museum’ came to complain to Class War against them protesting against a business that was bringing investment to an area that was so obviously in need of it. He was told that this kind of investmentglorified violence against women and was clearly detrimental to the area and offensive to many – including the living descendants of the victims.

It was hard to avoid the conclusion that his intervention had been prompted and possibly funded by the owner of this tacky tourist attraction, which noticeably attracted no customers while the protest was taking place.

More on My London Diary at Class War at the Ripper ‘Museum’.

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Cockroaches Protest Lousy Temporary Housing – 2016

Cockroaches Protest Lousy Temporary Housing; On Friday 28th October 2016, Housing For All activists from Focus E15, two dressed as cockroaches, went together with residents from the Boundary House hostel in Welwyn Garden City to the offices of Theori Housing Management in a Halloween-themed protest at the terrible living conditions for residents in their hostel.

The main statutory housing duty of local authorities is to provide temporary accommodation for those who are homeless, eligible, have a priority need and are not intentionally homeless. Priority can include living with a child, being pregnant, domestic abuse or emergencies such as flood and fire. Most of those who qualify have suffered some fairly traumatic experiences and deserve suitably careful treatment and adequate accomodation, but many do not get it.

Council make use of hostels run by companies such as Theori Housing Management who run hostels providing temporary accommodation such as Boundary House which provides temporary housing for residents from London boroughs including Waltham Forest and Newham for these vulnerable people for months or even years.

Those living in Boundary House say that rooms there have leaking roofs and mould on the walls, are infested with cockroaches, have upper floor windows that children could easily fall out of and dangerous faulty appliances. Several of them had come to the protest but most others were either scared to do so or could not afford the £15 off-peak rail fare into London. This also makes it impossible for those moved to the hostel to continue with any work they had in London as well visits to their doctors or clinics and for children to attend their former schools.

As I wrote in 2016, “Residents who make complaints are hung up on, placed on hold for hours and called liars, ignored, insulted and patronised.” So the campaign had come to bring their complaints to Theori.

Campaigners from Haringey Housing Action Group who were also at the protest “also have experience of poor hostel accommodation, provided by Haringey Council, and we know how hard it is try to go about your daily activities – going to work, taking kids to school – when you are living in cramped conditions, with little or no cooking facilities.“

Residents who have complained to their local authority housing departments complain they are not listened to and no action is taken. The campaigners call on boroughs to stop using companies like Theori who provide sub-standard housing and fail to keep it in good order, and say councils should house Londoners in London where they have schools, friends and jobs.

Focus E15 come from Newham, where Mayor Robin Wales has said that those who can’t afford it should not be living in the borough, where vast luxury housing developments are welcome, but social housing is hardly on the agenda.

They point out that Newham, a Labour stronghold, has hundreds of empty properties in what was a popular estate, the Carpenters Estate close to the centre of Stratford. These homes had then been empty and boarded up for more than ten years while the council has been trying to sell off the whole area for various development schemes. They also point out that Newham has taken out ill-advised loans which have resulted in incredible repayments of interest.

The campaigners tried to enter the Theori offices, pushing against the doors which were held by men inside, and Theori called the police. The two officers who arrived were obviously rather amused at having to talk to a cockroach. The protesters stepped away from the door to that one of the police could enter the office while the protest continued on the pavement outside.

They then held a Halloween party on the pavement outside the office before finally lining up for photographs.

More at Cockroaches at Theori Housing Management.

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Land Mines and the Lea Valley – 2006

Land Mines and the Lea Valley: Fortunately these were two entirely separate events on October 14th 2006. The landmines were in Hyde Park in a display by Handicap International and after visiting this I took a walk across the Lea Valley from Holloway to Tottenham and Walthamstow where I was going to collect a set of my pictures which had been on show at Walthamstow Pumphouse Museum. Here is a slightly edited version of what I wrote in 2006 with a few of the pictures from the day – and a link to many more from the walk on My London Diary

Ban Landmines and Cluster Bombs

Handicap International, Hyde Park

Saturday in Hyde Park there were land mines. Fortunately they were mainly carefully marked as well as having been made harmless. For many people around the world they are daily hazard, the deadly and maiming residues of war.

Just as dangerous, if not more so, are cluster bombs. These are produced by the sophisticated weapons industries of many countries including Britain and America, and also used by our armies and air forces, dropped from aircraft or fired as artillery.

Each cluster bomb contains from a dozen to several hundred lethal bomblets, which are distributed over a wide area, intended to kill infantry or guerillas, but entirely indiscriminate in their action. Between 5-30% fail to explode on impact, usually getting buried in soil; those dropped over 30 years ago in Vietnam are still killing and maiming people, especially children, there. Almost 2,000,000 were scattered over Iraq in 2003-4.

I went to Hyde Park to sign the petition organised by Nobel peace prize-winning charity Handicap International to aim for a world-wide ban on these weapons.

Handicap International now has urgent appeals for Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan and invites you to join them in campaigning to “Fully implement the treaties banning landmines and cluster munitions without delay and encourage non-signatory states to sign their petition.”

Tottenham to Walthamstow

After my brief visit to Hyde Park, I was on my way to Walthamstow to collect some of my pictures of the Lea Valley that had been on show at the Pump House Museum, and as it was a nice day, decided to walk the last few miles across the Lea Valley and take a few more pictures.

I began my walk in Holloway, going post the Emirates Stadium and then across South Tottenham.

In King George V Park I found some graffiti artists at work, and took pictures of a few of the many murals, before heading down the Lea Navigation to Springfield and across to Walthamstow Marshes, a surprising area of open space so near to the centre of a major city.

Then I made my way between reservoir and waterworks to the Lea Flood Relief Channel and St James’s Park, surrounded with remarkably brooding lime trees.

There are many more pictures from the walk on My London Diary, but surprisingly I don’t appear to have taken a picture of the Walthamstow Pumphouse Museum on this occasion. I think I had stopped to take so many pictures on the way that I was in rather a hurry to collect my pictures which had been on show for Open Heritage Day there and get home.

More pictures from the walk on My London Diary

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The Battle of Walthamstow – 2012

The Battle of Walthamstow: On Saturday 1st of September the extreme right English Defence League attempted to march into Walthamstow and hold a rally outside the Waltham Forest Civic Centre on Forest Road. Several thousand people from all of Walthamstow’s communities came together as ‘We are Waltham Forest’ determined to oppose them.

From a long rally in Walthamstow’s main square with speeches by many community leaders and performances by local drummers and singers, the people of Walthamstow marched to Forest Road, arriving an hour or so before the EDL march was due.

As they made their way along Hoe Street there was no doubt of their wide support from the community, with people coming out from virtually every shop and building, many waving and cheering in support.

When the march reached Forest Road many of the marchers sat down on the road at the key junction on the EDL march route. I left them there and walked back towards where the EDL march was to start.

When I saw the EDL march coming towards me, it looked more like a police march as the EDL were probably surrounded by more officers than there were supporters on the march. None of the main EDL leaders was on the march as they had gone separately to where they intended to hold a rally and were setting up the PA system.

It was hard to get a clear view of the marchers through the lines of police around them, and I only had a short telephoto when a much longer lens would have been useful.

But I managed to take some pictures of the marchers and many of them saw me and shouted abuse or made offensive gestures. Others tried to hold up hands in front of their faces – in one case making a woman look as if she was giving a Nazi salute. One man even rushed through a gap between police officers and put his hand over my lens before police dragged him back into the march. Although they got in my way I was rather glad the police were there.

A few people had come out onto the side of the streets to watch the marchers. Most did so in silence, but some held posters against the marchers or shouted at them. I saw only one supporter, an elderly man who came out of his house to greet them and was greeted with cheers from the marchers. As I commented, “Clearly here the silent majority they claim to represent was overwhelmingly against them.”

As the crucial road junction was blocked, police diverted the march down a side road shortly before it. Some of the EDL were angry at leaving the route and wanted to get at those blocking the road and there were some minor scuffles between the EDL stewards and police.

I went to the junction where the EDL march was led across the Chingford Rd and joined other photographers who were photographing the march and residents who had come to oppose them. Here EDL stewards dragged back marchers who tried to attack us and police and managed to keep their march more or less in order.

Police halted the march in Farnan Avenue at the side of the Civic Centre, but it was now clearly impossible for them to continue to the planned rally location because of the mass of protesters opposed to the EDL who were mainly held by police behind barriers on the opposite side of the road.

I went to where Tommy Robinson and Kevin Carroll had come with a few others to set up for the rally and took a few pictures before I was stopped by an EDL steward who insisted I was a Unite Against Fascism photographer and called over a police officer. I showed the officer my press card, but he still insisted I leave the area. I unhitched a barrier and went across to the other side of the road.

*Facing them were hundreds of people from Waltham Forest with the message ‘EDL not welcome’*

‘We Are Waltham Forest’ organisers had asked that the protest remain a peaceful one, but some had other ideas and a few sticks and other objects were begining to be thrown towards the EDL. A small brick landed a few yards from Robinson, and was picked up by him and handed to a police officer as evidence.

I moved to one side to avoid being hit as more objects began to be thrown – unlike many other photographers I wear no protective headgear. The situation appeared to be a stalemate, and although many of the counter-protesters had left it seemed unlikely that the EDL rally would be possible. When I left the EDL marchers were still surrounded by police in the side road.

Police later told the EDL that the rally could not go ahead, and the EDL leaders left. Police then kept the marchers surrounded for several hours for their own protection and after RMT members told police they would not allow hooligans to endanger the public by boarding trains, police decide to arrest them all and take them in vans to various police stations. They were apparently de-arrested and released in the early hours of Sunday morning.

This defeat was important in the demise of the EDL and you can see many more pictures at Waltham Forest Defeats the EDL.

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1995 Colour Part 6 – Waltham Forest

1995 Colour Part 6 – Waltham Forest: Continuing my series of colour pictures I made in 1995. The previous post, Part 5 – Waltham Forest looked at panoramic images I made in that London Borough, but I also made images in colour using one of my Olympus OM4 cameras with a normal aspect ratio.

*Shop, LCC Flats, 32, Hatch Lane, Chingford Hatch, Waltham Forest, 1995, 95c03-345*

Most of these images were made with wide-angle lenses , 21mm, 28mm and 35mm shift, but I also had a 50mm standard lens and a short telephoto. They were taken on various Fuji colour negative films but in the days before digital there was no EXIF data to record focal lengths or exposure details. Occasionally the 21mm revealed itself by recording one of my fingers in the right hand lower corner of the frame, a mistake rather too easy to make!

*Walthamstow Stadium, Chingford Road, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1995, 95c03-342*

You can see larger versions of all these pictures and others from the same year in my Flickr album 1995 London Colour – from which the images in this post are embedded.

*Walthamstow Stadium, Chingford Road, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1995, 95c03-341*

Some years later I covered a protest at Walthamstow Stadium against its demolition. The final race had been held in 2008 and planning permission was given in 2012 for its replacement by almost 300 homes, but the Grade II listed facade in my pictures here was retained.

*Lea Valley Motor Company, Waltham Forest, 1995, 95c03-352*

*Keith Little, Turf Accountants, 81, Station Road, Chingford, Waltham Forest, 1995, 95c03-362*

I imagine this shop window in Chingford may have been inspired by the races at Walthamstow Stadium.

*Cuddles Creche, The Drive, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1995, 95c03-231*

The illustration very much reflects the multicultural nature of London and I liked the name ‘Cuddles’. It was probably at times rather noisy inside and perhaps needed as the notice by the door stated you knock on the door rather than ring the bells between 12.30 and 2 pm.

*Shops, Chingford Rd, Chingford Mount, Waltham Forest, 1995, 95c02-224*

*Artist, Shop Window, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1995, 95c02-223*

There was quite a lot of fine work in shop windows in London, particularly in areas in the north east with large Greek, Turkish, Kurdish or Cypriot heritage communities.

*Southend Rd, North Circular Rd, Walthamstow Ave, South Chingford, Waltham Forest, 1995, 95c02-335*

The North Circular Road runs across the borough and is a significant barrier to movement with relatively few bridges crossing it. Getting to places just over the road can mean a significant detour for people on foot. This fine 1930s building was a dairy company which delivered milk over a wide area. It has now lost its green tiles and is a Holiday Inn.

More in a later post. You can also find black and white pictures I took in the same area in 1995, starting on page 5 of my album 1995 London Photos.

1995 London Colour

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1995 Colour – Part 1

1995 Colour – Part 1: The first of a series of posts on my colour work, mainly in London, from 1995, 35 years ago and when I’d been working extensively with colour negative film for ten years, though still continuing to work with black and white.

Although I’d always taken both colour and black and white photographs since I began in photography, black and white had dominated my work. It was still the serious side of photography in the 1970s; almost all gallery shows then were black and white, and most publications were still only printed in monochrome, including photographic magazines, although some occasionally had a few colour pages.

And back then, almost all professional colour was taken using colour slide film such as Ektachrome and Kodachrome. Films were mainly sold inclusive of processing and you sent away your exposed film and a few days later s box of slides came back through the post. Professionals might use Ektachrome and take it to a lab for processing, but that worked out more expensive, though you could get the results in an hour or so.

I was interested in colour but in the early years took far fewer colour images, largely because of the cost, though I did cut this down by buying colour film in bulk and home processing, though this needed much tighter control of time and temperature than black and white and the results were not always quite as they should have been.

Most photographers at the time felt that colour negative film was only for amateurs, but two things changed that for me. One was my frustration with transparency film which simply could not handle many of the high contrast scenes I was interested in, giving impenetrable shadows where I wanted detail and the second was seeing some prints produced by another photographer, printed on Fuji paper.

There was a clarity about the colours that this paper gave when compared with Kodak, Agfa and the others, but the other great advantage was that there was little or no colour shift with exposure. This meant that I could dodge and burn prints with a similar creative control to working with black and white.

*Chinese Takeaway, Hoe St, Walthamstow, 1994, 95c01-155*

Some time early in 1985 I made the decision to switch entirely from transparency to negative for all of my personal colour work.

This post is the first of a number which will show some of my colour images from 1995.

These pictures were all made in December 1994 or January 1995 with some 1994 images only being processed in January 1995.

*War Memorial, Callender’s Cables, Church Manorway, Belvedere, Bexley, 1994, 95c01-165*

I’ll publish more in later posts, perhaps also including some of the colour panoramas I made. There is much more of my colour work on film in a number of Flickr albums.

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Sheds, Turnpike Lane, Saris & Shops – 1989

Sheds, Turnpike Lane, Saris & Shops: You can read the previous post on my walk which began on Sunday 12th November 1989 at Salvation, Statuettes, a Sexy Model, Spendel & More where it starts halfway down the page. It had begun in Walthamstow where I made about a dozen images before catching the tube and returning to Turnpike Lane where I had ended my walk the week before.

*Carr Portable Buildings, 66-68, Hoe St, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-11c-44*

On my way to Walthamstow Central I took this picture on Hoe Street on the corner of Gaywood Road where sheds like these were still being sold by Carr Portable Buildings Ltd until around 2008 and a couple of years later by Garden Design Services, though the site gradually became empty and was looking derelict by 2014. Two floors of flats above a ground floor shop built in 2018 now occupy the site.

I liked the horizontal divide with its upper level of sheds and plant containers which seemed to be a new ground level above the lower sheds.

*Turnpike Lane Station, Turnpike Lane, Haringey 1989 89-11c-36*

On reaching Turnpike Lane I spent some time wandering around the station and bus station area. admiring the 1930s architecture designed by Charles Holden.

The station opened in 1932 and was the first Underground station in Tottenham. Previously the line had ended at Finsbury Park with further extension north having been vetoed by what had become the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER). But the LNER lacked the funds to introduce better services on their lines and a campaign by residents of North London together with the Underground in the 1920s eventually led to the extension to Cockfosters being approved by parliament in 1930.

At Turnpike Lane Station the development also included a tram terminus – later used as a bus station and a number of shops. I think it is probably the largest of Holden’s many fine station projects on the line.

*Saris, Shop Window, Westbury Ave, Turnpike Lane, Haringey 1989 89-11c-33*

One of the many shops in the area around Turnpike Lane station which caught my attention particularly for the stylized ‘hair’ and eyes of the three mannequins iin the shop window. I covered the window glass with my hands and arms to prevent reflections but the chimneys of the street opposite intrude slightly at top centre and there is a strip of light at far right. I quite like the effect.

*Shop window, High Rd, Wood Green, Haringey, 1989 89-11c-34*

This was a strange shop display and one which I still cannot quite understand, with at least one ghostly pillar as well as those more obvious ones, with the foreground brightly lit one having a dim but otherwise identical repeat to its left. It’s hard to tell from my image what the goods on display are, some looking like buttons and others like earrings and jewellery. wit at extreme right perhaps some clothing.

*Scales SuperMarket, West Green Rd, West Green, Haringey 1989 89-11c-22*

A rather more down-market shop on West Green Lane a little to the south in Duckett’s Green – one of the other names considered when Turnpike Lane station was in planning.

I particularly liked the hand=drawn partly 3D lettering of the shop sign. Clearly this shop has been visited by supporters of Newcastle United – probably lost on their way to or from White Hart Lane.

There are still many small shops along West Green Road, but I think this particular one has gone. I didn’t walk far down West Green Road before returning to Turnpike Lane where this short walk ended as I had a meeting to attend.

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