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End the Genocide, Stop Arming Israel – 19 July 2025

End the Genocide, Stop Arming Israel: Last Saturday, 19th July 2025, the weather forecast for London was dire. Thunderstorms and heavy rain until clearing a little later in the afternoon, with up to several inches of rain leading to some localised flooding. In the event it was a bit under two inches, with small rivers running along the side of some streets.

In this account I intend to write about my personal experiences and working as a photographer on the day rather than my views on the terrible situation in Palestine and the reprehensible actions of the Israeli government and army – and Hamas. I’ve often written about the need for peace and justice, for an end to occupation and destruction and for the release of hostages and prisoners.

Linda and I were determined to go out and join the national demonstration, to show our support for the people of Gaza, to demand our government stop selling arms to Israel and to call on the Israeli government to end its terrible destruction and genocidal attacks and to allow humanitarian aid for the people of Gaza, many now starving. A little rain was not going to stop us.

As usual I checked online for our trains, only to find that our services into London were subject to delay and cancellation due to signalling problems. We dropped everything and hurried to get an earlier train than we had intended – and which actually was more punctual than usual – only two or three minutes late into Waterloo.

It was raining fairly heavily as we walked out of the station and by the time we’d crossed the Jubilee bridge to the Embankment where the march was gathering we were already quite wet.

As the forecast was for afternoon temperatures in the low to mid twenties I’d grabbed a lightweight waterproof jacket on my way out, which was a mistake. It did keep the water off to start with but was soon getting soaked through in places. I realised too late that I should have worn my poncho – or a heavier jacket that although too warm would have kept me dry. At least I’d had the sense to put on my truly waterproof walking boots rather than my usual trainers.

We joined the large crowd that was sheltering under the bridge carrying the rail lines into Charing Cross and I started to take photographs. It was dry – so long as you avoided the areas where water was leaking down from above – but rather dark.

I was working with my Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark III (what a crazy mouthful of a name) a camera that came out over 5 years ago. It’s a Micro 43 camera with a sensor only around half the size of full-frame, but that does mean it can be significantly smaller and lighter – something increasingly important to me as I get less able to carry heavy camera bags. And, vitally important today, it is a camera that has good weather protection.

I also had my Fuji X-T30 in my camera bag, with a 10-24 zoom fitted. Had I not rushed out I might have chosen a more suitable body and wide angle for use in wet weather. Neither that camera or lens are weather sealed (the more recent 10-24mm is) and for most of the day they stayed in my bag. I did take them out a couple of times when the rain had eased off, but hardly any of the pictures I took with them were usable.

Under the bridge light was low, but the Olympus has good image stablisation and the main problem was subject movement, as people shouted slogans, jumped up and down, banged drums and more. Being very crowded also meant people were often banging into me as I was working.

I also use small and light lenses – in the case the Olympus 14-150mm F4-5.6 – equivalent to 28-300mm on full frame, going from a decent but not extreme wide-angle to a long telephoto. Its a small, light and incredibly versatile lens, but not one at its best in low light with its rather small aperture.

I started off working with the lens on the P setting, the programme choosing suitable shutter speed and aperture – with the lens wide open and shutter speeds of around 1/15 to 1/25 second. But I soon realised to stop action I would need a faster speed and switched to manual, deliberating underexposing at 1/100th second, f5.0 and at ISO 3200. The RAW images were dark but I knew that I could get Lightroom to make them look fine – if sometimes lacking in shadow detail.

Eventually people began to move out into the rain and march and I went with them, holding my camera under my jacket and only taking it out quickly to take pictures. I looked in my bag for the chamois leather I usually hold to dry and hold in front of the lens filter and it wasn’t there – I’d left it back home in the pocket of the jacket I was wearing when it last rained while I was taking pictures. I had to make do with a handkerchief instead, giving the protective filter a quick wipe before each exposure.

Outside it was a little brighter and I was able to increase the shutter speed to something more sensible, and was using manual settings of 1/160 f5.6 with auto-ISO giving me correct exposure. I was mainly working at the wider focal lengths of the lens and f5.6 gave me enough depth of field.

I hadn’t got out my umbrella, but of course many others were carrying them to keep dry. I find it hard to work with one hand while holding an umbrella in the other. But other people’s umbrellas were a little of a nuisance, with water often pouring from them onto me as I took pictures, adding to the effect of the rain.

So I was getting increasing wet – and soon retreated to the sheltered area under the bridge where different groups were now coming through. Keeping close to the end of the sheltered area I was able to keep working at the same settings, with the ISO now 3200.

London, UK. 19 July 2025. Stephen Kapos and another holocaust survivor on the march.

After a while I went out into the wet again – the rain had eased off slightly, and took more pictures. Then I noticed the banner for the Jewish holocaust survivors and their descendants and went over to greet Stephen Kapos, photograph him and another survivor as they set off on the march.

Shortly after I decided I would move to Westminster Bridge to take pictures of the marchers with the Houses of Parliament in the background, and walked as quickly as I could to there. Crowds of marchers and tourists watching the march slowed my progress somewhat.

The bridge is open to light and I was now using 1/250 second, but still with the Olympus lens at its wide-angle lens there was no need to stop down and I was working at around ISO 640.

I think around half of the march had gone over the bridge before I got there and I stayed taking pictures around halfway across the bridge for around half an hour, only leaving when I could see the end of the march coming on to the bridge. Fortunately the rain had eased off, but I was still getting wet.

I then hurried taking a short cut to get to Waterloo Bridge, taking just a few pictures where hurried past the march again on York Road. I took more photographs as people came onto Waterloo Bridge and then saw that a large group had stopped in the shelter underneath the railyway bridge and were having a spirited protest there – so I went to photograph them. When they marched off I went with them to Waterloo Bridge.

I looked at my watch. I had thought about taking the tube to Westminster and then going to photograph the rally in Whitehall, but decided it was perhaps too late to bother. I’d taken a lot of photographs and was rather wet and also hungry and decided it was time to go home.

I went to Waterloo and got on a train. Eventually, 15 minutes late, it decided to leave, and with a few stoppages at signals got me home around 25 minutes later than it should. Fortunately I’d packed some sandwiches and was able to eat them sitting at Waterloo, though the view wasn’t interesting. I’d edited and filed my pictures by the time Linda arrived home.

More pictures on Alamy and Facebook.

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John Bowden, Congo & Waterloo Carnival – 2007

John Bowden, Congo & Waterloo Carnival: I don’t think I wrote anything on My London Diary about the three events I covered on Friday 13th July other than some captions on the pictures. The case of John Bowden in particular is one that has considerable relevance now in the UK with increasing prison over-crowding and chaos, and the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo is ongoing now for over three decades, but there were dramatic developments earlier this year with now some negotiations between the warring parties.

International Day of Solidarity – John Bowden – Parole Board, Westminster

In an interview on Indymedia in 2007 John Bowden stated that he grew up experiencing anti-Irish “racism as well as extreme poverty very early on in life” and committed “serious anti-social acts” including burning “a factory to the ground when I was nine!” which led to him being “systematically brutalised and de-socialised to the extent where I became a complete outsider” by the ‘criminal justice system.

He stated that by his “early twenties I had already spent the bulk of my time locked away in various prison-type institutions and had accumulated a long criminal record, composed mostly of violent offences, which were becoming increasingly more violent.”

In 1980, aged 24, he was arrested along with others for the murder and grisly dismemberment of a man at a party in a flat in Camberwell and given a life sentence. In jail he took part in taking an assistant governor hostage after a prisoner had been murdered in the hospital wing – and this got him another 10 year sentence.

During his time in years of solitary confinement he writes “I actually began to discover my true humanity and experienced a process of deep politicisation which drew me closer to my fellow prisoners and oppressed people everywhere. From a brutalised and anti social criminal I metamorphasised into a totally committed revolutionary.”

In an interview in Novara Media in 2020 he states “I committed and devoted my life not just to the personal struggle against brutality but to a wider struggle against the prison system generally, and spent almost 40 years trying to organise and mobilise prisoners.” The views he expresses on prison in this interview should be taken to heart by those to reforming our criminal justice system to create a system that works with offenders to rehabilitate rather than further damage them and make re-offending virtually inevitable.

In 2016 the International Workers of the World founded the IWW Incarcerated Workers Organising Committee and he became a member.

You can see and hear Bowden in a series of short videos made for the Prisoner Solidarity Network on YouTube, Tour of the British prison estate.

While the others convicted with him were released over 20 years ago, Bowden was only granted parole in 2020, and only after taking the Parole Board to Judicial Review following their fourth rejection of his release.

It had become clear that his continued imprisonment was not because of any danger to the public “but because I was labelled an ‘anti-authoritarian’ prisoner with links to anarchist and communist groups on the outside, specifically Anarchist Black Cross and the Revolutionary Communist Group.”

International Day of Solidarity – John Bowden

No More Deportations to the Congo – Parliament Square

A group of UK residents from the Democratic Republic of Congo had come to demand an end to Britain’s racist laws and to end the harassment and detention of refugees and asylum seekers. They say all deportations to the DRC should stop as the country is unsafe.

There are just a few more pictures on My London Diary.

Waterloo Carnival – Lower Marsh, Waterloo

The first Waterloo Carnival took place in July 2002 as “a celebration of our community: our unity and diversity, history and future” and is backed by many locally based businesses and organisations including the Old Vic, Christian Aid and the local primary school where the procession formed up.

*Local residents pose with some of the marchers*

*From Lower Marsh the procession went through a council estate*

*It ended with a picnic and events on Waterloo Millennium Green.*

Many more pictures on My London Diary at Waterloo Carnival.

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Westminster & Waterloo November 1989

Westminster & Waterloo: I’m not sure now why I was in London on Wednesday November 1st 1989, but probably I had been to see an exhibition at the Photographers Gallery during my half-term holiday. I took a slightly longer walk than usual to get back to Waterloo from Soho through Trafalgar Square and then along to Waterloo Bridge and across it to get back to the station.

*Trafalgar Square, Westminster, 1989 89-10j-65*

Back in 1989 there were still people feeding the pigeons in Trafalgar Square and I made this rather atmospheric “contro-jour” image – not my usual kind of thing – I generally try to make pictures about substance rather than effect.

*Trafalgar Square, Westminster, 1989 89-10j-66*

My next frame was a little more like my normal work, though still making use of the backlit water in the fountains.

*Royal Society of the Arts, John Adam St, Westminster, 1989 89-10j-56*

Adelphi, the district south of Strand was developed by the Adams brothers (Robert and James), and the name is the Greek for brothers. The area here had been the London palace for the Bishop of Durham which had gardens going down the the River Thames and this was demolished for the new buildings. Financially the project was a disaster and they were only saved from bankruptcy by the Adam Buildings Act 1772 which enabled a public lottery to be run to save them.

The headquarters of the Royal Society of the Arts, then the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, was built by the brothers between 1768 and 1772 and is said to be London’s first neoclassical building.

*Adelphi Building, Robert St, Savoy Place, Westminster, 1989 89-10j-44*

Parts of the area were demolished in the early 1930s for the building of the massive Art Deco New Adelphi Building by Collcutt & Hamp finished in 1938. A speculative office building it has since been occupied by a number of well-known companies. The Grade II listed building with sculptures by Gilbert Ledwood has been internally refurbished since I made this picture. There is a public right of way, Lower Robert Street, beneath the building.

*Outpatients, Royal Waterloo Hospital for Children and Women, Waterloo Bridge, Stamford St, Waterloo, Lambeth, 1989 89-10j-35*

I took a few more pictures in the area (not online) before making my way across Waterloo Bridge and onto Waterloo Road where I photographed the decoration on the former Outpatients Department of the Royal Waterloo Hospital for Children and Women.

This had been set up in the City of London in 1816 and was at the time one of very few hospitals that would treat children, though still only as outpatients. It gained the Royal in its title in 1821 when the Duke of York became a patron and moved to this new larger site three years later in 1824. The hospital was rebuilt to designs by Charles Nicholdson in 1903-5. It became part of the NHS in 1948 and closed in 1976.

In its later years it had a notorious psychiatric ‘Ward 5’ which carried out a number of highly dangerous treatments on its patients which led to deaths and other deleterious effects. On my 1990s map it is a part of King’s College.

St John's Waterloo, Waterloo Rd, Waterloo, Lambeth, 1989 89-10j-21 — *St John’s Waterloo, Waterloo Rd, Waterloo, Lambeth, 1989 89-10j-21*

This fine building was built in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars when the population of London was expanding rapidly and the Houses of Parliament voted a sum not exceeding a million pounds for the building of new churches to serve areas with large populations “more particularly in the Metropolis and its Vicinity.”

It was one of three churches designed by Francis Octavius Bedford in this project, and they were all built in what was then becoming an unfashionable Greek Revival style, completed in 1824.

St John's Waterloo, Waterloo Rd, Waterloo, Lambeth, 1989 89-10j-23 — *St John’s Waterloo, Waterloo Rd, Waterloo, Lambeth, 1989 89-10j-23*

The church was badly damaged in the Second World War in 1940, and stood without a roof and with much of the interior destroyed for almost ten years, with services taking place in the crypt. It was restored in 1950 with its interior in a ‘Festival of Britain’ style though some original parts remain, and was rededicated as the Festival of Britain Church. It is Grade II* listed.

I went across the road to Waterloo Station in time to catch my train home.

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Working Lives – Lower Marsh

Working Lives – Lower Marsh: Last Saturday, 14th August 2024, was an unusual day for me, which I’ll perhaps write more about in a later post. But I’d finished photographing a protest a little after 1pm, rather earlier than I’d expected and sat down on the riverside path by the Thames at Nine Elms to eat my sandwiches and wondered what to do next.

One of several things that came to mind was the Working Lives Retrospective Photography Exhibition, organised by International Arts and Pedalling Arts, “highlighting points of connection in the working lives of people in Britain and Ukraine from the 1960s to the 1980s” with a set of photographs “from London and Kyiv and Odesa providing fresh insights into street and theatre culture in both cities.”

Man with Carpet, Lower Marsh, Waterloo, Lambeth, 1990, 90-712-33

The show continues until until next Sunday, September 22nd and the Street Photography section of this is located in a series of pictures in shop windows along Lower Marsh, a street close to Waterloo Station. It and features images taken in Lower Marsh in the 1970s and 1980s as well as some from Ukraine. The London pictures include three by me, and others by Paul Carter, Jini Rawlings and from unnamed photographers in the Lambeth Archives.

Market, Lower Marsh, Waterloo, Lambeth, 1990, 90-713-25

There is a map on the web site you can download (or pick up at the Walrus) with a list of the names of the 27 shops and offices taking part, mostly with one photograph, but a few with two. And the picture at the bottom of the web page is one of mine.

Frazier St, Lower Marsh, Waterloo, Lambeth 86-9r-11_2400

A few months ago an old friend who lives a few streets away from Lower Marsh had emailed me asking if I had taken any pictures on Lower Marsh, a busy market street back then. I did a search of my albums on Flickr and found a few pictures, mainly from 1992 and sent links to the exhibition organiser. Three were selected for the show and I supplied files for A1 prints to be made.

I’ve been out of London for some time and then busy with other things so I hadn’t found time to see the show. And until I walked onto Lower Marsh I hadn’t realised that one of my pictures was being used as the poster image.

Another part of the show was that the theatre photographs were to be screened on giant screens on a van parked in the street outside Cubana at the east end of the street where most people enter it from 2.30pm – 10.30pm on selected days. Walking towards it from the west in Saturday’s bright sunlight the images were almost invisible, but suddenly I found my poster picture appearing. I walked to the shaded side and everything became clear.

The same picture of a man carrying a rolled up carpet (and a walking stick) on the street also appears on a nicely printed postcards produced for the show which you can buy at the Walrus.

I found the show an interesting way to look at photographs. It’s now a vibrant street with cafés etc, rather different from the old market, but interesting to walk along and search for the pictures. And being spaced out as they are draws your attention to every picture and gives you more time to think about it than in a run on a gallery wall. At one or two places I felt a little uncomfortable when I had to peer at them over people sitting at cafe tables, but I don’t think they minded.

You can also see all square cropped versions of all of the street images on the web site accompanied by short audio clips of memories from English or Ukranian locals. You can also play these on your phone on the street from QR codes on the picture captions.

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UK Uncut Great British Street Party – 2012

UK Uncut Great British Street Party: Waterloo, Barnes & Putney

In 2012 public services were being destroyed by cuts made by the coalition government with the Liberal Democrats having gone into the coalition government with the Tories after the indecisive 2010 election. UK Uncut decided to hold street parties in protest on 26th May 2012 and to call for a better and different future..

In the 2010 election the Tories had won 306 seats and Labour 258, but with 57 seats the Liberal Democrats could have formed a coalition with either party to form a government. Although a coalition with Labour would only have included 315 MPs, less than half the total of 650, the differing positions of the 28 MPs outside of the main parties would have made this a working majority.

Perhaps because they lied to him more effectively, Nick Clegg chose to form a coalition with the Tories. Probably the most important thing he hoped to gain from this was electoral reform – and the United Kingdom Alternative Vote referendum resulted in a resounding defeat for the alternative vote system – a modified form of ‘First Past The Post’. What Clegg didn’t get was what he wanted, a referendum on proportional representation.

With an general election coming up on July 4th again under FPTP we can again see the urgent need for electoral reform. With FPTP we are more than likely simply to see Tweedledee replaced by Tweedledum rather than the more vital changes we need to deal with the urgent changes we need, particularly to deal effectively with the climate challenge, but also to move towards a more equal and united society.

But for now at least we are stuck with FPTP. Possibly the rise of the Reform Party will present a real challenge to our current two party monopoly, and though I’m very much not a supporter of their policies this fragmentation would certainly improve matters. Just a shame that no similarly positive split on fundamental issues has occurred within the Labour Party which has managed to successfully marginalise its right wing – or expel them – without a similarly important alternative party emerging. Perhaps because of a much deeper loyalty on the left to the Labour movement.

Wherever we live I think the best response to the continuing use of FPTP is to vote anti-Tory – that is for the candidate with the greatest chance of defeating the Tory candidate rather than for any particular party. The best result I think we can hope for in July is one that requires a coalition of several parties to govern. Politics would then have to move into an area of cooperation and consultation rather than the adversarial nonsense which now dominates our politics.

Clegg sold the country down the river for false gold, and joined the Tories in implementing a vicious series of cuts to public benefits from central government in almost every aspect of our lives.

UK Uncut stated:

"The government is slashing our public services and making the most marginalised people in our society pay for an economic crisis they did nothing to cause. It doesn’t have to be this way. In 1948 the UK’s national debt was far larger than it is today, but instead of cutting services and hitting the poorest hardest the NHS and the Welfare State were born.

So forget the Queen’s Jubilee and join the only London street party worth going to this summer – UK Uncut’s Great London Street Party. Let’s celebrate the services that are being destroyed, take the fight to the streets and party for our future, a different future, a better future, that we can build together."

The London event was one of several street parties organised in towns and cities across the UK. In London 4 blocks, one highlighting the welfare cuts, another the NHS, a third the disproportionate effects the cuts were having on women and the last mourning the effects they are having on democracy itself, met and finally entrained at Waterloo Station, travelling either to Putney or Barnes.

The destination was kept secret, and after we left the trains we followed bloc leaders with coloured umbrellas, only finding when we were almost there that the party was to take place in the short Putney street where Nick Clegg has his London home. They were on holiday elsewhere.

Police tried to stop the protesters at various points, including on the final street, but eventually had to let the party go ahead. People taking part seemed to be careful not to cause any damage, though some were pushed into hedges by police. But the protesters kept up the party atmosphere despite considerable provocation.

Later I heard that when the party ended at 6pm and people were making their way peacefully to Putney station they were attacked by a group of police, who were perhaps frustrated by not being allowed to attack the party earlier in the day when the press was present in large numbers reporting on the event.

You can read more about the party and see many more pictures on My London Diary at UK Uncut Great British Street Party

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Latchmere Passage, Milton Hall, Dentists & a Triangle

Latchmere Passage, Milton Hall, Dentists & a Triangle concludes my walk in Clapham on Saturday July 29th 1989 which began with Some Madness and Houses in Clapham and continued on Monday 31st. The previous part was Shaftesbury Park & Latchmere Road.

*Latchmere Passage, Latchmere Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7o-32*

The passage was probably built around 1859-63 when the West London Extension Railway was built, disrupting a local route that links what is now Cabul Road with Sheepcote Lane on the eastern side of Latchmere Road.

The railway was an important route crossing the Thames and the three lines that cross Latchmere Passage, each on its own viaduct and bridge, link it to the lines into Waterloo, to the north platforms of Clapham Junction serving lines out of Waterloo and those on the south side for the lines out of Victoria. The latter two bridges are now used by Overground and Thameslink trains.

*Milton Congregational Hall, 21, Cabul Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7o-34*

Cabul Road is part of the estate here and to the west of Falcon Road developed as the Falcon Park estate by Alfred Heaver in 1879 – 1881, with street names taken from the battles of the Second Afghan War (1878–80) and the 1879 Zulu War. Almost all of the area was covered with small two-storey terraced houses, with the exception of this 1885 Milton Congregational Hall, designed by Searle & Hayes in a restrained Queen Anne style.

Congregationalists had worshipped at Milton Hall, Battersea since 1873, presumably in some earlier building and after its congregation combined with Battersea Congregational Church in the 1930s had various uses including as a film studio. It was recently redeveloped, retaining the facade, as residential properties.

A large part of the area was damaged by wartime bombing and after the war converted to open and rather featureless green spaces, Shillington Gardens and Falcon Park.

*Dentists, 77 Falcon Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7o-22*

This is one of three semi-deatched pairs of houses on Falcon Road which date from around 1850 when the area began to be developed by William Willmer Pocock, an architect and prominent Methodist and Thomas Daniel Carter who owned much of the land. Carter had sold some of the land to Pocock as containing brick earth, and Pocock set up the Falcon Brick Works here. But the bricks were not too good and the area soon began to be built over.

Next door to the dentists was Grove End House, also built around 1850 and now rather altered as the Battersea Mosque.

*Knowsley Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7o-24*

I realised then that I had missed out the Poyntz Road triangle, a small triangle of roads between the railway lines to the east of Latchmere Road, and I retraced my steps to Latchmere Road, then crossed over into Knowsley Road.

The picture shows the end of the road just beyond its junction with Shellwood Road. The houses here were built in the 1870s and seem little changed now. The archway led through to a yard with buildings around it, I think workshops, though there is now a more recent block of flats. The Overground from Clapham Junction to Wandsworth Road runs on an embankment to the right of the houses here.

*Door, Battersea Bridge Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7o-11*

I took a couple of pictures on Latchmere Road, not on-line, and continued north up Battersea Bridge Road, where I made this picture of a doorway with a rather flimsy-looking railing and what appears to be a fairly subtantial tree. The house and doorway are still there and in rather better condition but there is no sign of the the tree and its hard to see where it could have been growing.

By now I was looking for a bus stop to take me back to Clapham Junction, just a few yards further up the street. This was the end of my walk in July 1989 though I returned to Battersea a few days later.

Thames Path, Tradescants, Leake Street – 2014

Thames Path, Tradescants, Leake Street – On Monday 10th November 2014 I went on a walk with some of my family in Lambeth, where my sister in particular was keen to visit the Garden Museum in the deconsecrated St Mary’s Church next to Lambeth Palace.

We began our walk at Waterloo station, making our way to the riverside path along by the Thames and walking west past St Thomas’s Hospital. A lttle beyond that in front of Lambeth Palace is a memorial bust of Violette Szabo, (1921-1945) standing on a monument to the SOE, the Maquis and the Norwegian resistance commandos, heroes of Telemark. Szabo, a Lambeth resident, was posthumously awarded the George Cross and the Croix de Guerre and was one of the 117 of the 470 agents the SOE sent to France who did not survive

On My London Diary I give some more detail about the setting up of this museum after Rosemary Weekes (later Nicholson) began her campaign to save the church and the fine tomb of father and son John Tradescant, 17th century plant hunters and royal gardeners in its churchyard as a Museum of Garden History. Her work together with her husband John Nicholson is commemorated in the garden with a plaque.

I posted a photograph of a sculpture commemorating the two John Tradescants – father and son – a few days ago in the post Old Clapham Road and South Lambeth – 1989 and wrote rather more about them later in another post on my 1989 walk, Tradescant, Old South Lambeth Rd and Caron, which began with a picture of houses on Tradescant Road, built on the site of their home in South Lambeth, and I’ll try not to repeat myself more than I need here.

The Tradescant tomb was first commissioned by Hester Tradescant, the widow of the younger John when he died in 1662 and had elaborate carvings depicting rather fancifully some of the specimens of various kinds from their travels in search for new plants around much of the world. These formed the basis of the first public museum in England – the Lambeth Ark – and were fraudulently stolen by a neighbour who pretended to support this who later presented them to Oxford University to establish the Ashmolean Museum.

By the mid-nineteenth century the original memorial was in very poor condition, probably attacked by the noxious acidic fumes from the many industries in the area, and in 1853 a replica was re-carved using limestone from Darley Dale in Derbyshire.

Also in the museum garden if the tomb of the notorious Captain Bligh of the Bounty, on whose ships the Tradescants brought back some of their plants. John Tradescant the Older had begun work as gardener to one of the wealthiest families in England and here there is a recreation of one of his Knot Gardens, based on designs for gardens at Hatfield and Cranbourne.

The museum is well worth a visit, particularly for keen gardeners, and has a pleasant cafe and of course a shop. The Tradescants also set up what was possibly the first garden centre a short distance away, though I think you would have then needed very deep pockets to buy any of their plants, many of which are now very common in our gardens.

We walked back through Archbishop’s Park, a public park with some fine trees and some green cyclists.

And came out on Lambeth Palace Road which has some modern buildings and a large metal sculpture, South of the River’ by Bernard Schottlander (b.1924) which was cast by British Steel in 1976 outside the offices at Becket House. As we went past the Lying-In Hospital (now just a frontage to a recent hotel) I found we had over 20 minutes before our train so I led our group down into Leake Street.

Although much of several parts of London are now covered with graffiti I think this tunnel remains the only officially sanctioned area for artists. I’d been there on various occasions but I think it was the first time the others in our group had been there

It wasn’t the fastest way to get into Waterloo Station, and took us to the far end from where our trains now run from the former Waterloo International platforms, but we still caught our train with time to spare.

Many more pictures from the walk and museum garden – including more graffiti – on My London Diary at Lambeth Walk.

Gun & Knife Crime, Equiano & St John’s – 2007

Gun & Knife Crime, Equiano & St John’s: I went to two events in North London on Sunday 14th October 2007, a local march against gun and knife crime and then a Black History Month event in Abney Park Cemetery. And on my way home I stopped to take a few pictures of the church opposite Waterloo Station.

Communities Against Gun and Knife Crime, Hackney

In the 2000’s a stretch of road between Upper Clapton and Lower Clapton attracted the title ‘Murder Mile’ in the press after eight people were shot dead on the street or in the streets just off the main road over a period of two years. Of course there are some other cities around the world – including in the USA – where that number of deaths in a week or even a day would not be unusual. But London is generally a very safe city and Clapton is one of a number of areas which has more than its share of gun and knife crime.

This is an area with a number of night clubs and where drug dealing is common and a large proportion of the shootings and deaths are related to these, often involving people from outside the area.

But young people who live in and around the area are also caught up in gun and knife crime and one death is one too many, particularly when it involves your friends or family. Like many areas of London it houses a wide social mix, and these crimes particularly involve the poorer members of the community, many of whom are black.

The march organised by Communities Against Gun And Knife Crime appeared to have no support from either of the two London Boroughs concerned – Hackney and Haringey – or from the Met police, who did escort it. The only other organisation which I could see was supporting it was Hackney Respect, a local group of the left-wing Respect party.

The march began at Clapton Pond with a prayer by a Black Church Sister, and then moved slowly north up the Lower Clapton Road and across the Lea Bridge Roundabout and up the Upper Clapton Road. I had to leave before the end for my second event.

The march was smaller than I had expected with fewer than a hundred people taking part, and although it atrracted waves and shouts of support from people as it passed, few if any of them came to join it. As I commented, “marches like this are surely useful in raising community awareness, and it is hard to see why there was so little support from either the public, local authorities or other local groups – including the other political parties, churches and other community groups.” Apart from myself there was a photographer from a local paper reporting on the event, but no other media interest. I don’t think any of the pictures or my report which I filed to an agency were ever used.

Here is my final comment from my 2007 article:

The real challenge in cutting youth crime – and gun and knife crime is mainly youth crime – is getting people, and especially young people – real jobs that offer training and possibilities for advancement. At the moment there are too few jobs for young people, and many pay below a living wage, especially a living wage for London. While crime offers the only way to money, prestige and apparent success, many will take that route.
Communities Against Gun and Knife Crime

Equiano Society – His Daughter’s Grave – Abney Park Cemetery, Stoke Newington

I joined a Black History Month walk led by Arthur Torrington OBE, the secretary of the Equiano Society which ended around the grave of Joanna Vassa, the daughter of Olaudah Equiano.

As the web site Olaudah Equiano, or, Gustavus Vassa, the African shows he was a truly remarkable man. Probably born around 1745 in what is now Nigeria he was kidnapped and sold into slavery as a child and taken to Barbados. In 1745 he became slave to a captain in the Royal Navy who renamed him Gustavus Vassa, and taught him to be a seaman and also sent him to school in London to learn to read and write. Later was bought by a Quaker merchant in Philadelphia who set him to work on one of his trading ships. Equiano was also able to engage in some trading for himself, and in four years made the £40 that his master had paid for him and was able to buy his freedom.

After various adventures in 1743 he came to London and became involved in the fight against slavery, although at first he was engaged in projects to set up black colonies in Central America and Sierra Leone, becoming for the latter the first black civil servant – but after he pointed out corruption among some officials he was quickly sacked.

He then wrote the book which made him famous, ‘The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or, Gustavus Vassa, the African‘ which was an autobiography, a description of the horrors of slavery and a polemic calling for its abolition. It was a success when published in 1789 and he earned a considerable income from it. In 1792 he married an English woman, Susanna Cullen, at Soham in Cambridgeshire and they had two daughters, one of whom after his death in 1797 inherited his estate of £950 (equivalent to around £100,000 now.)

Joanna Vassa later married the Congregational minister, Henry Bromley, and in 2005 their joint grave (also of Henry’s second wife) was discovered in Abney Park Cemetery, fallen down and covered by moss and undergrowth. Much of the inscription was worn away, but the names remained and the stone was restored and re-erected.

Equiano’s daughter

St John’s, Waterloo – A Waterloo Church

St John’s Church, now opposite Waterloo Station was one of a number of churches built in the years of national triumph following the defeat of Napoleon in 1815 with money granted by acts of Parliament to the Church Building Commission in 1818 and 1824 totalling £1.5 million. A total of 612 new churches were built by the Church Commissioners, mainly in the new and expanding industrial towns and cities, but initially “particularly in the Metropolis and its Vicinity“.

London south of the river was expanding rapidly, with new industries and a great deal of housing. The church was designed by Francis Octavius Bedford and built in 1822-1824 in a Greek Revival style – as were his other churches for the commissioners in Camberwell, West Norwood and Trinity Church Square, Southwark.

The site chosen, close to the foot of Waterloo Bridge was a difficult one, being a pond and a swamp, and John Rennie the Younger was consulted for advice about the foundations. This has proved sound as the building, despite being badly bombed in 1940 and standing in ruins until 1950 and the construction of the Jubilee Line underneath is still sound. It was restored and rededicated in 1951 as a part of the Festival of Britain, and again controversially in recent years which removed some of the later features.

I think I probably had just missed a train home from Waterloo Station opposite, a later development which opened as Waterloo Bridge Station in 1848, and had some time to wait for the next. Soon I was on a train home.

St John’s Waterloo

2008 – Markets, Graffiti and Police Harassment

Sunday Morning: Markets, Graffitti and Parkours

Sunday December 14th 2008 was a cold and cloudy but bright winter day as I made my way from Waterloo Station to Columbia Market, stopping to take a few pictures of the young men jumping around the street structures by the Waterloo roundabout before catching a bus to Bethnal Green to photograph in Columbia Market.

The market was busy with people buying Christmas trees, decorations and flowers, but I hadn’t really come with the right camera to work unobtrusively, but was using the DSLR-size Nikon D300 with the rather bulky original DX Nikkor 18-200mm zoom, a versatile combination but not the best for this kind of work. I wandered around taking a few pictures before leaving to walk to Brick Lane.

I was early for the protest which was to take place there, and took some pictures, mainly of graffiti while I was waiting. As I noted, “Somehow the people seem less interesting than in the old days, less eccentric and dodgy characters, and,except on the very fringes, the market seems rather more commercial in character.”

But the market was also useful for me, as I was getting a little cold, and when I put my hand in my coat pocket found my woolly hat was no longer there. ” A couple of stalls along I found a new one for a quid, with a label calling it a fashion hat and a £9.99 price tag. And there were fancy chocolates like the ones I couldn’t bring myself to pay the ridiculous prices in Waitrose going for around a quarter of the cost… ” But there wasn’t room for anything else in my camera bag.

Markets, Graffitti and Parkours

Solidarity with Whitechapel Anarchists! – Brick Lane, 14th December 2008

The previous week members of Whitechapel Anarchist Group were harassed by police while distributing their newsletter at the top of Brick Lane and had called for support this week to carry out their entirely legal activities here.

This week a largish contingent of police had come along to watch, obviously expecting trouble, but at first they mainly stood on the opposite side of the road, observing and photographing the protesters. When one protester stood in front of an officer taking pictures he was hauled off a short distance down the road and questioned before being marched away to a waiting police van. I photographed this, taking care to keep at a distance where I was clearly not obstructing the police. Apparently they decided to arrest him for swearing when he was being questioned, although this Is clearly not an offence.

The police spent rather a lot of time photographing and videoing me during the event, in a way that was obviously meant to harass me, as well as similarly harassing the protesters. This happens regularly at protests, and the police have at times admitted keeping a photographic database in which they can look up people and see which demonstrations they have attended. Though as I noted, all those I go to are recorded in My London Diary.

*Police search a woman – I think just someone passing by the protest*

Some time later I submitted a Freedom of Information request to the Metropolitan Police to try and find out what photographs and videos they had in their files showing me, giving a list of some of the occasions where I knew they had taken pictures. The response denied they had any pictures of me.

As my account ended, “Clearly their activities around Brick Lane today were a waste of public money, and worse than that. They don’t make us any safer and were not combating any real threat to public order. If they have an agenda it seems purely political.”

Solidarity with Whitechapel Anarchists!

Solidarity with Revolt in Greece – Dalston, 4th December 2008

I arrived outside Dalston Kingsland station at 2.30pm to find a group of around 50 protesters waiting on the pavement outside station for a protest march in solidarity with protests by Greek anarchists following the killing of a 15 year old youth by the Athens police.

The police had come in force to the starting point of a march which would have walked peacefully along the streets to the peace mural on Dalston Lane for a rally with some speeches and some noisy chanting. It would only have caused a few minutes stoppage to traffic as they had marched the short distance along the road.

At the end of the rally the couple of hundred who had turned up would probably have dispersed to their homes and local pubs and the event would have ended with no trouble. But police decided to provoke a confrontation by taking action against people wearing scarves across their faces – part of the anarchist ‘uniform’.

*Another protester is arrested and searched*

But this makes it hard for the police to take photographs for the database that they usually deny they have. Section 60(4A) of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, Act gives the police powers to require the removal of face coverings that an officer is satisfied is worn wholly or mainly to conceal identity, provided that an officer of or above the rank of inspector has given an authorisation for such action within a given area for a period of up to 24 hours.

So either they were acting illegally or clearly they had decided in advance to obtain this authorisation and were determined to make use of it. Obviously this was going to cause trouble. They began by approaching one of a men beside a banner with the message ’15 YEAR OLD SHOT DEAD BY GREEK COPS PIGS KILLERS’ and told him to remove his mask. An argument ensued and eventually, still wearing his mask he was led away.

Police then grabbed another protester who was alleged to have punched a policeman, ppushing him to the pavement and searching him. Other people protested at the violence being used and I think at least one of these was also arrested. Others held up a banner with what seemed now to be a rather appropriate slogan for London as well as Greece, ‘TERRORISM IS THE POLICE IN OUR STREETS’.

*A police officer who apparently failed to photograph me* :-)

More masked protesters were grabbed by police, though I’m not sure how many were actually arrested. Police began to form a cordon around the protesters in front of the station and photographers were made to go outside this – and there were quite a few protesters now on the opposite side of the street – being photographed and videoed by police.

*Arresting for arguing his legal rights*

Police vans were then moved up between the photographers and the main part of the protect, conveniently hiding most of what was taking place from the press. But we saw a protester who tried to argue his legal rights with police being handcuffed – in a rather panotmime fashion in my series of pictures. Those protesters who were not yet held inside the police cordon then surged out onto the main road – a red route – and blocked traffic entirely until police – at least one officer using his baton – pushed them back.

By this time, many of the black-clad and masked anarchists who were not inside the police kettle had moved away leaving mainly Greek supporters of the protest on the opposite side of the road.

It seemed clear that the police had come to the event determined to turn it into a show of force between police and protesters – and that the police had won. But in doing so they had spent a small fortune in public money and caused an hour and a half of disruption to normal life and to traffic on one of North London’s main arteries. And what may I thought may have been meant as “some kind of political charade organised to increase public support for increasing surveillance and repressive legislation” had in fact rather suggested the truth of the largest banner at the protest’s opening statement ‘THE STATE IS THE ONLY TERRORIST’.

Solidarity with Revolt in Greece

Five Bridges: XR – 17 Nov 2018

COP26 was in some respects a great disappointment, or rather would have been had we expected very much to arise out of it. But there were some advances, and just a slight glimmer of hope that it may prompt a little more progress in our efforts to save our future on the planet. But that it happened at all and in the way it did is very much down to the efforts of people on the street to raise awareness of the realities of climate change.

Without groups that have been campaigning for years we would have no hope at all, and whatever people think about some of the policies of Extinction Rebellion, it has been one of the more effective movements in bringing the message to the attention of the media, politicians and the public.

Even in the unfortunately toned down words of the COP26 final resolution, the message from the banner in the assembly at the top of this post is now clear: ‘FOSSIL FUEL ERA OVER’ though it still remains to be seen if it can be brought to an end fast enough for us to survive.

On Saturday 17th November 2018, Extinction Rebellion rebels managed to block five of the bridges in central London: Lambeth, Westminster, Waterloo, Blackfriars and Southwark. It was an ambitious project that brought much of London’s traffic to a standstill and gauranteed extensive media coverage. You can march 50,000 through London and it won’t merit a mention on the BBC unless windows are broken or police injured – but this was something that could not be ignored, and despite the interests of the billionaire media owners, at least some journalists began asking the right questions and writing the right answers.

I tried to photograph events on as many of the bridges as possible, though with no buses able to run in central London this involved rather a lot of walking. In the end I failed to make it to Lambeth Bridge, where some of the more robust actions by police against the protesters took place.

Here’s my description of XR from one of the three posts I made about them that day:

Extinction Rebellion is a non-violent rebellion against the British government for its criminal inaction in the face of the climate change catastrophe and ecological collapse which is currently on course to make human life extinct. They demand the government tell the truth about the climate emergency, reverse their inconsistent policies and work to communicate and educate everyone, that they bring in legally binding policies to reduce carbon emissions to net zero by 2025 and reduce our consumption of all resources, with a national Citizen’s Assembly to oversee the changes and create a real democracy.
http://mylondondiary.co.uk/2018/11/nov.htm#westminster

More protests will be needed around the world to make politicians do what needs to be done – and I was photographing Extinction Rebellion in London last Saturday when they protested in the annual Lord Mayor’s Show.

My day was made busier as there was another unrelated event taking place that I also wanted to photograph, a Unity against Fascism and Racism march from the BBC to a rally in Whitehall calling for unity against the rising threat of Islamophobia and Antisemitism by far-right groups in the UK, with a level of support for fascism not seen since the 1930s. I missed the start but spent around half an hour taking pictures as it came down Regent St.

More on all these and more pictures on My London Diary:

Extinction Rebellion Bridge blockade starts
Extinction Rebellion: Southwark, Blackfriars, Waterloo
Extinction Rebellion form Citizens’ Assembly

Unity Against Fascism and Racism