Although the immediate cause of this protest was the eviction of sex workers from flats in Romilly Street where they were operating within our laws restricting prostitution, the evictions were not at base about the activities of the women concerned but a result of property developers seeing enormous profits to be made by emptying properties in the area and redeveloping them.
Soho is particularly at risk from hugely profitable development as hotels and luxury flats because of its reputation and unique ambiance, which has largely derived in the past from its association with such risqué activities as strip clubs and models offering personal services as well as its restaurants and shops offering foreign delicacies unknown in the UK outside its boundaries.
Of course times have changed, and much of Soho is now Chinatown, but still its old reputation and some of those old activities remain, though many are fast disappearing. And while the tourists flock in, much of what attracts them is no longer there.
Sex remains a powerful attraction, and it was noticeable that there was far more media attention to this protest than most. Most of the masked women taking part in the protest were supporters of the ‘working girls’ from groups including the organisers of the event, Women Against Rape and the English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP) who I knew from other protests.
The police who issued notices to the property owners alleging that the properties were brothels are widely seen as working on behalf of the prospective developers, and owners Soho Estates whose managing director came out to speak at the event also have a financial interest. They could have stood up to the police intimidation and investigated the situation so they could assure the police that the activities in the flats were within the law, but failed to do so.
A speaker from the Soho Society told the protest that the activities of the women were one of the oldest traditions of the area, and were causing no problems with their neighbours and the many other trades of the area. Previous similar evictions have attracted local petitions signed by thousands and the ECP press release stated “Many express fears that gentrification is behind attempts to close these flats and that if sex workers are forced out it will lead the way for other small and unique businesses and bars to be drowned out by major construction, chain stores and corporations.”
Gurkha Veterans Demand Justice – Old Palace Yard, Westminster
Elderly Gurkha veterans living in the UK did not benefit from earlier campaigns for fair treatment and most living here are in extreme poverty.
This was one of a number of protests every Wednesday and Thursday opposite the Houses of Parliament inviting the government to hold talks with them and if there was no progress by later in October they said they would begin a programme of nonviolent resistance (Satyagraha) with hunger strikes, beginning with a “13 days relay hunger strike in the name of the 13 Ghurka VCs which would then be followed by a fast-unto-death” if there was no progress.
I paid a short visit to the campaigners from the Save Shaker Aamer Campaign who earlier in the year been holding a lunchtime protest on the pavement in Parliament Square facing the Houses of Parliament, standing out in their orange jumpsuits and black hoods on every day parliament was in session.
Shaker Aamer, a British resident still then held at Guantánamo was one of the first to be sent there after having been handed over the the US authorities for a cash reward. Although there was no evidence against him he had suffered years of torture in which the UK intelligence services had been implicated. Despite being cleared for release in 2007 and again in 2010 he was still being held, probably because his testimony when released would cause severe embarrassment to both US and UK intelligence agencies.
This protest was the start of a new series of regular weekly vigils seeking to draw attention to the failures of both President Obama and David Cameron, as well as demanding a full Parliamentary debate about Shaker’s case.
Campaigners had come to College Green, close to the Houses of Parliament to call for reform of the laws about cannabis, in particular to allow its medical use for MS sufferers. Legal medical cannabis is mainly available here to MS sufferers who can afford to pay its very high price.
Unsurprisingly it was a rather laid back protest, beginning rather late and not really getting started the whole 90 minutes I was there before giving up and going home as they were still waiting for the megaphone or PA system to arrive.
By the time I left there were quite a few people sitting around on the grass smoking. As I commented in a caption, the photographs don’t show what they were smoking, but the smell was unmistakable, and after I while I began to feel just a little unusual. Perhaps the two police officers who strolled over to take a look had no sense of smell or perhaps they simply felt that there was little point in taking any action.
Years ago I had to give lessons against drug use to 16-18 year olds as a part of a ‘personal and social education’ programme, and was aware that many of them had rather more experience in the area than me. But the materials from the Home Office that I relied on made clear that cannabis was considerably less harmful than alcohol or tobacco. Addiction to anything is a bad thing, but so too is the criminalisation that results from our current drug laws, which also fuel an illegal and highly profitable drug business. Appropriate reform, which would certainly include easier access for medicinal use, is long overdue.
Most days when I come to write a post for >Re-PHOTO I start by searching for what photographs I took on the same day in previous years. My London Diary has almost 20 years of work online, so usually there is something from at least one year to chose, though if I don’t find that interesting enough I’ll instead write a post continuing the series on my walks in the 1980s.
But often I have the opposite problem, with events from several years to chose between, and I can sit for ages trying to decide which to write about. And for October 7th I simply can’t make up my mind. So for today I’ll show you the options and you can chose which if any you want to find out more about. I’ll present them briefly in date order.
March for Migrant Rights – London, Saturday 7 Oct, 2006
The march for migrant rights was a little unusual in taking place entirely south of the river, from the Imperial War Museum in Lambeth to Tanner Street Park in Bermondsey. The day was the third International Day Of Action On Migrant Rights, and there were events in various cities across Europe and in Africa.
It was a reasonably large march, involving groups including ‘Barbed Wire Britain’, ‘No-Borders’, ‘No One Is Illegal, the ‘Latin American Workers Assocation’ and other national groups of migrant workers, as well as some trade union branches. But the streets along which it marched were largely empty.
The marchers demanded an amnesty for migrants living in the UK, the right for migrants to work, the closure of detention centres, and for social justice and secure work conditions for all. They called for the UK to sign up to the Un International Convention On The Protection Of The Rights Of All Migrant Workers.
Excalibur Estate – Downham, Catford. Thursday 7 Oct 2010
I put my bike on the train to Waterloo and cycled to Downham to photograph the Excalibur estate is the only substantial example remaining of a number of pre-fab estates constructed as the Second World War ended for returning soldiers and their family. Erected by prisoners of war it was only intended as temporary housing, expected to last 10 years.
The prefabs were well-made with fitted kitchens, refrigerators, built-in cupboards and heated towel rails, but Lewisham council has allowed them to deteriorate, having decided years ago it wanted to demolish the whole estate.
I made my visit – the second or thrid time I’d photographed the estate – after hearing that following a small majority of residents voting for a regeneration plan the council was transferring the estate to a housing association to carry this out. Some residents were keeping up a fight to save the estate and had managed to get a small group of six prefabs Grade II listing.
In a longer article on >Re:PHOTO I suggested that people who wanted to see the estate should go down and visit it without delay. Twelve years later you still have time to do so, and can also see the new housing on the northern part of the estate. Some of the remaining properties are now empty, but others are still occupied, though I think most of the tidy gardens in my 2010 pictures are rather less well-kept.
Elephants & Rhinos, Football Lads Alliance & Stand Up To Racism – Saturday 7th October 2017
My working day started in Parliament Square where as a part of the Global March for Elephants and Rhinos (GMFER) taking place around the world people stood in a half hour long silent protest holding mock elephant tusks or rhino horns. The speeches after this were continuing when I left for Park Lane.
A crowd of perhaps 5,000 were at the Football Lads Alliance Rally, with speakers from an open-top bus protesting against the recent terror attacks in the UK and Europe, remembering the victims and calling on government to take decisive action against the extremist threat, including locking up all terrorist suspects and deporting those of foreign origin.
It was at times an angry crowd, with many responding to the clearly racist and Islamophobic remarks from some speakers, with suggesters that many thousands of Muslims were Islamist extremists and should be locked up, and there was a huge angry outcry when the name of Diane Abbott was mentioned, with a loud shout from behind me that she should be raped. I recognised some who I’d photographed on EDL marches and made clear they thought I should not be there.
Eventually the march set off and made its way along Piccadilly in silence but by the time it reached Trafalgar Square it had become very noisy. It was joined there by a group of a couple of hundred Gurkhas, many wearing their medals, who led the march for a few yards at the top of Whitehall.
The march organisers and fans then overtook them to take the march down Whitehall. Opposite Downing Street it went past a group of supporters of Stand Up to Racism who were calling for everyone to Stand together and say ‘No to racism & Islamophobia, Football for All’.
Some stood on the edge of the pavement to hand out leaflets to the marchers through a loose line of police. Although some of the marchers took the leaflet with its heading ‘Some questions for the leaders of the FLA‘ there were many angry shouted insults and threats. Some marchers tried to hold back others who tried to attack the people handing out leaflets and eventually a large block of police had to come in and push angry FLA marchers away and down towards Westminster Bridge.
By this time I’d had enough of the FLA and their threats and didn’t bother to try to photograph them laying the football club wreaths on Westminster Bridge, but sat down in Parliament Square to have a rather late lunch.
Extinction Rebellion began their International Rebellion by occupying eleven locations at government ministries, Downing St, The Mall, Westminster and Lambeth bridges, bringing traffic to a halt.
I made my way to most of these sites and took pictures, including some of the Red Rebels on Westminster Bridge. Getting around London was difficult, with the police blocking some roads including Lambeth Bridge adding to the traffic chaos and making me walk much further than I wanted. It was generally a colourful protest and I saw few arrests.
On Westminster Bridge I recorded the wedding of XR rebels Tamsin and Melissa in the middle of the protest. I’m not a wedding photographer but this was a little different.
Families Separated, Gaza, Ghouta and Sri Lanka – On Saturday 23rd August 2014 I photographed four protests in Westminster, one against an aspect of our racist immigration policies, the second against the UK selling arms to Israel which have been used in attacks on Gaza (along with a counter demonstration), the anniversary of chemical attacks by the Syrian regime and a protest calling for UK support against the continuing genocide of the Tamil nation.
Divided Families protest over cruelty – Downing St
The cruel and unfair immigration rules set up by the Home Office under Theresa May mean that anyone earning less than £18,600 was unable to bring a non-EU spouse into the country (Brexit means that similar rules now apply to most EU countries.)
This income requirement discriminates against women, the retired and disabled young and many minority ethnic people who have on average lower incomes than the general population. For couples with children, the income limit is even higher, and to secure visas for a spouse and two children you would need an income of £24,800.
Fees for applications are also expensive – from £1048 to £1538 per person and applicants may also need to pay a healthcare premium of from £1560 to £3120 for adults and around three-quarters of this for each child. For applications made in the UK there is an extra £800 if you want a faster decision. And applicants also need to supply a great deal of documentation.
The policy, which also includes tougher English Language tests, a proof of greater attachment to the UK than of any other country and extending the probationary period from two to five years, is in direct contradiction of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights which states:
‘No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.’
Universal Declaration on Human Rights
People at the protests included many whose families were divided as they were unable to meet the income levels, as well as a number of parents and friends of divided families.
Many carried placards with images of the divided families, along with captions such as ‘I WANT MY DADDY TO CUDDLE ME NOT SKYPE ME’. I felt deeply for those caught by what seem to be vindictive, unnecessary and totally insupportable polices. It was impossible not to agree with the placards with messages such as ‘WHY IS LOVE DIVIDED BY LAW? THERESA MAY HAS NO HEART!!! THE LAW NEEDS TO CHANGE….’
A large rally at Downing St called on the UK to stop selling arms to Israel, and for an end to Israeli war crimes. Among the protesters were many Jews from various Jewish groups, including the ultra-orthodox Neturei Karta who had walked down from north London to support the protest.
Israel had carried out air strikes on Gaza in July 2014 following a number of incidents including the shooting by the IDF of two Palestinian teenagers and the kidnapping and killing of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank. There were other incidents including house demolitions and the kidnapping and killing of a Palestinian youth. Hamas replied to air strikes with rocket fire on Israel.
The Israeli invasion of Gaza began in earnest on 20th July and the ground war was still continuing though on a lesser scale when this protest took place, with a ceasefire being agreed and coming into effect on 26th August.
There are more details about the invasion in the Wikipedia Timeline, which states “2,256 Palestinians and 85 Israelis died, while 17,125 Palestinians, and 2,639 Israelis suffered injuries.”
At the protest there was a row of black boxes representing coffins and the names of children killed, and some people carried ‘bloodstained’ bundles representing dead children
Three people came to wave Israeli flags across the road and were led away for safety by police.
Earlier one of the Palestinian protesters had tried to seize one of the flags and was dragged away by police. At the end of the rally opposite Downing St some of the protesters marched around London and I went with them as far as Trafalgar Square where I had another event to cover.
Syria Chemical Massacre Anniversary – Trafalgar Square
A rally marked a year after the Ghouta massacre of 21/08/2013 when Assad regime forces outraged the world by using Sarin gas, killing 1,477 residents including over 400 children in this Damascus suburb. The world failed to act against Assad.
One man was wearing wolf head with bloody hands and placard ‘I AM CHEMICAL BASHAR AL ASSAD AND ONE YEAR ON I AM STILL GASSING SYRIAN CHILDREN. THANK YOU FOR UN VETO’
After an hour-long rally in Trafalgar Square the protesters, who were mainly Syrians, marched along the pavements to Richmond Terrace, opposite Downing St, where they laid flowers in memory of the dead.
Tamils protest Sri Lankan rapes & killing – Downing St
Also present when I returned to Downing St were Tamils protesting over the continuing genocide of the Tamil nation, calling for a UN investigation and referendum on Tamil Eelam.
Placards called for an end to the use of rape to destroy their nation and sexual violence against children.
Ministry of Justice cleaners protest – 2018 Four years ago today we were in some ways in a very different place. For one thing it was pouring with rain on Thursday 9th of August and for another Labour’s Shadow Justice Minister had no doubts about coming to join a picket line as United Voices of the World cleaners and supporters celebrated the end of their 3-day strike with a rally outside the Ministry of Justice in Petty France with a lively protest despite pouring rain.
But in other ways it was depressingly similar. We still have a Tory government that was determined to ignore the needs of the poor and low paid – and Boris Johnson is still prime minister, if not for long. But whichever of the two candidates wins to succeed him, the country is bound to lose, with the wealthy getting wealthier and the rest of us suffering.
Class War and others had come to support the strikers
And of course in some ways things have got worse. We have now left the EU and are slowing finding out what a terrible deal was negotiated, largely thanks to a combative approach rather than trying to work with Europe to reach sensible solutions – and in part because of the overriding political need to “get things done” rather than read the small print.
A cleaner is waiting for a back operation for a work injury – NHS underfunding and privatision mean long waits
And we’ve had Covid, most of us several times, with a failure to take sensible actions in time that led to thousands of extra deaths, saved from being far worse by a successful vaccination programme with at last some competent planning and hard work beyond their duties particularly by NHS workers and many volunteers. But Covid also led to huge waste of public money in contracts awarded to mates of the Tory party who too often failed to deliver – or even didn’t really exist.
Leaflets tell workers leaving the Ministry of Justice why the cleaners are striking
The protest in August 2018 marked the end of a three day strike by United Voices of the World cleaners at the Ministry of Justice, but also at Kensington & Chelsea council and hospitals and outpatient clinics in London run by Health Care America. At all three workplaces they were demanding the London Living Wage and better conditions of employment.
UVW’s Petros Elia tried to take protesters in out of the pouring raid but is stopped by security
It seemed impossible to believe that workers at the Ministry of Justice should not be paid the London Living Wage. The LLW was introduced in 2002 following an initiative by the London Citizens coalition and was taken up by the Mayor of London and was calculated by the Greater London Authority until 2016. A UK Living Wage was also established in 2011. The levels are now calculated based on the real cost of living by the Living Wage Foundation, with the 2022 London Living Wage being £11.05 per hour, and the UK Living wage £9.90.
I’m getting soaked taking pictures – and Susanna from the UVW holds up an umbrella over me
In the 2015 budget, Tory Chancellor George Osborne announced a ‘National Living Wage’, replacing the earlier National Minimum Wage and almost certainly intended to counter the success of the living wage campaigns, setting the amount at a lower level. Currently this is £9.50 – even in London where it is £1.55 less than the real living wage.
Speeches continue in the pouring rain under umbrellas
While a considerable number of employers do now pay a real living wage, others still fail to do so. Too many hide from meeting the obligation to give their staff a living wage and decent conditions of service by outsourcing low paid workers to contracting companies, who usually stick to the basic minimum of legal conditions and pay, while all decent employers give significantly greater benefits and the living wage.
The rain slackens off for Richard Burgon to speak
Shadow Justice minister Richard Burgon came to support the workers and brought a message from then Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who promised that a Labour government would end the outsourcing of low paid jobs. Since Keir Starmer became leader, Labour’s policies have changed, and ministers who stand with workers are liable to be sacked. It now seems to be the Labour party only in name.
American healthcare companies have now taken over even more of our health facilities, and earlier this year the High Court dismissed a legal challenge against the takeover by Operose Health, a subsidiary of American health insurance giant Centene, of GP practices in London. This is a significant stealth privatisation of part of the NHS, with Centene now running 58 GP services.
Privatised GP practices generally have failed to employ permanent doctors and rely instead on locum provided care, which greatly reduces the quality of service. Takeovers like this have also meant many doctors leaving the profession early – and we are currently short of 9,000 GPs.
And the protest ends with dancing in the street
You can read more about the protest which was supported by other groups including Class War in My London Diary Ministry of Justice cleaners protest.
PPolice & Public Sector March, 4,000 Days of the Parliament Square Peace Campaign approaches – some of my pictures from Thursday 10th May 2012.
Police March Against Cuts and Winsor – Westminster
Occupy supporters in plastic helmets joined the police march
An estimated 20,000 police from all 43 forces in England & Wales marched through central London in protest at 20% cuts in police budget and proposed restructuring following the Winsor review. Occupy, Right To Protest and others joined in to protest for justice in policing.
Police are not allowed to strike or belong to a proper trade union, but the Police Federation can organise demonstrations like this when thousands of off-duty police, some with family members made a impressively large if rather dull protest past the Home Office, the Houses of Parliament and Downing St. Most wore one of the 16,000 black caps produced for the protest, the number of officers expected to be lost over the next four years as the police budget is cut by 20-30%.
Police officers attempt to intimidate the Space Hijackers
Like other public sector workers, police had suffered a two year wage freeze, as well as increases in pension contributions and many have also had large cuts in overtime. As well as those protesting, police were also on duty controlling the protest, though it was unlikely to get out of hand. But there were others as well as police, including the Space Hijackers who had a stall giving advice on how to protest, and also Occupy protesters who were calling for “a fully, Publicly funded, democratically accountable Police force who’s aims and objectives enshrine the right to peaceful Protest in some sort of People’s Charter!”
Others were there to protest against various aspects of police corruption and faced some aggravation from the officers on duty as well as some protesters. The Defend The Right To Protest group reminded police marchers of Alfie Meadows, Sean Rigg, Ian Tomlinson, Jean Charles de Menezes and many others killed or seriously injured by police officers. Officers on duty made some attempts to intimidate some of the non-police protesters – and also photographers covering the event.
Public Sector Pensions Strike and March – St Thomas’ Hospital to Westminster
Public sector workers in Unite, PCS and UCU were on a one-day strike against cuts in pensions, jobs and services, and picketed workplaces and marched from a rally at St Thomas’ Hospital across Westminster Bridge to Methodist Central Hall for a further rally.
PCS picket at Tate Britain
Some of the pickets had begun at 5am, and a few were still in place as I walked past workplaces in Westminster – including the Houses of Parliament to meet the marchers coming over Westminster Bridge.
As they marched, many chanted “Sixty-eight – is TOO Late”, as retirement age is set to increase to 68 and beyond, while retirement contributions are increasing. They are also losing out because the government has decided to index pensions to the lower CPI inflation figures which mans they get around 15-20% less. Over 94% of Unite’s NHS members voted to reject the government’s proposals and take strike action today along with members from the Ministry of Defence and government departments as well as others from the PCS and UCU.
4000 Days in Parliament Square – Parliament Square Peace Campaign
Brian Haw came to Parliament Square to begin his protest there on the 2nd June 2001, and the Parliament Square Peace Campaign he started had been there for almost 4,000 days, with a presence night and day, 24 hours a day since then.
Barbara Tucker
After Brian’s death from cancer the protest was continued by Barbara Tucker and other supporters who have maintained the protest on those various occasions when Brian or Barbara was arrested and held overnight. Over the years the campaign has been subjected to frequent illegal harassment by police officers, Westminster Council officials and thinly disguised members of the security service, and laws have been enacted intended to bring the protest to an end.
A few hours before I arrived, police had come and spent 90 minutes “searching” the few square meters of their display in the early morning, and three days later, at 2.30am on Sunday 13 May, police and Westminster Council came and took away the two blankets that Barbara Tucker, no longer allowed to have any “structure designed solely or mainly to sleep in” by law was using to survive in the open. Clearly a blanket is not a structure, and police and council have also removed other items of property. Later her umbrella was also taken away. Barbara’s health deteriorated and she eventually had to leave the square, and the protest finally ended early in May 2013.
A Threatened Hospital, Riverside Walk, Syria & Mali – pictures from nine years ago on February 15th 2013.
Fight to Save Lewisham Hospital Continues
My work began at a lunchtime rally opposite Lewisham Hospital where the whole local community is fighting to save their hospital with both a legal challenge and further mass demonstrations including a ‘Born in Lewisham Hospital’ protest a few weeks later. Parts of the hospital across the main road are in the picture.
People were appalled by then Health Minister Jeremy Hunt’s decision to accept the proposals for closure, and to ignore the mass protests by local residents. Not only are the proposals medically unsound and will lead to patient deaths, but they also represent short-term thinking that will result in a huge waste of public funds.
Lewisham was a sucessful and financially sound hospital and had received sensible public investment to provide up to date services, and the services to be cut will have to be set up again at other hospitals. Closing Lewisham would not only incur high costs, but would waste the previous investment in its facilities.
Closure was only considered because of huge debts inherited when it was merged into a group which had earlier made a disastrous PFI (private finance initiative) agreement to build a new hospital a few miles away. Both the hospital group and Jeremy Hunt had been shown to be telling lies about the scope and cost of the replacement A&E and maternity facilities which would be needed if Lewisham were closed.
The well-attended protest was organised by the Save the Lewisham Hospital campaign which was raising funds for a legal challenge as well as a new poster and leaflet campaign and the forthcoming mass demonstration. But this was not just a campaign for Lewisham, but one that is vital for the whole of the NHS. Behind the speakers was a banner for the South-East London ‘Save Our Local NHS Hospitals’ campaign quoting Nye Bevan: ‘The NHS will last as long as there are folk left with the faith to fight for it.‘ They certainly had the faith in Lewisham.
I had some time to spare between protests and it was a nice day, around 10 degrees warmer than we’d been having and sunny, so I decided to take a bus to North Greenwich and walk along the Thames Path, having heard that parts of it had re-opened. The weather changed a little and there were some dramatic skies.
There is still a section of the walk that is closed, a giant building site where Delta Wharf once was up to Drawdock Road, but on each side of this the walk is open. although the council sign on the footpath leading from Tunnel Avenue still indicates it is closed. At the river the path north is blocked, but you can walk south to Greenwich.
A panorama – the same path in opposite directions at both sides
At first the walk goes alongside a giant manmade landscape of sand and gravel, like some alien planet – and behind the conical hills the Dome and the gas holder, with occasional lighting towers and cranes add to the scene. Most of this is behind tall fences, but fortunately these have gaps between the posts allowing you to see and photograph. Years ago the path here went through a working container dock, the Victoria Deep Water Terminal, with yellow lines marking the route, though occasionally it was blocked by crane operations, and we waited rather than have heavy containers overhead. There are a couple of my pictures of this and others from the riverside path in the 1980s on my London’s Industrial Heritage site.
Beyond there the riverside path seems rather empty, with many structures having dissappeared, including the huge concrete silo I photographed. But something new has appeared, ‘guerilla knitting’ on some of the trees and posts along the path.
It was the 10th anniversary of the march by 2 million against the Iraq war, Stop the War organised a small protest at Downing St calling for a stop to Western intervention in Mali and Syria and against the possible attack on Iran.
Many on the left feel that the failure of that huge protest to actually prevent the UK taking part in the invasion of Iraq showed a failure in the leadership of Stop The War to make any quick and efffective action to follow it up. Stop The War have also failed to convince the public at large with their more recent campaigns against intervention in Libya and now against the support being given to the Free Syrians and the Mali government. As the upper picture shows there were some supporters of the Assad regime, from a small left group, the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist), taking part in the protest. Almost certainly the great majority of supporters of Stop The War while against UK military intervention would like to see more support being given in other ways to the Syrian rebels.
On Sunday 13th 2005, 17 years ago, London was celebrating the Chinese New Year of the Rooster which started the previous Wednesday – it was 4072.
Chinese New Year in Soho is something I’ve avoided in more recent years – as I wrote in 2005: “I used to enjoy the rather anarchic celebrations in Chinatown, but it’s now more of an ordeal, with far too many people coming in to watch and too much organisation.”
Trying to photograph in such crowded situations was a problem, and one I confronted in two main ways in 2005, something reflected in the two pictures above. At the top is a picture taken standing back some distance with a telephoto lens, while the lower picture is taken with a fisheye lens, both on a Nikon D70 DX camera.
De-fished version
Usually now when I use the a fisheye lens like this, I would convert the perspective to give straight verticals – as in the above image. But back in 2005 I didn’t have a good plug-in to do this conversion, and although it was possible with various programmes I was using for making panoramas it was a rather time-consuming process.
For this particular event I rather liked the fisheye effect, at least in some pictures. Although it does clearly misrepresent those faces close to the edges of the picture, for me it pulls the eye towards the centre of the picture and perhaps gives a greater impression of the crowding I was working in.
A small problem is that the image you see in the viewfinder is the fisheye one, and not that in the ‘de-fished’ version. But as you can see, the fisheye image which you see has the same horizontal limits at the centre of both the horizontal and vertical sides, with just a little of the image towards the four corners being lost. It’s still possible to frame accurately when working.
It’s not I think correct to call the effect of the fisheye lens ‘distortion’. It is simply a different way of recording the subject on a flat rectangle. Most fisheyes I’ve used (and I own four different examples, for DX and full-frame Nikon, for Fuji and for micro 4/3) seem actually to have rather less actual distortion than my ultra-wide rectilinear (i.e. ‘normal’) lenses.
In the de-fished image you can see that as well as the verticals of the building being straight, people at the edges of the picture are also shown naturally, unlike in the fisheye version. I was also taking some pictures with an ultra-wide 12-24mm lens (equivalent to 18-36mm full-frame) and with that at its widest faces at the edge would have been rendered a little stretched out horizontally.
I’m not sure what some major agencies would make of conversions using software like this, whether they would regard it as an unacceptable alteration of the image. For me its just one of many acceptable corrections of the image, but clearly it does alter the image as recorded by the camera. It would be possible to design a specialised wide-angle camera which carried out the correction in firmware but the market for this would probably be small. Rather it could be provided into normal digital cameras as an option – far more useful than all those special effects which clutter the menus on many cameras now.
More pictures on My London Diary – scroll down a little from the top of the page.
Although the title of this post is ‘More St John’s Wood’, my walks were not constrained by local authority boundaries but often by more important physical restraints, here the main west coast railway line from Euston, and I walked beyond the St John’s Wood boundary a little into South Hampstead or Swiss Cottage.
I can find out little about Hillgrove Estate designed by Peacock, Hodges and Robertson for the LCC around 1960 and inherited by Camden following the local government reorganisation in that decade. This piece of sculpture is not on the list of public art in Camden and unfortunately I failed to record any details of it when I made this picture in 1988 if any were available then. Perhaps someone seeing this will be able to give details in a comment.
7, Boundary Rd, St John’s Wood, Westminster, 1988 88-7g-65
This stucco detached villa dating from the 1840s is only Grade II listed for its ‘group value’, one of quite a number of similar properties in the area, though distinguished for me by its two substantial eagles on top of very substantial gate posts. The house next door, shown in the next few pictures, was much more remarkable.
Boundary Road, as its name suggests, marks a boundary, now between the City of Westminster – which includes St John’s Wood – and the London Borough of Camden, with this and other properties on its south side being in St John’s Wood. It was once a farm track on the boundary between two estates.
Alhambra Cottage, Boundary Rd, St John’s Wood, Westminster, 1988 88-7g-66
Alhambra Cottage is at 9 Boundary Rd certainly one of the most remarkable houses in London, a Grade II listed detached villa in a very detailed Islamic style and I made a number of photographs from the road outside. Later in 2011it was one of the buildings whose garden I photographed for the ‘Secret Gardens of St John’s Wood‘ project initiated by Mireille Galinou of the Queens Terrace Café and shown there in November 2011.
Alhambra Cottage, Boundary Rd, St John’s Wood, Westminster, 1988 88-7g-53
Another view of Alhambra Cottage.
Alhambra Cottage, Boundary Rd, St John’s Wood, Westminster, 1988 88-7g-54
I’m surprised not to find more information about this cottage online. Possibly the interest in the Alhambra may have been stimulated by the writing of American author Washington Irving who visited the Alhambra in 1828 and published his Tales of the Alhambra in 1832 and the lithographs of John Frederick Lewis, who became known as ‘Spanish’ Lewis published three years later.
At this time of year perhaps I should also mention that it was Irving who first put Santa (or rather St. Nicholas) flying over the rooftops at Christmas.
Loudon Rd area, St John’s Wood, Westminster, 1988 88-7g-42
This Grade II listed semi-detached house dates from the 1840s, but was altered in the mid-19th century. ‘An Englishman’s home is his castle‘ and this seemed to epitomise the proverb, with its castellated tower and sturdy gate. All that was lacking was a drawbridge.
Carlton Hill area, St John’s Wood, Westminster, 1988 88-7g-44
And finally before I left the area, another house with a tower, somewhere on my wandering between the junction of Abbey Road and Blenheim Rd and FInchley Rd. I took a few more pictures on my way south through St John’s Wood, but none are online.
Click on any of the images above to go to a larger version in my album 1988 London Photos, from where you can browse the album.
On December 19th 2018, tempers were still running high over Brexit, and I had been photographing extreme Brexiteers shouting at and threatening Steven Bray and other pro-Europeans as they continued their daily vigil outside parliament.
The protests across lunchtime seemed to be drawing to a close when I noticed the small group of extremists interviewing a bizarrely-dressed blogger outside the public entrance to the Houses of Parliament and went across to take some pictures.
Then they saw Anna Soubry, then the Conservative MP for Broxtowe, on the west edge of Nottingham and a vocal pro-European walking past and confronted her. She stopped to talk and argue with them, and they angrily shouted at her. She called to a police officer nearby for support, but he simply told the protesters to stop and ignored them when they failed to do so. Eventually after a minute or so she managed to turn away and walk past more police into Parliament, and officers then prevented the Brexiteers from following her.
I filed the pictures rather more rapidly than usual to meet deadlines as I realised that I was the only photographer present (though at least one of the extremists was filming the confrontation) and was pleased to see a few of them in the papers later. Though had I been with a more active agency I would have made much more from the set.
Extremist Brexiteers at parliament
Here are a couple of the pictures from a few minutes earlier outside the gates of Parliament.
Police were holding them back as they tried to stop cars leaving through the gates.
Extreme Brexiteers clash with SODEM
Earlier the group of extremist Brexiteers had been harassing Steven Bray and the supporters of SODEM, (Stand of Defiance European Movement) the group he founded in 2017 and which was holding daily vigils whenever Parliament was in session.
They accused Bray of being a drunk and asked “Who funds Drunk Steve”, a question that was rather redundant as two large banners were covered with logos of a wide range of organisations supporting SODEM’s daily pickets. There was a lot of shouting, threats and aggressive gestures, but no actual violence with police trying with little success to separate the two groups.
I’d photographed both groups on previous occasions, and had given up on going specially to photograph them, but was still taking pictures when I had gone up to cover other events – as on this Wednesday. SODEM were always pleased to be photographed, but their opposition at times objected to my presence.
MP welcomes Delhi to London driver
Another event that happened while I was there was the arrival of The Turban Traveller, a Sikh with a film crew from Creative Concept Films in Delhi who arrived in London today after driving overland from Delhi and was greeted by Virendra Sharma, Labour MP for Ealing Southall.
Cuts kill disabled people say protesters
But I had come to Parliament to photograph disability groups DPAC (Disabled People Against Cuts) and MHRN (Mental Health Resistance Network) who together with WOW campaign were protesting against the cumulative impact of the cuts on the lives of disabled people.
The War on Welfare campaign attracted over 200,000 signatures to its petitions against welfare cuts, and the protest was in support of a debate due later in the day on the cumulative impact of the cuts on the lives of disabled people.
Among those who came to speak with the protesters was Virendra Sharma MP, who had come out to meet the Sikh overland traveller and although showing an interest seemed to be unaware of the problems the cuts had caused the disabled, Laura Pidcock (then MP for North West Durham) and Lib-Dem peer Lord Roberts of Llandudno. Both the latter seemed very concerned about the terrible effect the various cuts falling particularly on the disabled.
Marlborough Place, St John’s Wood, Westminster, 1988 88-7e-14
More from St John’s Wood – and this next photograph is of the entrance to a large detached house at 38 Marlborough Place, St John’s Wood, where a blue plaque informs us that ‘THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY 1825-1895 Biologist Lived Here’.
Huxley was born into a middle-class family in Ealing, but when the school at which his father taught mathematics closed the family were plunged into poverty, and he had to leave school aged 10, only two years after his education had begun. But he determined to teach himself, and did so with great effect, becoming one of the most knowledgeable men in Britain over a very wide range of subjects, and probably the leading specialist in comparative anatomy of his era.
But he is now best-known for his defence of Charles Darwin whose theory of evolution published in On the Origin of Species aroused considerable controversy, particular from religious figures, and Huxley’s defence of Darwin in an 1860 Oxford public debate with Bishop “Soapy Sam” Samuel Wilberforce (one of William’s sons) led to him being nicknamed after his death as ‘Darwin’s Bulldog’.
The door to the street from the covered path to the front door was open, allowing me to stand outside and take this picture showing the path and canopy as well as the mosaic on the flooring.
Marlborough Place, St John’s Wood, Westminster, 1988 88-7e-15
I moved back a few feet and a smidgeon to my left to take another picture of the house, which gives a better idea of the covered path to the street and also shows the plaque for Huxley.
In 1988 this was the Marlborough Family Service of the Bloomsbury Health Authority, a pioneering institution for child-protection cases, school-based interventions and family therapy, founded here by Dr Joshua Bierer in 1946 as the Marlborough Day Hospital, the first social psychotherapy centre in the world. It seems to have been closed and sold off around 2018.
Marlborough Place, St John’s Wood, Westminster, 1988 88-7f-63
The door to the front garden at 59 Marlborough Place was shut, so I couldn’t see inside, but the gateposts has two rather grand eagles still present. This property, built in around 1840 was extensively refurbished in 2013 and you can see a large set of pictures on the web. It sold in 2016 for £14,900,000.
The Grade II listing has a very lengthy text and describes it as “good example of the early mid-C19 semi-detached villas erected on the Eyre Estate, are of special architectural interest on account of their early semi-detached format and their architectural form and detailing expressed on their front elevations.”
The listing text also mentions that between around 1950 and 1990 it was divided into four flats, one of which was for some time the home of composer Benjamin Britten.
Abbey Rd, St John’s Wood, Westminster, 1988 88-7f-23
This Grade II listed Tudor Gothic detached house at 48 Abbey Road dates from around 1840.
Carlton Hill area , St John’s Wood, Westminster, 1988 88-7f-31
The doorway of another house in a similar stye in the area, possibly in Carlton Hill.
New London Synagogue, Abbey Rd, St John’s Wood, Westminster, 1988 88-7f-22
Just around the corner in Abbey Road is the New London Synagogue.
This was the site of the first Jewish community to be established in 1876 by the new United Synagogue which had been formed in 1870; the permanent building for St. John’s Wood (United) Synagogue, now Grade II listed, was opened in 1882. Its architect Hyman Henry Collins, the City of London District Surveyor, designed eight synagogues in London, but all but this have been demolished.
St John’s Wood gained large Jewish population when people moved out of the East End in the 1930s and 1950s, but in 1964 the congregation had closed and the building was being sold off for demolition. It was saved when followers of Rabbi Dr Louis Jacobs who had been refused employment in the United Synagogue’s New West End Synagogue due to allegations of heresy secretly formed a shell company to buy it. They set up a new congregation with him as rabbi, the first in what became known as the Masorti movement in the UK.
