my london diary index
 

january
february
march

All pictures Copyright © Peter Marshall 2020, all rights reserved.
High res images available for reproduction - for licences to reproduce images or buy prints or other questions and comments,contact me.
Selected images are also available from My Alamy pages

Other sites with my pictures include
london pictures
londons industrial history
hull photos
lea valley / river lea
and at my
>Re:PHOTO blog you can read
my thoughts on photography.

  


My London Diary on hold

March 2020

I don't know when I will be able to travel freely again and continue taking pictures.

For various reasons, largely because I have so many other things that need to be done while I still can, I have been wondering for some time when and how to bring 'My London Diary' to a conclusion.

The Coronavirus COVID-19 has halted virtually all events in London and as someone at high risk because of both my age and my medical condition as an insulin-dependent diabetic I am now in virtual self-isolation until the current pandemic abates. Who knows if and when I will be able to continue.

I could post pictures from my 'isolated walks', some on my own and some with my wife, but although I have put some earlier walks on line here, without protests and other events this site would be very different.

International Women's Day block Oxford St

Oxford St, London. Sun 8 Mar 2020

Claudia from the UVW blows a whistle on the march to Oxford St
more pictures

London Women's Strike Assembly gathers at Cavendish Square to march to Oxford St in solidarity with sisters and siblings across the world who face exploitation and violence from a system meant to silence and oppress.

Many were from some of London's ethnic communities and grass roots trade unionists. While celebreties marched along Whitehall to a rally in Parliament Square, they took part in a livlier and considerably more political event.

From a brief rally in Cavendish Square they marched to Oxford St for their main rally and a free clothes swap, stopping the traffic for the event. Police arrived 3/4 hour later but were too few to have any effect and the protest was continuing with a large group of women performing the Chilean anti-rape anthem and blocking both carriageways blocked when I left.
more pictures

Fortress Europe Greek Embassy protest

Greek Embassy, London. Sat 7 Mar 2020
'Killing Refugees is a Heinous Crime' read some of the posters at the protest
more pictures

Protesters opposite the Greek Embassy called on the EU to end its policy of closing borders to those most in need and to demand justice for refugees.

The protest came after videos showed Greek coastguard officers trying to capsize a boat full of refugees at sea and others with right-wing fascist thugs attacking refugees.

The situation has worsened since Turkey recently opened their border with Greece. The EU had come to an agreement with Turkey in 2016 restricting the movement of refugees to Europe that the UNHCR and many NGOs says violates international law.
more pictures

Brixton Rally says end deportations

Brixton Market, London. Sat 7 Mar 2020
The Home Office was stopped from deporting this man by legal action
more pictures

Movement for Justice and Lambeth Black Workers held a rally in Brixton Market calling for the Home Office to end charter flights to deport immigrants and close detention centres.

One detainee who was refused medical treatment for a broken ankle for several days by detention centre staff spoke over a phone link and a man who the courts had ruled could not be deported told in person how he was taken in a van to the airport and held in it for 14 hours in a compartment only just large enough for him to stand.

Protests and legal action had saved over half of those selected from deportation on the most recent charter flight to Jamaica. Shortly after this protest a long-delayed report on the Home Office and its handling of Windrush families was released. Although the words 'institutional racism' were censored from an earlier version it remained a damning indictment of racism by the Home Office over immigration issues, showing clearly that it was institutionally racist. Unfortunately it seems unlikely that this will change under the current government, who are clearly committed to bringing in more racist immigration controls as a part of Brexit.
more pictures

Million Women Rise 2020

Oxford St, London. Sat 7 Mar 2020
Some women wore masks with the names of women murdered in Turkey
more pictures

Hundreds of women meet for an all-women march against male violence through Central London to a rally in Trafalgar Square.

Among those present were many from London's Latin American and Turkish/Kurdish communities as well as from anti-rape and other womens' groups around the country.

I left as the march was about to start to go elsewhere, and as men are not welcome during the march and rally.
more pictures

Uniqlo Cheat Indonesian garment workers

Oxford St, London. Sat 7 Mar 2020
CEO Tadashi Yanai holds a poster 'I Don't Care About Garment Workers'
more pictures

People from the Clean Clothes Campaign and Labour Behind the Label protest outside the Uniqlo flagship store in Oxford St against Japanese fast fashion company Uniqglo which is cheating workers who made clothes it sold.

The protest featured a man wearing a giant head of CEO Tadashi Yanai, the 31st richest person in the world who explained how he got rich by not paying 2,000 Indonesian women garment workers who made clothes which were sold in Uniqlo after their factory went bankrupt in 2015. The workers have not been paid for making them.

Their legally required severance pay is $5.5million and most have been unable to find other work and are living in dire poverty. The protest called for him to pay up the debt to the workers of the Jaba Garmindo factory.
more pictures

Staines Walk

Staines, Middx. Sun 1 Mar 2020

A former gravel pit in late afternoon sun
more pictures

We went for a short walk as the sun went down.

I'd been too tired after several busy days to go out to photograph events and had been sitting in front of a computer most of the day and needed to get some fresh air.

Staines is in the borough of Spelthorne, an area which should have become part of Greater London in 1985 but local conservatives from the posher end of the area revolted against the idea of being joined with Hounslow and instead it became a part of Surrey. Though never real Surrey, and it is still often forgotten by those who run Surrey.

I think the borough is roughly two-thirds water, with rivers including the Thames (usually its south and west boundary) and Colne, huge reservoirs and many worked out gravel pits. It's cheaper for the gravel companies not to reclaim these but to leave them for various other 'uses', often completely disused. Some close to the centre of Staines are now a nature park, and we walked through this between the lakes.

We had meant to go under the Staines Bypass and walk across a field to Moor Lane, but found this field was waterlogged, and instead took a shorter route along a metalled path towards Moor Lane, leaving it shortly before there to go down a footpath to Vicarage Lane and then across to Church St. By the time we reached there the sun had gone down and it was getting dark.
more pictures


London Images

Mar 2020

 Trafalgar Square

 Parliament Square

Full Moon

I took very few pictures except those of the few events I went up to London to photograph - and have only these three I'll share with you, the last of the moon taken as I reached home.

   top of page

All pictures on this site are Copyright © 1999-2019 Peter Marshall ; all rights reserved.
for licences to reproduce pictures or to buy prints or comment on the work,

contact me

Payment may be waived for acceptable non-profit use by unfunded bodies.
But organisations that pay any staff should also pay photographers.

 

Site search: powered by FreeFind