Local weather Camp at Blackheath – Wednesday twenty sixth August 2009
On Wednesday 26 August 2009 I joined Local weather Campers who have been assembly at a number of areas round London to go to an as but unspecified location for that yr’s Local weather Camp.
I’d chosen to go together with the Blue Group who have been assembly at Stockwell Underground Station in south London, chosen as one of many beginning factors due to the occasions of twenty-two July 2005.
As I wrote again then, on “the escalator at Stockwell station it’s onerous to not shiver on the reminiscence of these movies displaying Jean Charles de Menezes strolling right down to catch his final prepare, and police coming although the gates in pursuit. There’s a memorial to him outdoors the station, together with quite a lot of details about the occasion and the misinformation and overlaying up by police.“
Arriving there I discovered round 80 Local weather Campers and half a dozen police being filmed and photographed by round 30 media and nothing very a lot taking place. It was like that for the following couple of hours, throughout which all of us went to a neighborhood park to have our sandwiches and a few performed video games.
Ultimately round 2pm we have been known as again to the station the place we adopted the chief who had a blue flag onto a prepare and off at Financial institution, the place all trooped to the DLR, alighting at Greenwich. From right here we trudged up the hill to Blackheath Frequent. Police have been preserving a low profile, watching from a distance.
After we arrived the location on the widespread was nonetheless being secured and a few individuals have been onerous at work erecting fences and very important assets – reminiscent of bogs. Authorized observers have been holding a gathering, however others have been simply making use of some snug furnishings on the location or listening to singers.
I attempted to {photograph} as many of those actions as I might.
In earlier years I’d had issues with Local weather Camp and particularly their media coverage. As I wrote “Press photographers visiting the location might be required to signal a media coverage that the majority of us would discover unacceptable and to be accompanied whereas on the location by a minder. (It may’t in fact apply to the police photographers of their helicopter or cherry picker.) The coverage seems to be pushed by a number of people with paranoid concepts about privateness and a very irrational concern of being photographed. It actually doesn’t steal your soul!“
On the Wednesday the camp was nonetheless being arrange and everybody had unfettered entry. However this yr in any case I’d really been invited to participate as a part of the media workforce for the camp – and on my later go to was supplied with a sash to establish me as such – although I did nonetheless come throughout a bit of of that paranoia even when sporting it.
However there have been additionally so many individuals I knew and others who recognised me from from different occasions that I felt very a lot at house strolling across the website. The primary downside I had was attempting to maintain shifting moderately than being drawn into prolonged conversations.
There was a gathering to welcome us all to the Local weather Camp, after which the preparations for the camp continued, with water provides being laid on, even baths plumbed in, numerous bigger tents being erected in addition to a big banner CAPITALISM IS CRISIS.
I had different issues to do on the Friday and Saturday, however was in a position to return for a day on the camp on the Saturday, to make a file of the camp’s actions and of the campers at work and play, in addition to among the guests who got here to see what was taking place. You may see my accounts and footage from each days on My London Diary.
Extra on My London Diary:
Local weather Camp: Blue Group Swoop
Local weather Camp: Setup
Local weather Camp: Saturday
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London’s Industrial Heritage – London Images
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Tags: armchairs, banners, baths, Blackheath, Blue Group, CAPITALISM IS CRISIS, Local weather Camp, Local weather Campers, local weather change, local weather disaster, fences, world warming, Jean Charles de Menezes, London, media coverage, media workforce, peter Marshall, police, protest, singers, sofas, Stockwell Station, swoop, bogs, tripods.
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