Two years later, the paper put me in a retainer for two days a week. I was earning very little money – 15 guineas a week – but I was gaining a lot of knowledge about England. I was sent to every corner, to cover coal strikes, by-elections, anti-fascist rallies, nuclear demonstrations. I learned how to watch the action. You knew one event followed another. Sooner or later someone would become very annoying. You kept your eyes open, looking for the next move: an arrest, a fight. It became a natural way of thinking and working and moving. In those days I was very quick on my feet – as quick as a greyhound. I had this desire to follow world events very closely. Although I am a poor reader and suffer from dyslexia, I undertook – and still do – to buy the newspapers every day. I would scan every last word, looking for trouble at home and abroad. Then I would try to go there. Over time I have come to see my photographs as a form of protest – particularly against the celebration of the evil that is war, because I have spent much of my career documenting conflict. But this was not always so. The photo is very exciting. If you think you’ve got that picture – that you’ve got the composition right and your exposure is right – that’s a reward in itself. The most exciting thing for me was always seeing my name under a printed photo. Saffiyah Khan engages with EDL protester Ian Crossland in Birmingham in 2017. Photo: Joe Giddens/PA But my work was not easy mentally. You never know what effect seeing pain and suffering might have on you – but you just hope that your images will have an effect on the public and move people to protest against the terrible things in the world. I take no comfort in that because I wish they didn’t have to take the pictures, didn’t have to remind us of the occasional ugliness of man – and it’s always men. Women don’t cause these wars. My photo of the man in Whitehall was for the Observer. I was sent to cover an anti-nuclear demonstration in Trafalgar Square during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The man had escaped the crowd and descended into Whitehall – the seat of power. The police set up a line outside the street very quickly, knowing that other protesters would follow. Subscribe to our Inside Saturday newsletter for an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the making of the magazine’s biggest features, as well as a curated list of our weekly highlights. Looking at the picture now, I find it amusing. You see all these pretty serious cops, but one or two are smiling slightly. The man, who I never got to talk to, looks pretty lonely sitting with his placard. In those days – here at least – there was still a political approach to the demonstration. Today the man can crack his head open or be sprayed with CS gas. Protests around the world turn violent: people are gassed and shot. The police are particularly disliked, and with good reason – think of the vigil for Sarah Everard in 2021 on Clapham Common and the way women were handcuffed and forced to the ground. Its a shame. I wonder if seeing what’s going on helps or changes anything. But I still find it tragic that we don’t see so many images of these events in the media anymore. I worry that they are denying us the truth. We must continue to pay attention and protest for a better world. As told to Gabrielle Schwarz
Patrick Hutchinson carries a counter-protester to safety, 2020
Photo: Dylan Martinez/Reuters “It was instantaneous,” Hutchinson says of the day he carried a drunken right-wing protester to safety during a Black Lives Matter protest in London. “I was thinking the worst that could happen to him, but I was also thinking that the BLM movement was being derailed by something like this tarnishing its name.” The young BLM protesters “would have been reviled” if they had hurt Bryn Male, the retired transit police officer. Little did Hutchinson realize at the time that his act would be shared around the world. “I didn’t think about it at all. I’m a little older than a lot of people who were there, I don’t take out my phone and record everything I see.” But then, when the photo was published, she realized, “Oh, yeah, it’s going to go everywhere.” It was a strange experience, but not a bad one. “It felt really good,” Hutchinson says. “I got messages from all over the world, from thousands of people, saying it gave them hope.” He even received messages from people involved in the far right saying his actions made them think about their own beliefs and “the people they hang out with”. She became a celebrity: an interview with GQ, a book deal and a meeting with Prince Harry followed. Today, Hutchinson runs his own fitness and martial arts business and does activism and community work with the organization he founded with the friends who were with him that day, United to Change and Inspire. And he still likes the picture. “I’m really, really proud of it. When I’m long gone, my grandkids will be able to point to it and say, “That’s my grandpa.”
Activists occupy trees to protest the Newbury Bypass, 1996
Photo: Andrew Testa/Panos In the 1990s, environmental protests swept Britain. Here, campaigners protest the construction of the Newbury bypass in Berkshire – hundreds of acres of woodland were cleared for it. Activist Swampy, AKA Dan Hooper, quickly became the face of the movement. He was the subject of fascination for the tabloids, who reported on everything from his love life to his possession of magic mushrooms to his relationship with his parents. “It made my life a little weird for a while,” he recalls, so much so that he refused all interviews and disappeared from the public eye. Now, however, he believes that “we need the media a little bit.” Back then, the whole country watched the drama when Swampy was chased out of tunnels or trees, and environmental issues found a wider (if often hostile) audience as a result. “Now I look back on it and think, wow, if it made any difference, then it was worth it.” FB
Toppling the Edward Colston statue, 2020
Photo: Ben Birchall/PA “The people we put on pedestals should be inspirational, people we should literally and figuratively look up to,” says Rhian Graham. She is one of four defendants charged with criminal damage for their role in toppling a statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol during an anti-racism demonstration on 7 June 2020. That wasn’t the only statue targeted that summer. The killing of George Floyd had sparked a wave of anti-racist protests around the world, and protesters often targeted monuments honoring colonial figures. But this image had a particularly strong impact. As Graham recalls: “It was a moment of victory where people were saying, ‘Colston and men like him are not representing Bristol today and they don’t deserve to be on a podium.’ The four were cleared of the charges by a jury earlier this year. Unused funds raised for the trial are distributed to anti-racism charities in Bristol. “Being found not guilty gave me faith in humanity again,” says Graham. But the attorney general has since taken the controversial decision to refer the case to the appeals court for legal clarification. The new police bill has a section that increases the maximum penalty for vandalizing a statue to 10 years in prison – a move Graham says “illuminates our government’s priorities and who the laws are designed to protect”. G.S
Embrace the Base, Greenham Common, 1982
Photo: PA Archive/PA Images The Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp, an anti-nuclear camp that ran from 1981 to 2000, was the largest women-led protest movement since the suffragettes. The most famous event at the camp was Embrace the Base: a protest on the first anniversary of NATO’s decision to store nuclear missiles at the RAF airfield in Berkshire. On December 12 and 13, 1982, more than 30,000 women gathered to join hands and surround Greenham’s nine-mile perimeter fence. “It was a really powerful moment because there were so many of us from all different walks of life,” recalls Angie Zelter, an environmental and human rights activist who attended Embrace the Base. The fact that they were all women was important, Zelter says, because it allowed them “a space to speak and act in their own way without being dominated by men, who tend to take the spotlight in a mixed group. Women felt safe to engage in non-violent direct action – they could cry freely, hold hands, show their vulnerability.” There was a heavy police presence on Greenham Common, with frequent raids, evictions and arrests. At Embrace the Base, Zelter says, horses were brought in to try to disperse the women: “I was very scared. At one point I was crying, but there were other women there who had gotten used to the horses, trying to calm them down.” Today he continues to campaign against nuclear weapons: “No matter what the so-called protest law says, we have a right to protest and we will continue to protest.” G.S
Bloody Sunday, 1972
Photo: Fulvio Grimaldi/courtesy Museum of Free Derry Fulvio Grimaldi was one of the few journalists present when British soldiers opened fire on protesters in Derry, killing 13 people. His image of panicked citizens carrying the body of teenage Jackie Dundee became the iconic image of the massacre. FB
