March from Hyde Park to Trafalgar Square, London, 19 March 2005

The purpose of these photographs in Piccadilly is to convey some idea of the size of the march - the numbers involved - and to show the organisations and the people taking part.

For this reason, the intention was to photograph every section of the march, from the start to the finish. The method adopted was to remain in a fixed position and to photograph the march as it went past that position. The position chosen was on Piccadilly opposite Green Park (outside a house that, according to its plaque, was formerly occupied by Lord Palmerston.) All the photographs in the march sequence were taken from that position except for the first one, taken from the pavement a few yards down the hill, and the last one a few yards further up the hill towards Green Park underground station, showing the fleet of cleaning vehicles and men with brooms that immediately followed the march.

Each photograph has a time stamp, indicating the time at which it was taken. The time taken for the march to pass by was about 68 minutes, from about 14:20, when the head of the march arrived, until about 15:28 when the police escorting the rear walked past. This period included a few intervals - some of several minutes - where the marchers were rather sparse - for example from about 14:45 until about 14:53. It also included times when the marchers made an exceptionally thick throng, for example around 14:55 as the percussion-playing section passed by.

Later in Trafalgar Square, I heard an announcement from the platform that there were 200,000 people on the march. Other related material available from Clarion are photographs of the demonstration in Trafalgar Square and a transcript of a speech made by George Galloway there. Directly after Galloway's speech there was an announcement from the platform which I quote verbatim from my recording:

A phone call from iraq just came through to the office of the muslim association of britain and the caller said we can see you on the tv through al jazeera channel and [recording unclear at this point, but probably nothing missing] sent to you a message saying thank you you are our voice. Thank you you are our voice.