Mayday in London

Tagged as: social_struggles workers_struggles
Neighbourhoods: the_city

London Mayday does not draw the numbers it used to a few years back, when thousands roamed the streets. The spirit of Mayday was still there though at The Bank, with a Maypole and dancing and some familiar faces from the past.

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Greenman

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Drummers

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Maypole

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9/11 sign

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Dancing

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Brew up

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The FIT now have you on record for daring to dance

The theme this year was police repression and in keeping with its anti-authoritarian Mayday tradition the cops were derided by megaphone as they looked on from a distance, instead of trying to surround and contain everyone as they have done in the past. Maybe they held back because the gathering was on an island and not obstructing road traffic or maybe they have learned a valuable lesson from the recent G20 in London.

The dancing was led by three sound systems, two of them on cycle trailers. There was several fancy dresses with either a convict/police/arrestee theme or pagan style theme. One small group even brewed up tea over an open log fire!

Thanks to the Space Hijackers for organising the event and all who attended to make it so much fun.

 http://www.spacehijackers.org.uk/html/welcome.html

Video to follow.

Additions

More pics

My camera-phone pics of the day's events, from the traditional march to the party at the Bank:
http://twitpic.com/photos/donnachadelong

Video

Here is the video

http://london.indymedia.org.uk/videos/1319