Yesterday's Royal Parks
press launch of revamped landscaping at Speakers' Corner offered a
refreshing spectacle: a senior politician (Secretary of State for
Culture Media and Sport Sajid Javid MP) attempting to face down two
experienced Hyde Park regulars angry at a lack of consultation over
changes to their Sunday afternoon meeting place. He didn't stand a
chance.
Face-to-face argument,
rarely possible between governors and governed, is what the place is
about, and this one took place in front of the TV cameras. Tony
Allen and Heiko Khoo, who have been speaking in the park since 1978
and 1986 respectively, heckled Javid mercilessly through out his
brief speech, and then confronted Royal Parks senior management
(above). The Hyde Park speakers are a hard bunch to organise, but
there is resentment at the noise from the rock gigs held throughout
the summer on the nearby field, the cycle lane that runs through the
concrete area on which speakers and crowds currently gather, the lack
of toilets, and the failure to screen out traffic noise from the
Marble Arch roundabout.
A small temporary
exhibition, visible as the backdrop to the bespoke wooden soapboxes
from which Royal Parks CEO Linda Lennon CBE and the Secretary of
State addressed the assembled media (below), included material from
the Sounds
From The Park archive, and pictures from my Speakers
Cornered project, so as well as being hugely entertained, I got
to photograph my own photographs in the place they were originally
taken.
