There I Was, Photographing an Abandoned Car in Whitehall...

[DNG]

I can't wait to see some images from you London trip...
Nice to hear that the London "secret service"(?) have a good demeanor. (at least the ones that met up with you).

 

[JayGannon]

I must confess I carried a diplomatic passport when I was assigned to London in the '90's (wasn't on the diplomatic list; that's a different thing). I was going home on the Tube that night. An interesting evening. I have all respect for UK security folks, and an awareness of what keeps them up nights. I was struck by the professional approach of that officer versus what we are told are the histrionic reactions of some ordinary cops to photographers.

Jay: Didn't mean to challenge you. I've seen a lot of silly diplomatic behavior, and from a closer vantage point than the press line. 😉

Heh no no offense taken. The UK forces have been quiet for the last few months due to a very sternly worded letter sent to all of the Met stations and a Memo to all constables basically telling them to back off photographers and leave them alone. Then sectoin 44 was essentially repealed so now they have to have reasonable grounds that you are in the act of commiting terrorism offenses to use section 43 to stop and search. This was largely due to a concerted effort by photographers around London and the NUJ getting together and making a lot of noise in the news.
I remember a number of years ago a constable attempting to confiscate my Press Card because "I was giving him attitude" ended up in the local station and his seargent apologising profusely that the people on the beat were not trained enough in what the law actually allowed them to do and what it didin't (Press Cards can only be revoked after a hearning)

 

[Particular]

I was going home on the Tube that night. An interesting evening.

I arrived at Heathrow that afternoon, and just wanted to get back to my apartment in Shoreditch. I couldn't get any info about whether it was within the 500m zone that was being closed off. Needless to say, it took many hours to get home. Worse still, I had used up all but half a role of film on my trip, so I don't have any memorable shots relating to that event either.

 

[Alpacaman]

Mmmm. It is nice to read a security related thread that doesn't turn Orwellian half way through. Anyone know what happened to the car?

 

[John Lawrence]

I was living in London in the early '90's when the IRA, or a splinter group, fired homebrew mortars into Number 10. Is that the incident you're remembering?

Those 'homebrew mortars' landed just a short distance away from me!

John

 

[wgerrard]

Dan: I was photographing the Cenopath and the rest of the area. Just the usual tourist shots. It wasn't "some random car" but was, in fact, parked in the middle of the road with its grill a foot or so from the monument. The equivalent in the U.S would be someone parking their car on the Tomb of the Unknown at Arlington.

John: Glad they missed!

Alpaca: All I could learn is that the car's driver was found after the car was determined to pose no threat.

 

[Michael Markey]

A reasonable attitude goes a long way in these situations and you`ve always struck me as a reasonable sort ,Bill .
Start getting "shirty" with them and their demeanor changes rapidly.
Of course there`s no reason to argue but some people do.

 

[MartinP]

Not "Centopath", not "Cenopath". The memorial is Cenotaph.

This is also a word in American English, as well as British English I checked, http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=cenotaph).

Please do not be deliberately insulting.

 

[wgerrard]

Why, Martin, would you see a typo/spelling error as "deliberately insulting"?

 

[MartinP]

The error was repeated, changed, corrected by another poster and then made again.

My apologies for complaining. It happens to be the gravestone of a relative - among umpteen tens of thousands of other of course.

 

[Steve_F]

I was living in London in the early '90's when the IRA, or a splinter group, fired homebrew mortars into Number 10. Is that the incident you're remembering?

Was that at the time of 'Gulf War I' when a round landed in the garden of No. 10 ?
The then Prime Minister John Major was ushered into a cupboard by his cabinet if I remember correctly.

The question of are you English as the OP mentioned I should imagine would have been simply to make sure you would understand anything that would be said. For your own safety. It gets very busy with non-(fluent) english speaking tourists around there.

Steve.

 

[wgerrard]

You've no reason to apologize, Martin.

Steve: Yes, that was during Major's time, 1991, I think. As I recall, the mortars were launched from a van into which makeshift tubes had been installed.

 

[Ade-oh]

The 'mortars' in 1991 were the standard PIRA design (Mk 10 IIRC, but I could well be wrong) which were basically large gas canisters full of home made explosives with a small tube containing propellant welded to one end and set off by a time delay, and launched from a frame rather than a tube (more like a 'Katyusha' rocket in many ways). Horrendously unstable, inaccurate and indiscriminate: the attack on 10 Downing St didn't really 'miss', it was about as pin-point as it was possible to get with them. I was on the wrong end of a couple of such attacks in Northern Ireland in the mid-80s and - both times - the terrorists failed to get them into the relatively large SF base I was in, from a range of 2-300 metres at most, and hit neighbouring housing instead. All in all, very trying but no doubt the reason why Whitehall was cordoned in this instance, and I suspect the miscreant would have been facing a short, sharp interview without coffee from his superiors.

 

[Rhoyle]

I was at the car rental counter in Nice once many years ago when an announcement came over the PA. Not being a French speaker, I asked the girl at the counter what was going on. "You have to go stand over there", she said. "Why? "They are going to blow up a suitcase". I think they should have blown up the car.

 

[Steve_F]

I don't know if any of you have read the book 'Braver Men Walk Away' by Peter Gurney and his bomb disposal career, I believe the cover image was from that No.10 attack.
If you google the title and images you'll see what I mean.

Steve.

 

[John Lawrence]

John: Glad they missed!

Thanks, so was I!

I don't remember it going off though. I was about 12 feet away from it when it landed in the memorial garden, and I seem to recall a lot of smoke and that was about the total of it.

As it happened around the time of the Gulf Crisis, my first thoughts were that it was a terrorist attack (of some sort of chemical gas) connected with that.

John

 

[wgerrard]

I was about 12 feet away...

That's far too close for comfort.

I was once in a hotel in apartheid-era Johannesburg when someone set off a bomb directly across the street. According to "the authorities" it was a Soviet limpet mine planted by the ANC. Might easily have been. But, in that time and place, it just as easily might have been an event staged by "the authorities".

 

[John Lawrence]

That's far too close for comfort.

I was once in a hotel in apartheid-era Johannesburg when someone set off a bomb directly across the street. According to "the authorities" it was a Soviet limpet mine planted by the ANC. Might easily have been. But, in that time and place, it just as easily might have been an event staged by "the authorities".

I once purchased a 'bakkie' in apartheid SA and drove it some way across Africa. I remember questioning why the Visa 'stamp' on entry was self-adhesive and could easily be removed. I was very naive ....

John

 

[wgerrard]

I once purchased a 'bakkie' in apartheid SA and drove it some way across Africa. I remember questioning why the Visa 'stamp' on entry was self-adhesive and could easily be removed. I was very naive ....

John

John, I was actually posted in Swaziland, a little country wedged between Mozambique and northeastern South Africa. Once, a few months after flying backing into the country from the U.S., I drove over to Johannesburg. The drill at the border crossing was to present your passport on the Swazi side, cross a couple hundred yards of road, and present your passport on the South Africa side. (As I recall, they had four distinct segregated queues, and if you weren't white or on a dip passport, you were patrolled by burly border guards with guns and large dogs.)

Anyway, when I got to the South African side, the clerk looks through my passport and asks me when I returned to Swaziland from the U.S. I said a few months ago. He then said, "The Swazis forgot to stamp your passport." At that, he reached into a drawer, brought out a rubber stamp, and put a nice, backdated, official Swazi stamp in my passport. Smiling, he said, "They do that a lot."

 

[David Hughes]

well I guess he put two and two together.
Firstly an englishman in London wouldn't have done what you did...

Quite; especially given the price of coffee around Whitehall. Better to walk towards Charing Cross and go down one of the side streets for a takeaway and drink it in the park...

Regards, David