Local historian Laurie Elks tells the stories behind the mural — and seeks your help to identify its immortalised faces

AS YOU RUSH ALONG Dalston Lane on your way to work or amble into the Curve Garden you probably sometimes wonder about the people in the peace mural.

Who are they and were they all on the same rumbustious ban-the-bomb march — or are they just artistic creations?

I looked into this with the help of saxophonist Alan May and we managed to put names to some faces. His very accurate likeness — no 35, is on the right of the mural. I got to know Alan when he played in the Chats Palace Arkestra in the great panto Robbin the Rich (I would say that: I was one of Robin Hood’s merrie men).

The mural was commissioned by community arts panel chairman Tony Banks (1943-2006) during the early glory days of Ken Livingstone’s leadership of the Greater London Council (reborn as the London Assembly.)

The theme was “peace through nuclear disarmament” and Ray Walker, no 22, one of the artists who had squatted derelict houses in Beck Road, Hackney E8 4RE, was commissioned to paint it.

To prepare for it, he went to the Hackney Marsh Fun festival in Daubeney Fields at  Kingsmead Way E9 5PP, where the Arkestra was gigging. The band was due to perform at a peace march; and the legendary musician Jah Globe, no 24, composed Celebration Time Is Here for the day. 

Walker photographed the Arkestra and some other Chats Palace characters for his preliminary drawing.

I have read that the march is shown going along Dalston Lane with Navarino Mansions in the background, but the railway bridge more resembles the one in Beck Road. Does it matter? Not really — it depicts peace campaigners rather than precisely represents a particular event. 

Some of the themes referenced include the nuclear stand-off between the United States and the Soviet Union, which was a constant and potentially obliterative refrain of the times. The Greenham Common anti-war movement was in its early days; Hackney council was campaigning (ultimately, unsuccessfully) to prevent trains carrying waste from the Sellafield nuclear plant in Cumbria travelling on what was then called the North London Line through Hackney, and the epochal 1984 miners’ strike (ultimately, the long struggle to keep coal mines open was also unsuccessful).

Ray Walker died suddenly in 1984 of a heart attack. He was just 39 and had not long completed his preliminary drawing, so the work was completed in 1985 by his widow, Anna, no 41, and friend Mick Jones. 

The illustration shows some of the people in the mural. If you can name any others, please email [email protected].

* The writer has lived in Hackney since 1972. He edited Hackney: Portrait of a Community for the Hackney Society and is custodian of St Augustine’s Tower in The Narroway, Hackney E8 1HT. The latest edition of the Hackney Society newsletter Spaces includes a longer version of this article

* Backstory: It’s rudimental: new muralist found; The peace mural loved by Boris Johnson; Dalston mural survey starts; People get ready; Hackney’s seaside; Ever-changing Dalston

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