In the cool, dark belly of the Museum of London’s stores, actors Mark Rylance and Michael Culver stand between two giant shelves, deep in conversation about their friend, the peace campaigner Brian Haw.
All around them, preserved in drawers, on rails, in boxes, is Haw’s archive – items that document the 10 years he spent on Parliament Square, protesting against the Iraq war and UK foreign policy. There are more than 800 items in total: banners and posters and flags, teddy bears, tents, umbrellas and megaphones. “It’s the entire camp as it was,” says the Museum’s curator of social and working history, Vyki Sparkes. “Even the wet wipes we found in his tent.”
