London Lost

… images of a time gone by…

Back in late April, when I was flicking through some of my old photos, searching for shots of Reading University to support my blog ‘A peek down memory lane’, I came across upon a small box of 35mm slides, which was given to me by my Uncle many years ago, along with a portable, battery operated slide viewer. Amazingly, the slide viewer was still in working condition, courtesy of a new battery, and I spent the best part of an hour completely diverted from my original task, flicking through the slides instead.

They don’t make them like that anymore!

Most of them were old family photos from the 1960’s, you know the kind of thing: camping holidays, day trips, photos of children (now grandparents) playing in the garden and of course, Christmas. Others were part of a series of a more astronomical bent that was apparently never finished, including pictures of Apollo 9, Apollo 11 and the Gemini missions (more on that in a future blog).

County Hall

However, the subject of today’s story is a series of slides, also part of an unfinished ‘instalment’ collection, covering London in the 1950’s. Now, I’m not sure if the original slides were deliberately meant to look like this. In fact, I’m pretty certain that they weren’t, but for whatever reason, over time only the red, white and black hues have remained, which I think gives the images a wonderfully arty and almost eerie feel.

Tower Bridge

Most of the locations are, in some way or other, iconic. But while some have remained unchanged, others have undergone various facelifts in the intervening years and some, because of changes that have taken place around them are now almost unrecognisable.

Shell Mex House, The Embankment

Anyway, why not take a moment or two to flick through London as you’ve probably never seen it before and lose yourself in the warm, fuzzy glow of nostalgia for a simpler time, now long since past… Enjoy!

The Royal Festival Hall

Big Ben

Admiralty Arch

The Tower of London

One of my favourite images here is of ‘The Pool of London’ (below), because it was taken looking away from Tower Bridge, not facing it. You can find out more about it here.

The Pool of London

For more rants, ramblings and reminiscences, please feel free to have a good old rummage through the rest of my blog and if you fancy something more substantial, then please do check out my books. Thank you.