Across the bridge of time

Forty odd years separate two photographs taken from almost the same spot on Westminster Bridge. In the first, my mum is holding my hand. In the second, I am holding my son’s. Big Ben stands there, unchanged and unimpressed, while the rest of the world has moved on.

The two images are not perfect recreations. The angles are slightly off, the weather different, the skyline busier. My hairline certainly did not survive the decades. But the feeling is unmistakable, that strange echo of time folding in on itself, of standing somewhere you have stood before and realising you have become the grown up in the picture.

And then there is the setting itself, that sweep of the Thames, the gothic clocktower, the weight of history that London carries without trying. You can almost sense the ghosts in the crowd. How many people have paused in this very spot, taking in the same view? The Beatles might have crossed it on their way to Abbey Road. Churchill may have stared across it, planning speeches that shaped a nation. Millions more have done the same, tourists, lovers, commuters, parents and children. Each moment different, yet somehow the same.

I thought about polishing the shots. With a few clicks of AI I could have matched the colours, removed the tourists, even blended the two into some slick transition between past and present. But that would have missed the point. The blur, the crowds, the small imperfections are what make the connection real.

We live in an age where every memory can be enhanced, filtered or corrected. But sometimes the power of an image lies not in what you can fix, but in what you leave alone. My mum’s hat, my son’s stance, neither staged, neither aware of what they were mirroring, tell the story better than any algorithm could.

Forty years apart, the photo has changed. The story hasn't.