This is not an exceptional photo but it occupies a special place in my memory. It was opportunistically taken from the upper deck of a bus idling by the Mansion House, looking towards the Royal Exchange. So very iconic British red double-decker is moving across the line of vision. In the background, the conical top of the Gherkin – a.k.a 30 St Mary Axe – completes the perspective.
This is how the City of London remains in my memory almost a decade since our UK residency came to the end.
We lived at the southeast edge of Greater London, I worked at Canary Wharf, so we were not frequent visitors to the part of town known as “the City”. My recollections of the area are unquestionably of the touristy kind, and none of them as vivid as this frame. As I get increasingly nostalgic of that period of our lives, I can’t help but look at this picture with a tiny measure of… longing, could it be? Those years living in London were pretty good years!
I might be getting too sentimental for my liking in my old age.
Interestingly enough, this view no longer exists in the same shape today. New skyscrapers have been erected between the Exchange and the Gherkin, obscuring the latter from this vantage point, if Google StreetView is to be believed.