Now before someone accuses me of nostalgia I will just point out that my fascination for the past takes me in many different directions.
And yes I have been reflecting on the London of my youth over the last few days.
So here is Trafalgar Square in 1950 just a year or so after I was born and while I have no memory of the place when the picture was taken I don’t suppose it changed much during the next few years when I was regularly taken there.
It is one of those things that if you grew up in London sooner or later you would be taken to the sights by out of town relatives.
My uncle George took me every year to see the Christmas lights and I have photographs of me and my grandparents doing the tourist trail when I was very little.
All that said, I have never really liked Trafalgar Square.
It always strikes me as a crowded restless space which had the added danger of receiving unfortunate presents from passing pigeons.
To my great disappointment the fountains were not always on and I never lost that sense that you were on an island surrounded by noisy and smelly cars buses and lorries.
But that is rather churlish for somewhere which many people enjoy, so instead I shall concentrate on the photo from the collection of Tuck and Son who marketed picture postcards.
In 1950 there were still horse drawn wagons and carts on our roads, enough for people not to even give them a second glance.
The fountains were full on that summer’s day and just like today the traffic was busy.
Picture; Trafalgar Square, 1950 from the collection of Tuck & Sons, courtesy of Tuck DB, http://tuckdb.org/
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