Resilience and Change: The Story of East London’s Landscapes
I took this photograph in Aldgate in 1991, when the area was caught between decline and redevelopment. The City of London was expanding eastward, Docklands regeneration was reshaping nearby districts, and roadworks and improvised infrastructure had become constant features of the streetscape.
The woman in the picture is signalling to the approaching bus to stop. I had been cycling through Aldgate and, instead of simply riding past, I got off my bike and stopped to talk with her. She told me that because it was only a temporary stop, drivers would often fail to notice people waiting and sometimes carried on without stopping.
Her walking stick, rather than suggesting vulnerability, became a symbol of determination and strength. She was absolutely intent on making that bus stop.
My bicycle, leaning in the foreground beside the makeshift barrier, became part of the scene too — a reminder that I was not a detached observer but briefly part of the same improvised urban choreography.
Aldgate has changed dramatically since 1991. What seemed at the time an ordinary roadside moment now reads as an archival record of a transitional East End landscape before large-scale commercial redevelopment transformed the area. As much as it is a portrait of a feisty East End woman, it is also a portrait of London itself: permanently unfinished, adapting in real time through makeshift solutions, resilience, and everyday encounters.
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