Nostalgia ... it isn't what it used to be - by André Bogaert
I’m not getting old, I am already old.
I’ve lived in the same area of London, Hampstead, all my life.
I was born here, brought up here and have continued to live here and see no reason to change that.
Yes I've moved about a bit in the village. Small house with no kids, larger house with 3 kids to now an apartment with no kids to accommodate.
Nowadays I walk past landmarks, stores, buildings I've known for a lifetime.
A pond my father took me to to sail a model boat, and I only fell in twice.
Even I'm not old enough to have taken this snap of Whitestone Pond around 1930
I think of a convenience store where my eldest boy, when 3 , he's 40+ now, was asked to leave because he was handling the fruit too much.
A hill, next to the pond I sailed on and fell in to and also where John Constable painted is in my mind because it's where my middle son, about 7 at the time and most importantly before he had learnt how to break on a snow-sledge crashed into some trees and sprained a wrist or two and an ankle.
And my youngest son, when 4 ish, would enjoy the company of his old man for a walk in the village so I could snap some photos and he could count the parking meters.
All these things go through my mind as I walk the streets of Hampstead taking photos of folk going about their lives.
To demonstrate I'm not always in the past, all these photos here were taken this year, 2023, and it goes without saying, but I am going to anyway, in Hampstead Village, London.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be......it's better.
