'I spent 27 years recreating photos of my late dad around London'

A devoted son has spent the last 27 years recreating dozens of holiday snaps his late father took on his only ever trip abroad to the UK in the 60s. Tonet Rivera, 66, has used both a disposable camera and his phone to recreate the photos his dad took using a 1952 Leica IIIf camera while visiting Britain in 1964.

The touching snaps show Tonet replicating the pictures outside iconic London landmarks like Big Ben, Clarence House and the Tower of London.

In one at Trafalgar Square, Tonet could place his hand exactly where his father's was due to the fountain having a chip in the concrete that has been unrepaired for 60 years.

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The original photos, which included handwritten notes his father left, were recreated by Tonet during his five trips to the UK in the 90s and during the last couple of years.

Antonio Rivera Jr, was just 50 years old when he passed away in 1977 when Tonet was just 19 years old.

Tonet, who lives in Manila, the Philippines, said: "I think he would be happy I had discovered the one place he really loved outside of his country. I think he'd be proud that it meant enough to me to take the effort to do it and he'd be grateful that history has been preserved."

"You always think you have so much time with someone and even when my mum passed away, I thought there was so much I wish I asked her. Dad always said he would bring us here to see how beautiful it was but it never happened. Somehow, he is still taking me there."

Tonet, a retired global executive, told how his father was invited to do a Master's degree in mechanical engineering at Loughborough University on a scholarship in 1964.

Antonio would write letters to Tonet's mother every day detailing his time in the UK from January to November in 1964 at the university and would "sneak" a photo in the envelope.

Tonet explained: "My father was a very enthusiastic amateur camera."

"He had never travelled in his life but was sponsored by his oil distribution company in the Philippines to do his Master's degree at Loughborough University.

"He fell in love with England and travelled back and forth between London in 1964 taking his 1952 Leica IIIf camera, a self-timer and a tripod with him.

"In those days you could put the camera on a tripod and leave it there, you probably couldn't do that today."

Tonet said his father took over 300 photos of London and Loughborough and would send them home to his family in the Philippines - he has so far replicated 15.

It would be his father's only trip abroad before his passing in 1977.

Tonet said: "He would buy the Par Avion aerogram form and write letters - it was a determined weight and you couldn't enclose anything in it but he would sneak the photo in.

"When he came home after a year, he immediately got to work on selecting which photographs to enlarge. They were then framed in the family home."

After Antonio passed away, Tonet stumbled across the photographs and rediscovered them - including the notes his father wrote to him on the back.

The father-of-three explained: "When I was working in 1997, they sent me to a meeting in England. I decided to visit Loughborough as it had been 20 years since he passed and I took 20 photos from his collection of 300."

"The university took me round the campus and let me look at his Whitworth Hall dorm room and I met his retired dorm warden. I used a payphone to call my mum in the Philippines to let her know and she was so emotional.

"After that I went to London and stayed in Kensington, walking around and taking the pictures on a ridiculously cheap instant camera. All I wanted was to stand where he stood when he took the photos.

"I would ask people to take my picture and I ended up with ten photos I had recreated. The people that helped me had to take the photos over and over, until every lamp post, window, building corner and parking meter was lined up."

Tonet's mission to replicate his dad's photographs was not easy and he sometimes struggled with the changing London landscape.

He added: "When trying to do the one near Big Ben's clocktower, a police constable near Whitehall came and asked me what I was doing. I was trying to measure the distance with my camera and had the photo in my hand.

"I showed him my Dad's photos and I said the angle was all wrong and I couldn't get it right. He smiled and walked me back there and explained that there used to be a roundabout, instead there is a traffic light now."

"We realised my dad had taken his photo from the roundabout. The constable then walked me out to the intersection of Whitehall and Westminster, waved all four directions of traffic to a stop, and told me to take my time taking the picture."

Tonet also told how he was stopped by a policeman close to Clarence House while trying to work out where his father had stood to take his own picture.

He explained: "On the back of one of the 1964 photos, my dad wrote that a policeman had suggested photo angles around St James Palace. When I was replicating those photos in 1997, a policeman came up and inquired as to what I was doing. I showed him the photos."

"He pulled one out and said my father's note was mistaken, that the photo was not Marlborough Road but Stable Yard road beside Clarence House. Clarence House was off limits in 1997 because the Queen Mother lived there.

"But the policeman was going off-duty, and when he did, he took me to the exact spot, beside the Coldstream Guards sentry, and took the shot of me standing where my father was."

After his retirement in 2017, Tonet decided he would go back to the UK and take better pictures on his phone.

He took his family and friends on the trip back to London so they could help him get the perfect angles in 2017, 2019, 2022 and 2023.

Tonet said: "I digitised the photos, back and front so I can see his notes, and turned them into a photobook. I gave one to my mum and the other I've kept to myself.

"Mum passed away three years ago and lived until she was 94 she lived another 44 years without him and she missed him every day. She was extremely emotional, even when I called her from Loughborough in 1997.

"He never talked about anything apart from his wonderful time in England. It was his one trip abroad. It is ironic because at one point I was doing 150 international trips a year for work. I've seen the world that he was never able to.

"My dad is still leading me to the sights I want to see in London."

Tonet plans to return to London this July to replicate some more of his father's pictures.