Twenty Years On: Remembering the G8 at Gleneagles / Edinburgh

Twenty Years On: Remembering the G8 at Gleneagles

It’s strange how time moves. One moment, you’re standing in the middle of a city in a crowd thick with tension, the air vibrating with chants and the sound of boots on pavement. The next, you’re looking at an old photograph two decades later, trying to make sense of what you saw and felt.

This picture was taken in Edinburgh during the 2005 G8 summit at Gleneagles — a gathering of world leaders that brought both hope and chaos in equal measure. On one side, there were promises: action on poverty, climate change, and the world’s most urgent issues. On the other, there was the raw reality of protest — thousands in the streets, voices demanding more, demanding better.

In the frame are police in full riot gear, faces half-hidden behind shields, eyes scanning the crowd. The image isn’t about hostility or heroics; it’s about the tension of that moment, the invisible line between order and unrest. You can almost hear the muffled noise through the Perspex, feel the weight of the standoff.

Edinburgh that week was alive with contradictions — music and marches, speeches and sirens. Gleneagles itself felt far away, locked behind fences and security, yet its decisions rippled through every street where people stood shoulder-to-shoulder.

Looking back now, twenty years on, I think of the people who were there — protestors, police, bystanders, journalists — and the strange camaraderie that exists when people share a moment in history, even from opposing sides. The photograph has become more than just a record of that day; it’s a reminder of the questions we still haven’t answered, the causes that still matter, and the way time softens the edges but never quite erases the noise.

History isn’t just written in summits and speeches — it’s etched in the streets, in the faces behind the shields, and in the memories we carry.

Photo Brian Anderson