Looking back: New Year - in pictures

The Canary Wharf tower preparing to greet 1992 with a computerised laser display by artists Peter Fink and Anne Bean who set out to rival Big Ben using lights visible from 40 miles away
Photograph: Sean Smith for the Guardian

A happy New Year kiss with a policeman in Trafalgar Square, London, 1976
Photograph: Mike Wells for the Guardian

Welcoming the New Year with a bang: fireworks over the Thames seen from London's Waterloo Bridge welcome the start of the 21st century
Photograph: Sean Smith for the Guardian

A New Year and a new millennium: crowds of revellers gather to celebrate on Waterloo Bridge in London, 31 January 1999
Photograph: Sean Smith for the Guardian

New Year tube fare rises: A tube train at Ravenscourt Park station in west London, 2 January 2007. In 2007 fares on London transport rose by 33% in the New Year, making it the most expensive public transport in the world Photograph: Martin Argles for the Guardian

The quiet after the storm: the M11 motorway almost entirely empty of traffic at 8.30 New Years Day morning in 2008 Photograph: Graham Turner for the Guardian

The annual New Year's Day parade marches through London in 2002. Westminster is reflected in the instruments of the Evans High School marching band from Georgia, USA Photograph: Garry Weaser for the Guardian

The morning after: rubbish in one of the fountains in Trafalgar Square, London, after New Years Eve, 1 January 1983
Photograph: Jane Bown for the Observer

News Year's day walk: the view from Mam Tor, Derbyshire, 1 January 1979
Photograph: Denis Thorpe for the Guardian

Postman returning to work on his bicycle in early January in Wythenshawe, Manchester, 1979
Photograph: Denis Thorpe for the Guardian