Step back to the Metrocentre of 1987
THE Metrocentre had been open for just one year when this nostalgic video footage was captured.
It allows up to step back three decades in time and revisit the people, shops, restaurants and stalls in the shiny new Gateshead shopping mall as it was in 1987.
The centre’s first stores had begun trading in April 1886, but it wasn’t until October 13 that the centre was officially opened by Environment Minister, Nicholas Ridley.
When early customers streamed in, under one roof they would soon find many of the UK’s leading retail names, a 10-screen cinema complex, a thriving cafe-restaurant quarter, and the Metroland amusement park.
The Metrocentre was built on the site of a former power station’s waterlogged ash dump after the land was earmarked in 1979.
By the time the complex had been completed by the Cameron Hall firm, it was ready to pioneer a Tyneside retail revolution, combining the best of North American innovation with decades of European shopping tradition.
Today, intu Metrocentre is a long-established Tyneside institution with two million square feet of retail, catering and leisure space, and an annual footfall of more than 21 million.
Back in 1987, the superb film footage was taken by Mr JH Clark on his new video camera.
His son, Stephen, has kindly allowed the Chronicle to share some of the videos shot by his father in the mid-1980s at the time his family emigrated.
Stephen told us: “We left for Perth, Western Australia in 1986. I have never been back to the North East.”
Mr Clark Snr had grown up in Newcastle, later serving in the Army during World War II where he sketched fellow soldiers convalescing during a short stint in hospital.
After the war, Mr Clark gained a degree in art, met his future wife, and worked as an art teacher at Walbottle School.
Stephen added: “From a very early age he was captivated by the Hollywood era of motion pictures and loved the old movies, even doing a little amateur acting of his own.
“This inspired him to eventually get his own 8mm cine camera and begin to capture family footage. Later, during the 1980s, he upgraded to a Canon video camera.
“Due to our impending emigration to Australia in 1986 he decided to video around Newcastle in 1985 and again in 1987 on a return holiday.”