View from the sky over Tyneside, 1963
OUR great aerial photograph looks down on a section of Newcastle West End, the River Tyne, its bridges, and over into Gateshead.
The image was captured in 1963 - 55 year ago - as the region went about its daily business.
It was a time of momentous news stories and profound social change, as the established old order was about to be challenged by the more permissive ideas of the so-called Swinging 60s.
It was the year of The Beatles, the Profumo scandal, the Great Train Robbery, double agent Kim Philby, and the assassination of American President John F Kennedy in Dallas, Texas.
As 1963 dawned, much of Britain and the North East was carpeted by thick snow and ice, and was being battered by gale force winds and blizzards in the most severe winter in living
Up the road in Newcastle city centre, many of the old buildings that would soon be swept away in major redevelopment projects were still standing. You’d still be able to see old Eldon Square, before the shopping complex transformed that part of the city.
In the Bigg Market area, the Victorian-built Town Hall still stood, although it was looking a bit down at heel.
The Royal Arcade, meanwhile, was just about to be dismantled brick by brick and replaced by the 1960s monolith that was Swan House.
Over at St James’ Park, Newcastle United were enduring their second successive season in Division Two following relegation. New manager and former FA Cup-winning manager Joe Harvey would lead the club back to the top flight a couple of years later.
As for our aerial image: of the famous five bridges that then spanned the River Tyne, the Redheugh would be replaced by a new version in 1983, while the Metro Bridge, in 1981, and the Millennium Bridge, in 2001, would be later additions.
Heavy industry was still in full swing on the banks of the Tyne while, on the other side of the Scotswood Road which runs towards the bottom right of our photo, modernity had arrived with the recently-built Cruddas Park flats.