Quayside view: 1958
WE make no apologies for returning once again to Newcastle Quayside’s renowned Sunday market.
This particular view, from the Chronicle photograph archive, was captured 60 years ago, this week in April 1958.
And look how busy it was on that distant spring day.
A year earlier, Prime Minister Harold Macmillan had famously declared: “Most of our people have never had it so good”.
Post-war austerity was over, there were jobs galore for everyone, more and more homes were acquiring newfangled TV sets, and motor cars were no longer the sole preserve of the wellheeled. People had money in their pockets.
As anyone who was around during the era will tell you: “It was a great time.”
Sixty years ago, the average UK salary was £570, an average car cost £750, and the average house price was £2,250.
In the pop charts, the young folk of the North East were listening to the Everly Brothers, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Elvis Presley who would be inducted into the US Army in 1958.
At the cinema, this was the year of The Bridge On The River Kwai, South Pacific, and King Creole.
And, over St James’ Park, there was a stylish new black and white strip, and a new manager, Charlie Mitten, trying to ring the changes. Newcastle United would finish 11th come the end of the 1958-59 First Division season.