For auction
trips looking for tram cars lying derelict in fields, or which were being used for a variety of purposes after the tramways closed.
Many of the tram postcards and pictures also reveal details of how streets in North East towns looked more than a century ago.
A view of Ormonde Street in Jarrow shows the offices of the town’s long defunct newspaper, the Jarrow Express.
Another postcard depicts the aftermath of a tram crash in which the vehicle toppled over on Bensham Bank in Gateshead in 1916.
Passengers were injured but four pedestrians were killed – a family of three, and a First World War soldier, Private Edward Hutchinson, who had survived the fierce fighting at Ypres. The damaged tram car was rebuilt in 1920.
Also for sale are around 200 postcards collected by County Durham Cpl Ralph Lee, which illustrate his passage through England and France in the First World War, in which he was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal while serving in the Royal Engineers. That collection is estimated at £50-£100.
Some of the cards were sent by Cpl Lee to his family home in Heather View in Wingate, while a few were mailed to him by family members.
The auction also features a collection of envelopes addressed during the Second World War to South Shields Victoria Cross winner Captain Richard Wallace Annand.
He was awarded the VC – the army’s first in the war – for conspicuous gallantry while he was serving as a platoon commander with the Durham Light Infantry in Belgium, on May 15, 1940.