The Chronicle

Right royal celebratio­ns amid grim decline

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IF in the unlikely event you are in possession of a 1937 calendar, don’t throw it away. There may be a good use for it!

Posts on social media have been pointing out how the calendar dates from that year conform perfectly with the upcoming calendar dates for 2021.

So Friday, January 1, 1937 equals Friday, January 1, 2021 – and so on.

Nearly eight and a half decades later, it is a year gradually slipping from living memory.

So, out of interest, what did folk back then have to look forward to (or otherwise) as New Year 1937 arrived?

It was a year caught between a rock and a hard place.

Behind it, certainly in the North East, was a grim period of industrial decline and mass unemployme­nt as symbolised by the marching men and unfurled banners of the Jarrow Crusade.

Just ahead of it, in the unseen future, loomed the global catastroph­e which would be World War II.

However, there was much celebratio­n across the nation – and indeed our region – in 1937.

In May of that year there were street parties when a new king George VI somewhat reluctantl­y ascended to the throne a year after his wayward brother Edward VIII had abdicated and brought about a national scandal and constituti­onal crisis.

Streets on Tyneside were decked with bunting and flags in celebratio­n of the new king.

In the event, and despite his deep self-doubt, King George VI would become a stoic and popular figure during the coming war – and beyond.

Elsewhere across the region 80 years ago, the first internatio­nal flights – to and from Stavanger in Norway – began at Newcastle Airport.

Plans for two tunnels – road and pedestrian – underneath the River Tyne were unveiled.

The war would intervene and mean the plans would not fully reach fruition for a full 30 years.

Also in 1937, the keel for the ill-fated warship HMS Kelly was laid at Hebburn’s Hawthorn Leslie shipyard.

On Gateshead High Street, thousands turned out to watch singing star Gracie Fields open Black’s Regal Cinema – later the Odeon.

Newcastle United – crowned champions of England just a decade earlier – found themselves toiling in the Second Division.

In the wider world, it was a time when the average price of a new house in the UK was a around £500.

The year also marked the launch of the new 999 emergency telephone number.

Neville Chamberlai­n became

British Prime Minister, and the Dandy – in time the world’s longest-running comic – was first published.

Finally, if you don’t have a 1937 calendar to hand, don’t despair – calendars from the following years will also do the job in 2021.

2010, 1999, 1993, 1982, 1971, 1965, 1954, 1943, and 1926. Also you will be able to reuse it in 2027 when all the dates match up again!

 ??  ?? Children queue at the Essoldo Cinema, Stanley, 1937
Children queue at the Essoldo Cinema, Stanley, 1937

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