The region’s changing face 45 years ago
OUR front-page Nostalgia image shows Newcastle’s Newgate Shopping Centre - incorporating the Swallow Hotel - as it was in 1973.
Its grey-slab construction summed up much of the urban architecture of the 1960s and 70s.
It was relatively short-lived. The complex was a city-centre fixture for less than 50 years.
Built in 1969, as swathes of Newcastle underwent major redevelopment, by 2016 it was itself being razed to the ground.
A new £100m hotel, student accommodation and shopping project is currently taking shape as the city marches into the 21st century.
Before the shopping centre came along, the site was home to the popular Empire Theatre which attracted generations of North East folk until it was demolished in 1963.
Further back in time, New- gate Street was one of Newcastle’s earliest thoroughfares and the site of thriving medieval markets. At the Northern end of the street stood the structure that gave it its name, the New Gate - the main entrance to the old walled town and, later, a notorious prison. It was demolished in 1823.
Our photographs from the archive of the Sunday Sun give a taste of life in the North East in 1973.
Forty-five years ago, Second Division Sunderland beat overwhelming favourites, Leeds United, in the FA Cup Final at Wembley.
We see the newly-opened Law Courts in Middlesbrough.
And there’s actor James Bolam - playing Terry Collier - in that year’s hit new BBC1 sitcom, Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads, which was set on 1970s Tyneside. You might recognise the still photograph from the title sequence of the show. Filmed on Commercial Road, Byker, the same location is unrecognizable today.
In the news that year, IRA bombs exploded on the British mainland in October; there were repeated disruptive strikes; and the end of the year saw the lights go out as Ted Heath’s Tory government introduced a three-day week with Britain engulfed in political and economic crisis.
If the problem of inflation was never far from the headlines in 1973, some of the prices seem ludicrously cheap as we look back.
A pint of beer cost 14p, a packet of ciggies was 29p, while a detached house would knock you back around £17,000.
On TV, there were debuts for The Wombles, Last Of The Summer Wine, and Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em. At the cinema, some of the biggest movie draws included Live and Let Die, Jesus Christ Superstar, American Graffiti, and Enter the Dragon. In the UK pop charts, there were hits for the likes of David Bowie, Alvin Stardust, David Cassidy, Slade, Sweet, Donny Osmond, Wizzard, and the Simon Park Orchestra. Front: The Swallow Hotel and Newgate Shopping Centre, Newgate Street, Newcastle, 1973
Actor James Bolam in the title sequence for the 1973 sitcom, Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads; left, the same location as it is today, Commercial Road, Byker, Newcastle The Trustee Savings Bank on the corner of Westgate Road and Grainger Street, 1973. Today it’s a bar