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It was a decade that will forever be remembered as the ‘swinging 60s’ – a momentous era when London became the pop culture capital of the world, when music, fashion and the arts exploded into life, and when ‘the establishment’ was challenged by progressive ideals and the advancement of personal freedoms.
Newcastle during the 1960s was marked by major urban redevelopment as the city sought to modernise itself in the post-war world. Old terraced streets were torn down and multi-storey towers and housing estates were built in their place, while new office blocks and public buildings also took shape.
Retail thrived in city centre stores, thousands flocked to watch Newcastle United at St James’ Park, and the after-dark scene boomed as newfangled nightclubs opened with the promise of booze, music and gambling for hard-working Geordies who wanted to let their hair down after grafting all week.
Our 10 photographs from the Chronicle archive – one for each year of the decade – recall scenes around Newcastle during the era. From 1960, at Cruddas Park in Newcastle’s west end, we see traditional Victorian-era terraced houses standing in the shadow of new multi-storey tower blocks as the skyline was transformed. In 1964, singer Adam Faith was performing at La Dolce Vita on Low Friar Street, the city’s foremost nightclub of the decade.
The new seat of local government, the modernist-designed Civic Centre, was nearing completion at Barras Bridge in 1967. And from 1969, we see Newcastle United fans watching their team beat Ujpest Dozsa of Hungary 3-0 in the first leg of the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup final. The Magpies would win the second leg 3-2 in Budapest two weeks later, clinching a trophy that would remain the club’s last piece of silverware until the Carabao Cup was lifted earlier this year.
In global news headlines from the decade, the world braced itself for war as the Cuban missile crisis erupted in 1962 before tensions between America and the Soviet Union finally eased; President John F Kennedy was assassinated by a lone gunman in Dallas, Texas, in 1963; Martin Luther King ‘had a dream’ as the civil rights movement became a force in the United States; and, in 1969, astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon.
Closer to home, the Great Train Robbery of 1963 saw £2.6 million (£48 million in today’s money) stolen from a Royal Mail train travelling between Glasgow and London; the UK death penalty was abolished in 1965; Geoff Hurst scored a hat-trick as England beat West Germany 4-2 to lift the World Cup at Wembley in 1966; and, in the same year, 144 people – mainly children – were killed by a devastating landslide of coal waste in the Welsh mining town of Aberfan.
Transcending mere pop music, The Beatles became the defining cultural phenomenon of the 1960s. The all-conquering ‘Fab Four’ provided a soundtrack for the era, along with the likes of The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, and the artists of Detroit’s Tamla Motown record label, while the giant Woodstock Festival, held in upstate New York, closed out the decade in 1969.
At the cinema, major box office hits included Psycho (1960), Dr No (1962), The Sound of Music (1965), Bonny and Clyde (1967), and 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). And on UK television, there were debuts for Coronation Street (1960), Doctor Who (1963), The Likely Lads (1964), Camberwick Green (1966) and Please Sir! (1968).
Our 10 archive photographs show some of what was going on around Newcastle during the 1960s.
