It was 1971 and the Morris Minors and Austin Minis were toiling as they made their way up and down a slushy Bensham Road in Gateshead.
Fifty later, much has changed. The old snack bar on the left with its Pepsi sign is no more, and the shops and flats on the right have given way to modern housing.
The Grade II-listed St Cuthbert’s Church at the bottom remains. Designed by eminent Tyneside architect John Dobson and built between 1846 and 1848, it occupies a prominent position on Bensham Road, with fine views down to the River Tyne - and beyond. The last service took place there in 1991.
Back in 1916, while Britain was up to its neck in World War I, Bensham Road was the scene of a tragedy which made headlines around the country.
On February 5 that year, an out-of-control tram, packed with passengers, raced backwards 200 yards down the bank before overturning and killing four passers-by. The four victims were a father, mother and young son, and a soldier home on leave from the Western Front.
Today, Bensham remains a busy suburb for families who work in and around Tyneside - and it's home for a community of around 5,000 Orthodox Jews whose ancestors flocked to the area in the last quarter of the 19th century.
Then, during the Nazi era, Jewish businessmen - refugees from Hitler’s Germany - settled in Gateshead, making it one of the largest centre of orthodox Jewish scholarship outside the US and Israel.
Don't miss our Memory Lane local history website that's packed with archive photographs and has an easy-to-use picture colourisation tool.
