15 photos from around the Grimsby area 50 years ago in 1974

For those who were around at the time, the year 1974 will no doubt have lived long in the memory. It was the year that saw two general elections held, the three-day working week due to strikes in the coal and rail industries, and all sorts of economic and political turmoil in Britain.

There’s no doubt it is one of the most difficult eras in modern British history – and now a whole half century has passed since that eventful year. Though it’s generally remembered for the chaos, it was also a notable year for our area.

It was, for instance, the year the much-maligned county of Humberside was formed, including what is now four separate authorities – North East Lincolnshire, North Lincolnshire, the City of Kingston-upon-Hull, and the East Riding of Yorkshire. Though abolished in 1996, its legacy still exists in the name of our police and fire service, along with the BBC local radio station – not to mention on letters sometimes received in the post to this day!

In this gallery of photos from the Grimsby Telegraph archives, we can see how Grimsby and other parts of northern Lincolnshire looked 50 years ago from aerial views of towns and villages to the early stages of the Humber Bridge’s construction – seven years before it opened to traffic.

References

1. ^{^} The sad tale of the lost radar dishes of the Lincolnshire Wolds (www.grimsbytelegraph.co.uk)