Racing back to the day a Shields woman met a golden star of the TV screen - at the races
Catherine got to meet a star of the hit TV show The Golden Shot
South Tynesider Catherine Roberts had a day she would never forget 55 years ago.
It was back in 1971 when Catherine, of Lawrence Avenue in South Shields, won a Shields Gazette competition to go to the races. She headed off to Newcastle Racecourse’s Northumberland Plate meeting but there was an extra treat waiting for her.
Catherine got to meet a star of the hit TV show The Golden Shot. Officionados of the show will remember Anne Aston, hostess of the TV game show The Golden Shot in which contestants would compete for prizes by firing a crossbow which was attached to a TV camera.
Anne also made the headlines of the Shields Gazette in 1971 when she presented a pair of binoculars to Catherine.
It gives us a chance to look back at other news topics which were hitting the headlines.
Life in South Tyneside back then also included a trip to the Binns sale. You could grab bargains such as Queen Alfin pans for £2.85 or hand operated slicing machines for £3.99.
There was a setback for the Shields shopping world that summer.
A multi-million-pound shopping centre scheme had been planned for empty land between Fowler Street and Anderson Street, just behind the public library in Ocean Road.
The centre was to have been “a splendid counterpart to the imaginative, though often-criticised, Woodbine Street showpiece housing estate”.
But a study into the plan concluded there was ‘no economic justification which would support the development of this area for the shopping purposes at present envisaged.’
Tell us what you remember of South Tyneside life in 1971.
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