We step back eight decades in time to 1937.

It was a year caught between a rock and a hard place.

Behind it, certainly in the North East, was a grim period of industrial decline and unemployment as symbolised by the marching men and unfurled banners of the Jarrow Crusade.

Just ahead of it, in the unseen future, loomed the global catastrophe that would be World War II.

There was much celebration across the nation - and indeed our region - in 1937.

In May of that year there were street parties when a new king, George VI, somewhat reluctantly ascended to the throne a year after his wayward brother Edward VIII had abdicated and brought about a national scandal and constitutional crisis.

Several of the pictures in our gallery show the streets of Tyneside decked with bunting and flags in celebration of the new king.

In the event, and despite his deep self-doubt, King George VI would become a stoic and popular figure during the coming war - and beyond.

Elsewhere across the region 80 years ago, the first international flights - to and from Stavanger in Norway - began at Newcastle Airport.

Plans for two tunnels - road and pedestrian - underneath the River Tyne were unveiled. The war would intervene and mean the plans would not fully reach fruition for a full 30 years.

Also in 1937, the keel for the ill-fated warship HMS Kelly was laid at Hebburn’s Hawthorn Leslie shipyard.

On Gateshead High Street, thousands turned out to watch singing star Gracie Fields open Black’s Regal Cinema - later the Odeon.

And down at Wembley, Sunderland captain Raich Carter lifted the FA Cup, a year after the club won the their last - to date - league title.

A view from Grey's Monument of Grainger Street, Newcastle, 1937
A view from Grey's Monument of Grainger Street, Newcastle, 1937

In the wider world, it was a time when the average price of a new house in the UK was a around £500.

The year also marked the launch of the new 999 emergency telephone number, Neville Chamberlain became Prime Minister, and the Dandy – in time the world’s longest-running comic – was first published.

Elsewhere, the world was horrified by the Hindenburg disaster which was captured live on film.

San Francisco’s Golden Gate bridge opened at a cost of $35m.

The ‘brown bomber’ Joe Louis became World Heavyweight boxing champion.

And in the world of movies, Disney released the animated classic Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

Finally, when the BBC broadcast the coronation of George VI using their new outside broadcast unit for the fist time in May 1937, the nation partied.

The dark clouds of war, however, were beginning to mass across Europe.