A former Newcastle Herald journalist has put together a collection of vintage photos representing the years he was growing up in the city, as well as some of the biggest stories he covered as a reporter.
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Greg Ray and his wife Sylvia have published their 11th book Newcastle: Our Town Revisited, featuring photographs of the city taken between the 1950s and the 1990s, with a focus on the '70s.
"It's the most personal of our books so far because it shows the town through a lot of years when I was growing up. The majority are from the town that I knew and it's likely to resonate with people for that reason," Mr Ray said.
Mr Ray said putting together the collection of images, by professional and amateur photographers, uncovered some forgotten memories.
"I was having a cup of coffee with a friend talking about the book and he just brought up NBN 3 and [the television show] Romper Room. And I thought, 'Of course ... I always wanted to be on Romper Room and always wondered when Miss Anne would call my name. I was so annoyed she never did."
As this December marks the 30th anniversary of the Newcastle earthquake, the Rays have included a chapter specifically on the disaster.
"Because I was working at the newspaper you really lived and breathed it, it was a huge story that went on for several months," Mr Ray said.
"The photos reminded me of how cracked and broken Newcastle was for a long time afterwards and how access to some places was really restricted. There's one photo where Ron Morrison [the photographer] is lying in the middle of Hunter Street. It just shows how deserted it was."
The Garden Suburb couple began self-publishing photographic collections after they bought a cache of negatives at auction belonging to the late Ken Magor and decided to share them.
"We discovered that we really enjoyed doing it. It was quite good fun. I think people love to reminisce about their past," Mr Ray said. "Sylvia is an artist and has a fine arts degree. She can turn unpromising images into something usable."
The couple's most recent books incorporates many images from another husband and wife team, Ron and Liz Morrison, who established their own press agency in Newcastle in 1959.
The Poletician
Another story that's likely to have a few more weeks in it is that of Newcastle's latest icon: the rogue electricity pole that stands on Foundry Street, Wickham.
While we wait for a return to normality, it's nice to see the pole making the most of the limelight by taking a stand for an important cause.
The pole was photographed on Thursday wearing this custom-made outfit highlighting the discrepancy between the survival rates of breast cancer and ovarian cancer, rightly pointing out they are "poles apart".
As selfies with the pole have become an established genre of portraiture on the internet, Wallsend's Louise Fraser decided to use the attention and her knitting skills to get a message out to the masses.
"I'm a mum, a woman and a friend to survivors of breast cancer and (to) a friend living with ovarian cancer," she said.
"While there's a 91 per cent survival rate for breast cancer, for ovarian cancer it's 46 per cent. It's a cancer that is not well known or well publicised."
Ms Fraser has shared her makeover of the pole on social media, hoping it will encourage people to sign advocate Jill Emberson's petition on charge.org for parity of funding for research into the two cancers.
