Then shocked, I realise the frozen scene is from more than 40 years ago now.

Look carefully. What's interesting in this rare snapshot (pictured) from January 1980 is what is there and what is now absent.

Nothing ever does stay the same.

The picture also reminds me of a one-time Australian classic pop tune, Bob Hudson's Newcastle Song.

It's forever linked, to me anyway, with the city's top end, the far eastern end, or ocean end, of Hunter Street back in its heyday of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

That's when a particular group of pubs, Greek-style cafes, coffee shops and fast food outlets all in close proximity for a while seemed to represent the social and cultural hub of activity of our once heavily industrialised town.

Here in this small patch of the East End there was, for example, the popular Shipmates, a fast-food joint serving hot chips, burgers and donuts.

It was the original McDonald's-type food outlet, long before the Yankee franchise hit Australian shores.

The clever, innovative venture of Shipmates was the brainchild of pioneer Newcastle restaurateur Clem Ashford.

He was the original "illustrated man", a heavily tattooed South Seas adventurer who returned to Newcastle to shake up the local food scene with special product packaging and marketing.

His outlet was sandwiched between the California (Greek) cafe on the corner of Telford Street and Hunter Street (diagonally opposite Newcastle Beach) and the Kosciusko Cafe at the other end.

There were also little pinball parlours somewhere here, from memory, and a mini-golf, putt-putt course nearby.

Most shops were clustered together on the southern end of Hunter Street, opposite the dimly lit Vienna Coffee Lounge for night owls.

These were simpler, more innocent times, with no suburban shopping centres.

There wasn't much entertainment about except for surfing, going to the pub, playing the pokies, rugby league or betting on the nags or greyhounds.

We were easily entertained. It was a meat-and-three-veg sort of town.

Nothing exotic.

It was a dull, drab, grey world in many respects.

Back then, everyone seemed to work at Newcastle's BHP Steelworks.

There was only one Chinese restaurant in town, and a new pizza shop in Hamilton had tried but failed due to a lack of public interest.

But times change. If pre-1975 was the highpoint for the East End businesses, it abruptly ended within a few short years by 1980, after Newcastle City Council resumed shops and flats to extend nearby Pacific Park into what we know today.

That last block of Hunter Street, often used as a temporary bus depot, was later closed off from vehicular traffic.

But before that era ended, along came The Newcastle Song courtesy of Bob Hudson.

The comedy song, poking fun at Newcastle's working-class youth, became a smash hit, reaching number one on Aussie hit parades for four weeks and scoring a gold record for its creator.

The tune hit a familiar note with Aussies, making Hudson an unlikely star.

Until then, he'd been the lead singer accompanying fellow Electric Jug Band members (one wearing a bush hat with hatband decorated with ring pulls) playing guitars, a demon fiddle and a washboard.

That was in the crowded back bar on Saturday afternoons at the notorious Star Hotel in Newcastle's West End.

It was a highlight of each weekend.

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Now, remember the lyrics of Hudson's song extolling the bogan culture of the day, starring bored and restless youths?

It began with the words:

'Up in Newcastle they have very strange mating habits.

All the young women of Newcastle walk down main street, which is called Hunter Street for reasons that will become obvious later in the song', crooned the folksinger and radio broadcaster who went on to become an archaeologist in future years.

The song continued: "Anyway, there was this mob of blokes driving down Hunter Street sitting eight abreast in the front seat of the hot FJ, with chrome-plated grease nipples and twin cam door handles/overhead foxtails, and the coolest of them all, who got to sit near the window, was Young Norm.

"And they pulled up outside the Parthenon milk bar with young Norm saying cool things to the passing girls, like 'Gidday'.

"And standing outside was this beautiful looking shelia . . . ."

Anyway, young Normie soon gets monstered by her boyfriend, a "nine-foot Hell's Angel" and after an exchange of witty banter like ("You want a go, mate?' and "Do you know who you're pickin' on?") Normie and his fellow hoons race off with a break in the traffic.

There never really was a Parthenon milk bar, but songwriter Hudson later fronted in a promotional video at the East End during shop demolitions, pointing out landmarks such as the closed Golden Sands/Esplanade hotel opposite Newcastle Beach.

Here, he was mightily impressed by a nearby Greek cafe where each booth once had its own select-o-matic, or mini juke box.

But here's one East End story that's never really told. It concerns the historic 1909 Jubilee Memorial, or coal monument, up in Parnell Place, near Fort Scratchley.

The old monument marks 50 years of local government from 1859, but recently it oddly disappeared for a year until being re-erected in July 2018.

But then, shock horror!

The restored monument was relocated 70 metres away from its usual site to allow widening of Nobbys Road for Supercars.

Surprisingly though, it's actually the third shift the memorial has had in 119 years.

Guess where it was originally erected in 1909?

Smack in the middle of Hunter Street, that's where.

Right in what is now the middle of Pacific Park on its own traffic island with manicured lawn (pictured) to allow plodding horses and carts to navigate around.

It was then moved in 1923, presumably to avoid accidents with modern, faster cars.

But who'd guess that today, looking at the re-dedicated monument now inside Parnell Place park?

As I said earlier, nothing ever does stay the same, does it?

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