LAST week’s front page picture, taken on April 1, 1967, showing the construction of Milburngate Bridge in Durham City caught the eye of Billy Mollon.

“I’d left Whinney Hill school the day before the photo was taken, and I remember the bridge being built by the firm Holst, which had a depot in Flass Vale.

“On the horizon in Wharton Park you can just see the statue of Neptune, which is beneath the cable of the tower crane. To the right of Neptune, behind the crane itself, are the tea rooms, long since demolished. This building included a garage for the parks department tractor.”

While Billy was looking at the buildings – he also spotted pigeon crees on the hillside behind the smaller crane – other people were taking note of the vehicle on the bridge.

Lots of people, thank-you very much, pointed out that it was an Austin A35 – but only the expert car-spotters said that it was an A35 van which had had sliding side windows and a rear seat installed to convert it into an estate car.

“It resembles an A35 Countryman estate, but a genuine Countryman would not have had the van's roof ventilator on it as this vehicle – which is probably Spruce Green, a very dark green – seems to have,” says John Biggs in Etherley Grange. “ I have read that David Bellamy used a similar vehicle on his travels.

“In 1956, an A35 Countryman cost £395 plus £198.17 purchase tax.”

And Keith Dinning may even have helped convert our vehicle. “As a young man I was employed at Fowler-Armstrong Ltd, which had a garage at Elvet and the franchise for Austin/Morris. I worked on their Dragonville site where there was body-building workshop.”

The Northern Echo: AUGUST’S exhibition in the Centre for Local Studies in Darlington library shows pictures of the buildings that used to line Crown Street and Priestgate, like this one from the George Flynn Collection, which shows the Priestgate Co-op in August 1982. The

AUGUST’S exhibition in the Centre for Local Studies in Darlington library shows pictures of the buildings that used to line Crown Street and Priestgate, like the one above from the George Flynn Collection, which shows the Priestgate Co-op in August 1982. The exhibition runs from Wednesday to August 29.