WE take a look back at life through the lens of a Daily Echo camera man 50 years ago, and see what was happening in Hampshire at the time.

The images on these pages were snapped in the same month as the Ford Escort was introduced as a replacement for the Anglia, and when Gardeners’ World debuted on BBC.

On New Year’s Day, Cecil Day-Lewis was announced as the new Poet Laureate.

A week later the Prime Minister Harold Wilson endorsed the ‘I’m Backing Britain’ campaign to encourage workers to work extra time without pay, and then on January 16, he announced that the Civil Defence Corps would be standing down.

At the time people were listening to Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles and could purchase a whole roasting chicken for just 35p.