A set of photographs were taken by Jack Metzger for an article – presumably about Gibraltar at a time when her relationship with Spain was becoming increasingly awkward. I am not sure whether Metzger may have been either German or Swiss, but his photographs as a group are particularly nostalgic as they were taken shortly after I had left Gibraltar for good in the early 1960s.
Main Street (see LINK) - I left Gibraltar in the early 1960s and this is the Main Street that I remember.
If you arrived by boat or tender you would have disembarked at the Commercial Wharf - a few yards in and you would have found yourself here, the site of the old market place. The dome-like structure - locally loathed and loved in equal measure – was a bus and taxi rank shelter
Going through the historic Casemates Gates would eventually get you to the beginning of Main Street and into the town proper – The medieval “Villa Vieja” lies just below the Moorish Castle (see LINK) here shown well on the way to being unsympathetically disfigured by modern buildings
The Trinity lighthouse at Europa Point known in local patois – Llanito (see LINK) as “La Farola”
This was the main building of the Spanish Aduana. It was demolished years ago. Many a time I went through that gateway on the left to visit La Línea and through the one on the right to get back home. We usually needed a special permit called a "Pase de Cuarenta Visitas" to get in and out of the place. The photo was taken from the Spanish side.
Catalan Bay Village (see LINK) and water-catchments on the east side of the Rock. The large building is the Caleta Palace Hotel - brand new at the time
Street on the west side of Casemates Square - the pedestrians are all walking away from town, the north end of Main Street being less than a hundred yards up the road to the right
The Alameda Housing Estate – known locally as "lo Humfri" (see LINK) presumably because the contractors, Humphreys Ltd, had signs all over the place. They flats were built it after WWII to accommodate returning evacuees – their houses had been occupied by military personnel - My family ended up in the block with the V shaped roof and a huge eucalyptus tree in front of it. No 45 Alameda House, Red Sands Road
For a while the entire area was surrounded by Nissen huts similar to the three shown in the photograph. They were occupied by families waiting to be properly housed. Right in front of the hut furthest to the right is a windowless building – that was the Queen’s Cinema, the most modern it town. It even had a CinemaScope screen – The doorway on the left of the building was a nightclub called La Venta of which I confess I was quite partial to
Europa Flats
The main road connecting La Línea to Algeciras – car-driving Gibraltarians would use this road when travelling to Algeciras and to the various beaches, towns and tavern on the way