The 1970s was another defining area for the world, with huge economical changes and political controversies, such as the Watergate scandal, aplenty.
In the UK, it was the decade of the Ford Cortina, the record player and cassette recorder. It was also a decade of strikes, with postal workers, miners and dustmen all taking part in industrial action in the seventies.
After years of Labour in government, the end of the deacade also marked the start of Margaret Thatcher’s reign as Prime Minister.
Birmingham also remained by far Britain’s most prosperous provincial city as late as the 1970s, with household incomes exceeding even those of London and the South East.
Although the city became increasingly dependent on the motor industry before the recession of the early 1980s saw Birmingham’s economy collapse.
The following pictures show snapshots of life in Birmingham in the 70s:
1. The AEU building, the headquarters of the Amalgamated Engineering Union, and Albany Hotel, with the Odeon Cinema - screening ‘Scrooge’ - on the opposite side of Holloway Circus in the centre of Birmingham on 13th April 1971
Photo: (Photo by Peter Trulock/Fox Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
2. High angle view over the market stalls of the Bull Ring Open Market outside the Bull Ring Shopping Centre, April 1971. The spire of St Martin in the Bull Ring is visible in the background
Photo: (Photo by Peter Trulock/Fox Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
3. The Rotunda, a 25-storey cylindrical building, an advert for local brewery Ansells around the base in 1971. The 81-metre-tall Rotunda was designed by British architect Jim Roberts
Photo: (Photo by Peter Trulock/Fox Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
4. Signs for ‘The Mayfair’ club and ‘Bullring Shopping Centre’ on the pedestrian bridge above traffic on the Smallbrook Queensway, April 1971
Photo: (Photo by Peter Trulock/Fox Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)