The carnival procession has been held every year for some decades but was a very much bigger event in the past. I must apologise for the poor quality of the photographs here, which were taken on a disposable 110 camera. If any of you have attempted to scan 110 negatives you will have a good idea how fiddly and time-consuming it is.

These negatives have been languishing in a box since 1977, at which time I was a student at the London School of Economics.

I think the main interest in the photos is to get an idea of what Newton Abbot looked like at the time I was watching The Jam, The Clash and The Damned in London. Newton Abbot was a world away from the London punk scene.

In the photographs you will spot many points of interest, including:

• The Esso petrol station right next to the railway station.
• The demolition taking place opposite Woolworths that became the awful Market Walk development.
• The original multi-storey car park before it was ‘improved’. In my view the original structure looked cleaner and more minimalist.
• The parade of shops in Sherborne Road opposite Bridge House – now the Halcyon Road car park but was originally going to be the site of the second half of the multi-storey. This will soon be the site of a new 72-bed Travelodge hotel; yet more vandalism inflicted on the town by Teignbridge Council.