TODAY’S picture from the archives takes us back to St John’s in 1979, and how free of traffic it is, compared to an average day in the present.

Many of the once-familiar businesses have now vanished; a case in point is the supermarket Fine Fare, seen to the right of the picture.

Once a ubiquitous High Street presence, it mutated through the magic of corporate rebranding into Gateway and then Somerfield, before disappearing completely.