Flashback Extra | A new weekly feature of past photos and stories in St George and Sutherland Shire

Police closed off the Kingsway, and several ambulances attended, but no one was hurt.

The fire completely destroyed the W H Soul Pattison chemist shop, while a cake shop (was it Simple Simon’s back then?) and a men's wear shop were damaged by smoke and water.

Fire brigades from Miranda, Hurstville, Sutherland and Kogarah attended the fire, which burnt for about 45 minutes.

Alan Philp, better known as “the Arncliffe UFO man”, died in 2007, aged 81.

For many years, he proclaimed a message from the Bible on a sandwich board to passing motorists on Princes Highway, Arncliffe, near where he lived.

The letters on his signs read OFO, the meaning of which is not known, but his message was from Isiah 66:15: “For, behold, the Lord will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire."

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Tanya Blencowe,11, was welcomed back to Bangor Public School in 1993 after helping Sydney win the 2000 Olympics. 

Described as “our secret weapon”,Tanya represented the children of Australia at Sydney’s successful pitch for the games in Monaco.

The “supersonic passenger plane” Concorde flew out of Sydney Airport in 1989 after a longer than scheduled stopover. 

Part of its tailplane fell off on a flight from Auckland, sparking an emergency landing and requiring engineers to come from England

The widening of Princes Highway, between Banksia Avenue and Bay Street, Rockdale, to a six-lane carriageway was completed in 1964.

Happy Dragon, the icon of what was then the St George Permanent Building Society, was “born” in the ‘70s. 

Originally a double act – the knight later got “the sword” –  their first outing was a parade in 1970 to mark the 200th anniversary of  Cook’s landing at Kurnell.

The building society became a bank in 1992 and was acquired by Westpac in 2008.