POLITICAL party conferences have been held in seaside towns and cities like Brighton for generations.

While in recent years some have hosted their annual events in industrial northern cities for political reasons, the conference season will forever be synonymous with Blackpool, Bournemouth, and Brighton.

The Conservative Party’s 1984 event here is engraved in our minds – the conference when the IRA bombed The Grand hotel.

But the Liberal Democrats were here as recently as last year and the Labour Party has hosted dozens of conferences at the Brighton Centre.

Our pictures today show occasions from the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties.

As Britain’s post-war industrial decline was taking its toll on workers in the manufacturing industries, many of their concerns were uppermost in mind in 1966 when Harold Wilson and his colleagues came to town.

Our old picture shows him addressing union members with a loudhailer.

And in our main image, there are hundreds of protesters thronging Brighton Station holding placards explaining their plight and calling for action from the party.

One says Midlands Trade Unionists Demand Full Employment and another says We Want Backing Not Sacking.

Interestingly, although it is blue-collar jobs which are the subject of the banners and placards, all the protesters seem to be formally dressed in suits and ties –perhaps a sign of more formal times.