Wonderful Pictures Of South Wales During The 1970s Captured By The Local Newspaper Photographer

Pill, Newport, South Wales, 1974

In the 1970s Robin Weaver was a newspaper photographer in South Wales. When he wasn’t covering hard news or local events for his paper, he liked to photograph the people and everyday scenes he came across. For years his photographs remained in his private collection but then, 40 years on, he revisited his old negative files, placing the images in photo libraries and publishing a book which he says is “a portrait of a unique place and time”.

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Silver Jubilee fancy dress parade, Monmouth, Monmnouthshire, Wales, June 1977.

These photographs are miles above hackneyed whispers of the past, those routine black and white images that tell of only a photographer’s flimsy grasp on the power of pictures and the yuppie’s idea of what might be arty things to cover bare white walls in a new city flat. Robin gets into the heart of the crowd and shows us things as they were. This intimacy between photographer and subject – just look at how at ease people are as they stand for their portraits – is reminiscent of Tish Mustha’s Elswick Kids. They really are terrific.

Dowlais, Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales, 1977

“I believe that old photographs develop a special character. It’s a unique sheen imbued by the passage of time. Looking through these photographs today, four decades later, I find myself transported to a very different era, almost a different country.” – Robin Weaver

Portland Street, Pill, Newport, South Wales, 1974

Children playing on their way home from school, Rhymney, Wales, 1975

Girl minding a baby, Splott, Cardiff, Wales, 1974

Mr Parfitt, aged 84, last resident with his wife of old ironworkers’ cottages, Blaenavon, South Wales, 1972.

Woodland Terrace, Aberbeeg, Abertillery, Gwent, Wales, 1976

Neighbours in Blaen-y-Cwm, Treherbert, Rhondda Fawr, South Wales

Shocked steelworkers are told that their plant is to be closed, Ebbw Vale Welfare Ground, South Wales, 1975

Treharris, South Wales, 1977

Women chatting in a street of boarded up houses awaiting demolition, Butetown (Tiger Bay), Cardiff, Wales, 1974 – all this working class area near the docks was totally demolished to make way for redevelopment of the up-market Cardiff Bay area.