We’re all used to seeing pictures of the past in stark black and white but now for the first time there’s a chance to see how the past really looked. Our new series takes applies a colourisation process to some familiar scenes in towns in Wales and the borders and transforms them in to glorious colour.
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A tennis court in the grounds of a castle has an elegantly wasted appeal. Rewind a handful of decades and white-clad ladies and gents could be found serving aces and shouting “You cannot be serious” to the indifferent skies above Abergavenny’s very own Norman bastion to conquest and subjugation. Abergavenny Castle is most famous for the Christmas massacre of 1175 when William de Braose invited the local nobles and their sons for a feast. Being the season of goodwill the Welsh chiefs left their weapons at the door and while they were busy tucking into their swan and mead, they were brutally slaughtered by the treacherous Normans. An event which would later inspire the Red Wedding massacre in Game of Thrones. (Udo Schultz )
It’s not every day you catch a boat making its merry way up Monmouth’s Monnow Street but March 1947 wasn’t your usual spring. A heavy blizzard followed by an even heavier gale and rain left large swathes of the town under water. Yet in those days, there was no social media to upload pictures and posts about how severe things were. Life had a habit of rolling on regardless.Pictured are a couple of soldiers coming to the rescue with some national dried milk from the Ministry of Food. Is there no crisis that cannot be made better with a well-brewed cup of tea? (Pic supplied )
Meet Henry Read, a swashbuckling pioneer of road haulage from Longhope in the Forest of Dean. After being demobbed from the army following the ending of the First World War he purchased two army surplus lorries to start his transport company. He is pictured in front of his second vehicle emblazoned on the front of the homemade cab.Rumours abound that Henry could have been the real-life inspiration for Indiana Jones. And judging by his outfit, laid-back demeanour, and the jaunty angle he's wearing his hat, there could be some truth in it. (Pic supplied)