WHEN giants with a taste for elephant flesh and drinking rivers used to rule Abergavenny, it was a radically different place. There was no Waitrose and Castle Meadows was the cabbage patch of a high-ranking giant named Blor. The Blorenge is of course named after Blor. Translated from the old giant tongue, ‘enge’ means throne. Hence the name, Blor’s Throne. From his mountaintop vantage point, Blor would survey his kingdom with tears in his eyes. Not because he suffered from depression but because he really wanted to live by the sea. Blor and the other giants have long since disappeared into myth and memory, but his throne remains - imperial and commanding. The picture was taken in 1937 when the railway bridge was still in existence and Llanfoist Cemetery had only been in place for a little over 40 years. (Pic supplied )

IF you’re going to cross the river Usk on a makeshift bridge, you might as well look happy about it! But dam your eyes, sir! For the gents and lady featured in this pic, this wasn’t a matter of whacky races style frivolity. The stern-faced motorists were about serious business. They were road testing a temporary construction by the Royal Engineers who were staying in Abergavenny as they trained for the killing fields of World War One. The year is 1915 and the bridge was put together and dismantled in the space of a day. The joy of crossing first was left to the Marquis of Abergavenny, who is sitting in the back with Mrs. Duberley, Driving is Colonel A. Pearson, and to his right is Col. W.D. Steel. Standing beside the car like a professional photo bomber is Mayor Zachariah Wheatley. (Pic supplied )

THERE comes a time in every person’s life when the only thing that makes any kind of sense is to spend a few million on a super-yacht and spend the rest of their days chasing the promise of the sun setting on some far-flung horizon. Unfortunately, the gates to the paradise of the playboy are firmly locked to most of us. Yet, who needs huge yachts and Caribbean islands when you’ve got a coracle and the Seven Sisters’ Rocks? Pictured 125 years ago is a solitary soul who decided to jump in his boat and turn his back on the concerns and grievances of the landlubbers and go fishing. I think we all concur, that fishing from a boat has a poetry and a sensibility that standing on the shore with a big rod simply lacks. At the end of the day, you have a man out of his element looking to pull a fish out of the water. Oh, the poignancy! It’s difficult to get a sense of from this old photo but you can bet the waters of the Wye ran a lot cleaner in those days. (Pic supplied )