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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AS we tiptoe through the tulips and make our merry way into the past, life has a habit of presenting us with all manner of strange and foolish things. Take this picture for example. At first glance, one might suggest it’s a member of the Monmouth branch of the Lord Of The Rings reenactment society pretending to be some Elven Queen or another. But that would be a bold assumption. And assumptions make idiots of us all. It is in fact, as if you didn’t know, Monmouth’s May Queen for 1908. Miss Majorie Edwards is pictured during her crowing ceremony, and what a crowning it was, but that’s a story for another time. Let’s just say Lady Llangttock was involved and it took place, as so many things do, on the sports field on Old Dixon Road. (Monmouth Museum )
IT may not be The Flying Scotsman, The Orient Express, or the Last Train To Clarksville, but amongst those circles where it’s always a railway station and never a train stain, the last iron horse to rattle down the Abergavenny to Merthyr line is regarded with reverence. After more than a century in operation, the line closed. On Sunday 5, January 1958 the impressive beast pictured at the Union Road turntable made its last run and was sent to wherever steam engines go to die. Driver George Lewis pointed out to the Chronicle at the time, “Had the number of people who turned up to see the last train patronised the trains the service would never have been knocked off!” Fair point that man! (Abergavenny Museum )
OF all the ungodly and weird things that have happened in the Forest of Dean, the one that immediately springs to mind when reminiscing about its rich and colourful past is the failed alien invasion of 1993. Although hushed up by the authorities and dismissed by the mainstream media, those in the know will remember how intergalactic visitors were only prevented from taking over the Forest by a group of formidable souls from Age Concern’s ‘Meals on Wheels’ service. Formed in 1993, the Forest of Dean Intergalactic Threat Federation used ‘Meals on Wheels’ as a cover to hide their true identity and purpose - which was to nullify the threat posed by the intergalactic invaders by any means necessary. Thankfully for us, they were successful in their task and are pictured here alongside Paul Marland MP. (Tindle News )