Emrys Jenkins

This book is part of the Images of Wales series, which uses old photographs and archived images to show the history of various local areas in Wales, through their streets, shops, pubs, and people.

This new selection of over 200 photographs and postcards from Rhondda’s past continues the work of the previous publication in chronicling the rich pictorial history of these two famous valleys. The abundance of excellent images is striking, but unsurprising, since life and labour in Rhondda offered a range of subject material that modern-day photographers can only gape at. The townships of the Fawr and Fach are again treated separately but unifying and distinctive themes emerge clearly: the economic mastery of coal; the fierce sense of community; the energy of the people which has been expressed in a myriad of social activities organised often in spite of a poverty of resources. The people of Rhondda are captured at work and at leisure in their sporting clubs, their choirs and bands and even by the pigeon cote, and also at more serious times such as the 1910-11 Cambrian Combine Strike, the 1926 Miners’ Strike or the aftermath of landslides and flooding. Through its pages, this book leads the reader the length and breadth of the two valleys, gradually revealing a world lost, but never to be forgotten.

This third fascinating collection of archive photographs of Upper Rhondda traces some of the many ways in which the region changed during the 1970s and 1980s. This valley played such a crucial role in the shaping of modern Wales through the imagination of its engineers and the toil of those who worked underground. All aspects of everyday life are recorded, from shops and business, churches and schools, to images of work and leisure, day trips and days off. Its landscapes and landmarks are captured in this valuable historical record of life in the Upper Rhondda as it used to be and the changes that have since taken place.

A history of Rhondda.