In the mid 1960s my father, Ronald Patrick (1919-1976), took up a new hobby - black and white photography. This was to give him immense pleasure during what was, sadly, the last ten years of his life and I, his son Tony, have been the custodian of hundreds of his black and white 35mm negatives. I recently acquired some black and white processing equipment so that I am now able to produce prints from these negatives and I have had a surprising level of success! However, the task of printing so many photographs is no mean feat, so I hit upon the idea of scanning some of the negatives which I felt were of general interest, and making them available to a wider audience on the internet.
I moved away from Newtown in the mid 1970s, so I have lost touch with lots of family friends and acquaintances, although my sister still lives in Newtown and I visit fairly regularly. However, the process of trying to catalogue the photographs has raised many questions, in some cases about exactly where and when the photograph was taken. More fundamentally, there are numerous photographs where the subjects are unknown!
My father was very generous with his photographic equipment and he was always happy for me to borrow the camera and accessories for my own use, so a number of these photographs are ones that I took. For example, at Newtown High School, where I was a pupil from 1964 to 1971 and at Mongomeryshire Ambulance Control, where I worked during the university vacations in the early 70s. (In those days the ambulance station and control room were based in an old building on the Pool Road, long since replaced by a DIY store!)
If you recognise any of the photographs in the gallery and you can add more detail to their captions, please send me a message on This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and I will respond as soon as possible.
So please browse the gallery. The captions describe the photographs using my limited knowledge, so I hope we can enhance the information with your help. I am still looking out for suitable old negatives and photographs which I will add to the site over time, so please do return to the site and check for updates from time to time. Thanks.
