For once I had time on a family visit back to South Wales to wander back to my old haunts and look one of  my "roots" pastimes of taking photographs. Back in the late 70's I used to trawl around the valleys and take black and white photographs of the collieries and the coal industry.

Jayne's  dad worked all his life down the  Hafodyrynys & Glyntillery Pit and then Celynen North. The images of the surface working were so evocative and now it seems so strange that the landscape is missing these critical landmarks.   Only Penallta's headgear seem to show what it all used to look like as Big Pit is so tidy and tourist friendly. All the pits I took pictures of were absolutely  cluttered and chaotic when they were being worked.   I also found it strange for the first time that my Welsh homeland no longer looked like it used to, as I remember it,  with all the valley roads improved and using the the old railways, it was really strange to drive through.