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Partnership gives Post picture archives new lease of life

Pictures from the archives of the South Wales Evening Post are to get a new lease of life thanks to a partnership with Swansea Camera Club.

The newspaper has teamed up with the club to have thousands of its old glass plates and two-and-a-quarter-inch negatives – currently stored in boxes – turned into electronic images.

Some of the pictures date back more than 60 years to the Blitz on Swansea, and also include pictures from the Aberfan Disaster, which Evening Post photographers covered.

The project has been made possible after Swansea Camera Club received a lottery grant to buy scanning equipment, and it is currently busy turning old negatives from all around the area into electronic images.

The service is free with the proviso that all images scanned are available for the public to view as low resolution files at Swansea Central Library.

The files cannot be printed and the paper’s images will remain the copyright of the Evening Post.

Evening Post picture editor Steve Phillips said: “This was an opportunity which was too good to miss.

“Like most newspapers in the country we have thousands of old glass plates and negatives covering royal visits and important events in the history of Swansea which are just in boxes.

“While some of them have been scanned for special publications, teaming up with Swansea Camera Club will enable us to have an electronic archive of these pictures which we would just not have had the time to create otherwise.

“It will enable us in the future to offer the pictures via photosales to the public and possibly display them on our website.

“It will be a very valuable resource for us as well as being an important part of conserving the history of our city.

“The project came about while I was showing Brian Gaylor of Swansea Camera Club around our office while we where discussing another project and we started looking through some of the old boxes of glass negs we have.

“I am very grateful for the help from the club and am very excited about seeing the pictures when scanned, some of which have not seen the light of day for more than 60 years.”

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