A Stroll across the Severn Bridge

Opened in 1966, the Severn Bridge was not quite 10 years old when Miriam Jones and her mother set foot upon it, possibly for the first time, although they would have been driven across it at the start and finish of many a family caravan holiday. The bridge – built in just 3½ years - replaced a ferry crossing, the remains of which Miriam’s father captures on camera from above. The bridge spans the Rivers Severn and Wye between Aust in Gloucestershire and Chepstow in Monmouthshire.

The film-maker, Gareth Hywel Vernon Jones (1918-1987) was born in Tregaron but his family moved to Aberystwyth when he was 5 and he remained there for the rest of his life. He married Joan Elizabeth Jones (1929-2017) of Lampeter in 1958 (who had also moved to live in Aberystwyth with her family, when she was 18). They had a daughter, Miriam Elisabeth (b.1967). Mr Jones, an audio-visual officer with the council’s education department, was interested in recording family and community life on film and was also a well-known player of the ‘saw’, using a cello bow to do so. He would entertain local societies with his skill and demonstrated this talent on television too.