Jennifer Bowen’s photographs span sporting events and key moments in Wales’ social history. The 84 year-old mother of journalist and TV presenter Jeremy Bowen still has many of the negatives from her decades documenting life in south Wales – first at the Merthyr Express and then as a freelance photographer. It’s hoped an exhibition of her work will take place next year.
Originally from Ruthin, Jennifer trained to became one of the first female photojournalists in Wales – not a ‘normal’ job choice for a woman at the time. She met her husband, the journalist Gareth Bowen, at a Christmas party at the Western Mail and they went on to have five children. Jennifer continued to work while raising them.
“I had a darkroom at home and I used to work when I could,” she says. “For women in the 1950s and 1960s, their families came first and you just either did what I did or you didn’t do anything.”
