DURING the twentieth century there were at least three years that had unprecedented snowfalls in our valley.

Photographs in the museum show both Pontypool and Blaenavon with huge banks of snow along the streets during the First World War in 1916.

A couple of years ago, Mr Robinson of Sutton Coldfield donated to the museum transcriptions of records and a diary kept by his father who lived in Blaendare Road, Pontypool, on the terrible weather during the winter of 1947 when the snow started falling on January 25 and carried on unabated, snowing nearly every day, until the start of the thawing in early March (although there was further snow showers later in March too).

February 2 and 9 alone had more than eight inches of snowfall on each day and on March 5, 1947 David described it as a "deep snow, snow blizzard, worst conditions in living memory”- when there was a record fall of over 18 inches.

The next time severe snow fall disrupted every day life was in 1963 when again there were blizzards with huge snowfalls as can be seen on this photograph from February that year in Blaenavon.

Nostalgia is provided by Torfaen Museum.