A rare sighting

This is Roy, a rare bird indeed. A local historian, the Simon Schama of Sir Benfro (Pembrokeshire) you might say, Roy's brain is crammed with knowledge and memories and his hard drive packed with images (mostly purloined from the Web) to an extent that none can match. He's the source of most of my information about places and events hereabouts such as this piece about a strike at the railway terminal  in 1911. He's the first person I turn to if I have a query and ten to one he'll have the answer, and a photograph too.  Sometimes he'll call to tell me about an old postcard of a local scene for sale on eBay. Will you buy it? I ask - oh no but I've captured the image! he'll say. He's done a lot of writing in local journals and newspapers but it's only a fraction of what's lodged in his head. Politically astute, he's always ready to challenge received wisdoms and he doesn't care to court popularity.

Roy's finest hour was in 1996 when as a dedicated metal prospector he located a legendary cache of 17th century gold and silver coins, the Tregwynt Hoard. Another time he was charged with seeking a lost ring on a local beach - and of course he found it.

Born in another time and another class I believe that Roy would surely have become an academic historian. As it was he grew up poor and went to work young. Apart from his National Service he spent his working life at a naval munitions depot not far from where he was born and his job at 'the burning ground' involved incinerating the waste material from explosives. That, together with decades of cigarette smoking, effectively destroyed his lungs and now he suffers severe respiratory problems which limit his mobility.  But at the threshold of his ninth decade his mind is as sharp, his humour as mordant and his face as straight as ever as he tells me he's planning to bring his cat up to 'my place' (the surplus food cafe)  now that the price of pet food has gone up and he can't afford to feed him. Roy rarely has a good word to say about anyone and doesn't dispense smiles readily so I was pleased to snatch this shot of him in the tea shop where he meets up with old cronies to set the modern world to rights, or more likely to pull it to pieces. I expect he exercises his sarcasm upon me too, an incomer,  but I don't mind - to me he's a hero.

(There's another image of him in colour in my Blipfolio.)