End of an Era, Abergavenny Livestock Market by Robert K Hughes, LRSP
End of an Era, the Abergavenny Livestock Market, is an interesting book documenting a lost agricultural world which is becoming an all too common phenomenon today. Looking at Robert’s book reminds me of the rural areas in the suburban Chicago area I grew up in. Near my current home is the Hawthorne shopping center, named after the Hawthorne Melody dairy farm that once existed on the land the shopping center now occupies. I remember going there on field trips from grade school to see a “real dairy farm”. This is a story that has been repeated countless times both here and in Britain and many other parts of the world, all in the name of “progress”. One recalls the words of the Joni Mitchell song Big Yellow Taxi. “Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you got till it’s gone!”
Robert Hughes’ work documents one such story in England, that of the Livestock Market in the town of Abergavenny. Mention of a market and fair in this area go back to 1256-1257, with two markets held every week on Tuesday and Friday, and a charter was given by Charles I in 1638 for the market. The Abergavenny Livestock Market had been at its current location since 1863. Obviously, the market was an integral partof the community, and its closure was cause for controversy with an action group KALM (Keep Abergavenny Livestock Market) being formed to try and save the market. Despite strong local support to keep the market, after a long and hard fight the market closed in 2013. A supermarket, library and car park has been built in its place.
In Robert’s own words, “The book evolved from a day out at the Abergavenny Livestock Market to obtain new photographs for the Leica Society Postal Portfolio Circle, which I am a member. I was so enthralled with the subjects and knowing that the market was to close, I kept going back and taking pictures as it was certainly going to be An End of an Era. I therefore decided that my collection of images was worth publishing as a Historical Record and a way of life that is rapidly changing. The book locally has created much interest and pleasure.
”The book is in a softcover format and contains approximately 100 of Robert’s photographs of the now-closed market. There are lots of interesting character studies of real working people and the world they lived and worked in. No phony, pretty posed pictures here! The images are quite interesting on their own and are all the more poignant when you realize they are documenting a world that is now gone. They have moved on and these photographs are all we have now. Robert has been a Leica user since the early eighties when he purchased a second-hand Leicaflex, which kindled his life-long love affair with the Leica. Robert used Leica M cameras to make the images in his book.
The book is available on his website:
www.roberthughesphotographer.co.uk
He is currently working on a new book which will be about Rural Life in this part of Monmouthshire.