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.”
Her life changed after her youngest child, Charlotte, started to lose her sight due to a rare genetic disorder. Jennifer quickly found she had to advocate for her daughter and push for her to get the education she needed.
“When your child has a special need, you have to go through all these meetings and fight their corner,” she says. “The thing that really got me was when someone said to me, ‘Well, Mrs Bowen, you wouldn’t expect for Charlotte’s future what you expect for the rest of your other children, would you?’ And I said, ‘Why not? She’s losing her sight not her brain!’”
Looking back, Charlotte credits her mother with helping her to navigate the challenges of her failing eyesight.
“I developed a school phobia and school became a terrifying place, really, for me to be in because I couldn’t read my books. I couldn’t find my friends in the playground. I suddenly couldn’t see to swim to the other end of the pool.
“But I don’t remember feeling high stress or trauma and that’s because I was very supported by my parents and they made it as easy as possible for me in challenging situations. Even when I was paralysed with school phobias and endless hospital appointments, my mother was always there for me in the most compassionate way. Like so many parents and carers of disabled children, she sacrificed her career to get me through these things.”
Jennifer discovered that children who were visually impaired were not automatically given their right to an education.
“Parents had to fight for it and that’s what she and our father Gareth set about doing,” Jeremy Bowen recalls. “They made a good combination – my mother’s energy as a campaigner and his skills as a journalist.”
As a result of this fight, Jennifer founded a charity, Look, to help visually-impaired children and young people to thrive. Now, decades later, Charlotte is the director of Look and leads the organisation in the biggest peer mentoring programme in the UK for blind and visually-impaired young people. She took on the role in 2015 after she and Jennifer learned that the charity was set to fold due to lack of funds.
“My mum and I were just devastated when we heard this – and I just said, ‘I’ll do it. I’ll get it off the ground again’,” she says.
She had been working in the field of disability equality training and consultancy and before that had started her working life at the BBC as a researcher, so she had skills and experience she could put to good use as the head of Look. The charity is now thriving and employs 14 people, half of whom are visually impaired themselves. Jennifer is still actively involved in growing the charity and creating more opportunities for visually-impaired young people to thrive.
“Without her I wouldn’t be the person I am today,” says Charlotte. “She advocated for me and challenged me, compassionately but consistently – by my side and supporting me whether I was learning to ride a bike, trying sailing or simply getting through the school gates. She wouldn’t let me sit on the sidelines, she was committed wholly to inclusion – modestly and in a way that fully enabled me.
“I wonder if this spirit of my mother’s is why her photographs are so extraordinary,” she adds. “When she was behind a camera, she could connect with whoever she was taking a photo of, whether it was a child or a dignitary. She would put people at their ease and focus entirely on them – making them feel special and capturing this in her art.
“She took this into Look, giving 100% of her attention and dedication to the families she was helping. Reflecting their beauty and inner resource back at them in times when maybe they weren’t feeling it. She can judge a situation and capture its truth – in her pictures and in relationships.”
Jennifer’s strong sense of social justice has driven much of what she’s achieved in life.
“She was outraged by any marginalisation or judgement and it is this that led her to challenge the system constantly. Perhaps both my parents’ gift to us was communication, whether through images, campaigning, journalism or simply listening,” says Charlotte. “My mum’s quiet determination was never diminished by anything life threw at her.”
Her brother Jeremy echoes these words: “As well as being a lovely mother when we were growing up (and still is now we’re all getting older), Jennifer was an indefatigable campaigner for Charlotte to get the education she deserved when it became clear that she was losing her sight,” he says.
“My mother also inspired me through her work as a photographer, starting with the time when she was running around on the touchline taking pictures at international rugby matches in the 1960s and before that when I saw the work she did in Merthyr in the late 1950s.
“She showed me how to take photographs and how to use her darkroom to develop and print films when I was about eight years old. She and I have been discussing exhibiting some of her work at the National Museum in Cardiff. It’s a brilliant record of how south Wales once was. I took most of the photos in my new book and often my pictures are on the BBC website, but she is still a much better photographer than I will ever be.”
For more information about the charity Look, which supports visually impaired young people, click here.
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