Newport Borough Police WPC warrant cards, 1960.
Phyllis Mary Gamble became Newport's first (and probably Wales' second) woman police constable when she joined the force in 1940, having already served four years with the Met. Here she is on the left, pictured with WPC Joan Bartlett in September 1941:
There were still only four female officers on the force when Sheila Graham joined Newport Borough in 1961:
Sheila became Gwent Police's first female detective in 1967... here she is with plainclothes colleagues around that time:
Newport Borough had about 250 officers when it merged with Monmouthshire Constabulary (c. 500 officers) to form Gwent Police in 1967.
Most of Monmouthshire was still very rural so it was apparently a big shock to the system when former MC officers worked their first shifts in Newport. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy, and all that...
Here a uniformed officer looks on at the damage caused by a bomb planted in the doorway of Gor-Ray Skirts, detonated at about 1am on the morning of Saturday 14th December 1974.
Nobody was ever charged though the popular view was that it had been the work of the IRA, along with similar blasts that month in Bristol and Bath.
You didn't get stuff like that in Monmouth!