Tributes to ex-Western Mail photographer
ONE of Wales’ best-known newspaper photographers, Tony Paradice, has died.
He spent the majority of his working life with the Western Mail in its Carmarthen office before retiring in 2006.
Tony passed away at his home in Llanddowror, St Clears, following a heart attack. He was 78.
Born in Cardiff, he left school to study photography before joining the South Wales Argus in Newport in 1959, the hometown of his future wife Dianne.
They married in 1964. Shortly after, he moved to the Western Mail and Echo in Cardiff – and the path for the rest of his working life.
In 1984 he took over the Western Mail’s office in Carmarthen and the Paradices with daughters, Lucy and Sophie, moved to Pocket Lane in Llanddowror, which has been their home ever since.
Ex-Western Mail colleague Clive Lewis said: “He covered Wales from east to west, the south Wales valleys and all points west when he moved to
Carmarthen.
“His pictures were as distinctive as his surname.”
Countless royal visits and international rugby and football matches were spliced in with tragic events like Aberfan in his working portfolio, alongside the everyday happenings and people of Wales.
In recent years the recording of the start-tofinish building of the National Botanic Garden of Wales at Llanarthne in the Towy Valley was a constant assignment on the daily diary.
Colleague and former journalist Roger Sims remembers teaming up with Mr Paradice when he joined the Argus and described him as a “fine, fine man”
Adding: “He was a lovely man and I shall miss him greatly.
“He was not only a great photographer but a great journalist too, he was the photographer any reporter would want to team up with on a job.
His funeral is on Friday at 2pm at St Teilo’s Church, Llanddowror.