Morpeth author Bridget Gubbins donates her full photo collection documenting social history in Romania to library in the country

Bridget continued to travel abroad and document social history, and this included her record of rural life before Romania joined the European Union.

She travelled with horse wagons, on her bike or on foot, alone or sometimes with her sister Rosie, between 1991 and 2007.

The original photographs – some in medium format black and white, others in full colour – are stored at Northumberland Archives in Woodhorn near Ashington.

Bridget has now opened up about her experiences at the same time as revealing that her donation of the large digitised photo collection displaying her travels in the country has been accepted by the Central University Library in the Romanian city of Cluj-Napoca.

She said: “Among many wonderful expeditions were the journeys with the horsemen of Arieseni and Cresuia villages and I also recorded villagers creating lime in their own private domestic lime kilns, and skilled carpenters who made ladders before travelling to sell them over the plains on horse-drawn wagons.

“Over the years, the photos have been exhibited in the regional museum in Oradea and in the local villages in Romania. But now that I am approaching 80 years of age, I want to ensure that the records of those days are not lost.

“The university library now has the full digitised collection. This is the story of rural Romania as perceived by a British woman, a record of a time between Communism and the accession of Romania into the EU.”