THE DAUGHTER of the last ever lock keeper at a popular Newport canal path relived her memories of him in a new short film.

Gladys Jones, of Birchgrove, Rogerstone, who is now in her 80s, remembers how her father Jack Brookes was the lock keeper for the Cefn Flight of the Fourteen Locks on the Crumlin arm of the Monmouthshire Canal for 51 years.

Mrs Jones was filmed telling the history of his life as part of a new education project which will be shown to visitors at the Fourteen Locks Canal Centre in High Cross.

Mr Brookes started work as the lock keeper at 20 and continued to work on the canal until he was 71 even after the locks had been closed off to boats in the 1930s.

Mrs Jones grew up with her father, mother Annie and sister Irene, in nearby Pensarn cottage until she married her husband Jack Jones and moved to Rogerstone.

She remembers her father working a five-day week, getting up at 6.30am and working on the canal until 5.30pm.

He worked with about five other men who he would pick up in a lorry each morning.

The men worked hard, opening and closing the locks, carrying out repairs and pulling out the weeds by hand but Mrs Jones said her father never grumbled.

Mrs Jones, a retired insurance office worker, said her father, who worked on the canals until the early 1970s, was a keen gardener growing vegetables and having between 30 and 40 chickens.

Mrs Jones said her parents were like soulmates and her father missed her mother when she died in 1980.

Mr Brookes continued to live in the cottage until his death in 1984 at the age of 85.

Mrs Jones said: "He was very active. He lived for his family, his garden and his work on the canal."

Mr and Mrs Jones then looked after the cottage until it was destroyed by fire about 20 years ago.

Mrs Jones said: "It was dreadful, it upset us terrible."

The cottage has since been restored but all of the old photos and furniture inside were destroyed in the fire.

Plans are in place to make the canal navigable again with restoration work hopefully starting in July or August.

Mrs Jones said: "It would be lovely to see the boats come down again."

The centre's education consultant, Tom Maloney, said: "This could be a major tourist attraction for the city.

"Without the canal, Newport probably would not have gown to the scale it has."

Mr Maloney is keen to speak to anyone else who has memories of the canal and the locks.

They can contact the centre on 01633 894802.