Nation Cymru, the Welsh news service, has published pictures taken of the location filming for the Third Doctor story, The Green Death.

The pictures were published by Julian Roberts on Facebook and feature his father and elder brother. They haven’t been published before and show Jon Pertwee, Katy Manning, and Nicholas Courtney filming scenes on location at Ogilvie Pit in Deri, Wales. Katy Manning is wearing glasses in some of the photos, which she always removed for filming and confessed to being “as blind as a bat” without them.

Julian’s father was working at the pit at the time. Julian himself was a baby and his brother doesn’t remember the visit to the location.

The photos were first published on the Facebook group “Photos of the Rhymney Valley and surrounding areas” and immediately attracted a storm of enthusiastic responses.

Clare Hawker said: ‘Me Mam and Sister were on the lower Ystrad Mynach bridge and they drove past. Big thing to see Doctor Who back then.’

Gerald Padfield posted: ‘My dad was an electrical engineer there and took us to watch the filming. I had Jon Pertwee and Katie Manning’s autographs.’

Lyn Martin wrote: ‘My gran lived in Bailey Street I remember the car was in the garage on Bailey Street and Doctor Who giving us sweets.’

Dilwyn Harris added: ‘My dad worked in that colliery at the time of filming and he took me over.’

The photos were brought to Katy Manning’s attention and she re-published them on her Facebook and Twitter accounts. Katy commented: “Thank you so much. I remember the faces. We came back years later to do a documentary about The Green Death. It was so touching and moving to meet some of the miners, and children now adults. Although the pit is long closed, it’s my most favourite location, ever beautiful people.”

New Who has always given fans a wealth of behind the scenes material, with Doctor Who Confidential a fixture on the BBC and DVDs for many years, but such material from the classic series is much less common, and especially welcome when it hasn’t been seen for so many years.

You can see them all on Nation Cymru right now.

ADDENDUM: We have been given 24 hours to delete this post. The DWC has received a communication from the lawyers at Global Chemicals, which reads in part: “Such publicity in inimical to the global ambitions of our company and prejudicial to our reputation. Your site will be absorbed into the domain of BOSS. Today Llanfairfach, tomorrow the world!”