The leader of a local playgroup was given the chance recently to look back at her youth when she recreated a famous photo from her past.

Fifty-eight-year-old Yvonne Williams, who runs Tenby Playgroup, recognised herself as the eight-year-old girl in a photograph published last week in the Western Mail, who ran an article about a poignant exhibition of early images by renowned war photographer Philip Jones Griffiths at the newly re-opened Pierhead building in Cardiff Bay.

Yvonne, who now lives in Harding Street in Tenby with her husband, county councillor Michael Williams, is pictured in the photograph next to her brother, Derek John ,in 1959, when they were growing up in Laugharne.

"We never knew it had been taken and it wasn't until a book was published about Laugharne, when I was about 12 or 13 in secondary school, that I saw the picture and realised it was us," explained Yvonne, who originally hails from Carmarthen.

"I was amazed. Somebody gave a copy of it to my mother and father, but I think it was lost when they moved house, and sadly they've passed away now.

"The young girl with me and my brother is Mersa Watts, whose maiden name then was Brace."

A grown-up Mersa, as owner of Brown's Hotel with her husband, actually got to meet photographer Jones Griffiths, of Denbighshire, before he passed away in 2008, as he visited Laugharne again a few years ago.

"Jones Griffiths went into the pub, showed the photograph to some people and said 'I am trying to find out where these children are now'," said Yvonne.

"Mersa behind the bar said 'You don't need to look any further, because I'm here'.

"A couple of months later, he came back to the pub with a big framed photograph of us, and gave it to her. She put it up in her lounge."

Sadly, Mersa passed away last year and her family now have the photograph, but everyone in Laugharne recognises who was in the photograph, says Yvonne.

"One of the lads in Laugharne Rugby Club cut it out of the Western Mail last week and it's now pinned up on the noticeboard there," while the newspaper also took Yvonne and her brother Derek back to the spot of the original photo to recreate it for their publication this week.

"Like Yvonne, I had no idea the photograph had been taken. It's always nice to see the picture in magazines and newspapers and I feel quite privileged that it was us," said Derek, who is now 55.

Jones Grifiths is renowned as the foremost photographer of the Vietnam war and his 1971 publication, 'Vietnam Inc' was believed to have been a crucial influence in changing public opinion in the United States at the time of the conflict.

"I have never been to an exhibition of Philip Jones Griffiths before, but we are definitely going to see it in Cardiff Bay now," added Yvonne.