This remarkable exhibition displays the achievements of the pioneering British photo-journalist, Grace Robertson OBE.

Born in Manchester in 1930, Robertson began her photographic career in post-war Britain. Her photos soon appeared in Picture Post and Life Magazine.

Robertson has a special interest in the lives of working women. In fact, the majority of her pictures are of women.

Two of her most well-known series document women's pub outings from south London to the coast in the mid Fifties.

Rather than attempt discreet picture-taking, Robertson found the best technique was to spend time with her subjects until she became accepted as part of a group or community: "I found if I was continually visible, I became invisible."

The pub outing photos exude an atmosphere of such revelry that you can't help but smile when you look at them.

Robertson recalls: "When I met the women they thought they could 'fix me up'. They didn't know I had a reputation in Fleet Street and that no one could fix me up with a drink.

"We drank for four days. Those women had been through two world wars and the depression and they set out to enjoy themselves."

She says of a picture of one woman sitting on another's knee, in which they both laugh raucously: "I knew instantly I had a lovely shot.

"This moment of total joy and laughter and the sharing of that joy between the women, which was the whole essence of that story. I knew I had it then."

It is such moments of joy that distinguish Robertson's images of people. The vivacity that spills out of her pictures is intoxicating.

In another series, London Girls Throw A "Wild" Party (1955), we see women getting ready for their party: Powdering their noses, pulling on their stockings and helping one another fasten jewellery.

In the next picture, the four immaculately-coiffed young women stand shoulder to shoulder, elegantly cradling their cigarette holders. With mischievous half smiles, the night's fun is set to begin.

Ian Jeffrey writes, in the book that accompanies the exhibition, of Robertson's particular attentiveness to everyday gesture.

She captures the moments when people lean towards one another to hear something being said and stills expressive hand movements that, perhaps, the eyes of another photographer wouldn't have prioritised.

Robertson's photos of London are a treat.

Glamorous shop window displays in Piccadilly Circus and Regent Street in the late Forties contrast dramatically with figures walking through London's foggy streets.

She says of these pictures: "Rationing was still going on. What stuck me was the difference between what was in the windows and what was on the streets."

In the Tate Gallery series, Robertson observes people just as they observe paintings, though, in one case, she catches two men taking 40 winks on a gallery bench.

Here, as in all her early pictures, the dress of the photo's occupants is as fascinating as the individual events and compositions.

As a record of the period, they are absorbing. Hats, heels, tailored jackets and floral dresses testify to the era.

Robertson's images of childhood are steeped in playfulness, fun and charm.

A picture taken in Battersea in 1954 shows two young children sitting on the pavement in the narrow space between two stacks of empty milk bottle crates outside a shop.

They chat away as if sitting at home on comfy chairs. Robertson took this as she strolled past the scene.

"If I'd stopped, the little girl would have seen me and stopped talking."

In the early Nineties, Robertson was commissioned to take pictures of 43 nonagenarians whose recollections were filmed by the BBC for the series The Nineties.

It was a project she found particularly fulfilling.

"I felt I was coming full-circle because these were the men and women of my childhood. Unknowingly, they had been influencing my generation as it grew up."

For further details of the exhibition, call 01273 643010. On Saturday, May 11 at 8pm, Grace Robertson will give a talk about her work and sign copies of her new book. Free admission.