Snapper shows town through the ages

8:05am Monday 6th October 2008

A MELKSHAM-based photographer will be giving people a glance of life in the town over the past 50 years when he puts on a display of his work later this month.

Tony Seager, from Southbrook Road, will be hosting a slide show featuring more than 200 images and talking about the collection.

Mr Seager, a former photography lecturer who worked at Trowbridge Technical College for 29 years, said he has 31,000 slides of Melksham in his collection, which has been built up over years.

Among the pictures he treasures most are those of Melksham Railway Station, which was a bustling station when he was growing up in the area.

He said he has fond memories of the station which he and his dad used to use when taking trips to Weymouth when he was a child.

He said: "I will be showing pictures of the station on the night as well as many others. Photography started as a hobby for me when I joined a club at Chippenham Grammar School and got hooked.

"I worked as an engineer for many years, but then retrained as a photography lecturer and started teaching in Trowbridge.

"I take pictures of places, people and things in the town and the last ones I took were of the Polish Deli in Melksham, which closed last week. So it is an up-to-date collection," he said.

Mr Seager said the transformer on the projector he uses is now on its last legs, so this could be his last ever slide show.

He said: "You just can't buy them anymore, so after doing hundreds of slide shows I wont be able to do anymore."

Entry to the event, which will be held at Melksham Assembly Hall from 7.30pm on October 16, is £2 and Mr Seager will be selling CDs of the slides for £10 after the screening.

All profits will go towards Kidney Research at Southmead Hospital in Bristol.