THE consuming passion of recent years for John Houghton of Colletts Green has been collecting photographs taken down the decades in and around the villages of Powick and Callow End.

It has meant regularly meeting up with local historians and old postcard collectors such as Marjorie and Peter Harris, chatting to the descendants of long-established local families such as the Brickells, Rodgmans, Bartletts, Harbers and Priests, and generally knocking on doors to see if village people have any photos from yesteryear.

The end product is to be a book entitled Millennium Memories of Powick and Callow End - A Pictorial History which 62 years-old John plans to publish later in the year.

It will contain 300 or more photos he has already collected plus others he still hopes will come his way, not least through this appeal in Memory Lane.

John would still dearly like to borrow, for reproduction, any photos, postcards or newspaper cuttings which readers may have of scenes, events, family groups, sports teams, school line ups etc, taken at Powick or Callow End.

He is particularly interested in "older" photos.

If you can help, please contact John Houghton at 25 The Greenway, Colletts Green, WR2 4RJ. Telephone 01905-830643 or e-mail John@Colletts.freeeserve.co.uk

The scenes in John's pending book will cover the years 1860 to 1970, and the proceeds from the sale of the publication will go to the churches at Powick and Callow End.

John and his wife Yvonne moved to Colletts Green about 20 years ago, when he changed posts as a Ministry of Defence engineer from Christchurch, Hampshire, to the RRE at Malvern. He took early retirement eight years ago through disability and, sadly, his wife died about two years ago at the age of only 58.

John now spends most of his time pursuing his consuming passions of collecting old photographs of the area, tracing family trees and sitting at his computer, expertly storing and consulting his pictorial and documentary treasure troves.

Also, thanks to the wonders of modern PC science, he is able to make torn and damaged old photos look totally unblemished and as good as when they were taken.

His work tracing family trees has lead to regular and lengthy e-mail correspondence with people in America.

John also writes regularly for the parish magazine and has a column in the Malvern Family History publication.