A NEW book is looking back on the career of a former freelance photographer and local history.

Past Times, written by Gerard Richardson and Ivor Nicholas, is a trip through time, and the archives, whilst looking at Ivor’s 60-year career as a freelance photographer and cameraman.

He spent much of his career with the Cumbrian Newspaper Group and ITV Border where he was also behind the video camera.

Ivor said: “I’ve had an interesting career but you rarely realise the significance of images for local history at the time you take them.

“There are some exceptions to the rule however and they include my photos of the Windscale Fire and the last shift of the screen girls.”

Past Times focuses mainly on Whitehaven but it also includes photos from elsewhere in west Cumbria.

One of the locations featured is the Wyndham Baths which were popular back in the 1970’s and 1980’s.

The most priceless memory shared in the book was from the last shift of the screen girls, who sifted coal from rock, at the Haig Pit.

Ivor said: “This is our fourth book together and it’s been fabulous to work with Gerard again albeit in a strange remote way during the lockdown.”

Gerard and Ivor began writing books together back in 2012 after their paths crossed quite a few times.

They had been due to write volume three of their series Decades which would focus on the 1970’s and 1980’s but during lockdown they began looking through the archives.

The result was Past Times.