Dad bought me my first box camera in the closing years of the war, with it was one roll of 620 film "don't know when you will get another one" he said. In 1947 I won my first competition - the junior competition at Dad's factory horticultural show, "Suffolk Peace" from one of our first family holidays after the war. Since then I have always had a camera but my pictures were personal ones of places I visited and later of my family.

Came National Service and I bought myself a 35mm Paxette in Gibraltar and smuggled it home in my bell-bottoms. Later, as the junior pilot on my squadron, I fell for the odd jobs -- being Gardens Officer perhaps resulted in my later loathing of gardening (though in truth it was not too demanding on an aircraft carrier) but I also became Squadron Photographic Officer which, although seldom hands-on, did mean I could skive off to the ship's darkroom. Photography was never a real hobby though and I had never thought of joining a club - they were funny people who would take weird pictures and pictures of total strangers too.

Things changed in 1981 when I joined the Accidents Investigation Branch at Farnborough for I was issued with a company camera- a Pentax Spotmatic with interchangeable lenses - now I had to start to take serious pictures of aircraft accident scenes, sometimes quite unpleasant. Perhaps with what I know now I could have done much better.

Anne by now, with the children off her hands, had seriously taken to club photography as her hobby, but although I had built her darkroom I had no interest in joining her in the darkness with those smelly chemicals. But things changed again about five years ago when I needed a flat bed scanner because bundled with it came Photoshop 3. Hey, this was fun, this was different! Anne started to get interested in the digital potential too so we added a film scanner, then upgraded to Photoshop 5 and then 6.

Anne was still the artist and I the technician, but when I saw how much fun she was getting out of it and started to go with her to Fordingbridge and Southampton Clubs as a visitor, I became hooked and two years ago I joined Southampton. I was quite miffed when my first four images (see, I have even learned the terminology) were (rightly) dismissed so I also joined Fordingbridge CC to try my luck in a smaller pond and, after a gap of 53 years, I had another winner! I have had a lot of pleasure over the past two years clawing my way through the Primary level to Intermediate with slides and colour and nearly there with mono too and, my goodness, have I struggled with the digital learning curve. You will, I hope, excuse me blowing my own trumpet, but I was so chuffed to win the Havant Open Exhibition this year after only two years of 'serious' photography. It may have been a pure fluke, it may well never happen again but, by golly, it did feel good!

I do not pretend that my four images are great photography but to me they are special. No 1 is that 'Suffolk Peace' from 1947. No 2 'Ossippee Rapids' made the best SCC primary print last year. No. 3 is that next winner at Fordingbridge, a digital mono 'on Morwelham Quay'. Sorry, I can't resist it, No. 4 is my Havant Open winner 2001, 'Casbah Passage' taken on Christmas Day in Morocco.