MILITARY historian Rod Priddle's latest book Wings Over Wiltshire has taken six years of painstaking research to record the history of flying in the county.

The result is a 396-page book that is a comprehensive study of Wiltshire's military airfields from the first one built at Larkhill in 1910 to those remaining today.

It contains 565 photographs, most of them not published previously, showing in some cases long-disappeared airfields.

The book features the units and squadrons that were based at the camps with personal stories from aircrews, ground staff and civilians.

One of the airfields featured in the book is RAF Lyneham which, when Mr Priddle's research began six years ago, looked as if it would always be one of the country's top air bases but is now due to close in 2012.

His fascination with military history has, however, nothing to do with his personal past because he was never in the armed forces.

Mr Priddle who lives in Chirton, near Devizes, spent 29 years with the fire service, latterly in Wiltshire, until his retirement in 1991.

He said: "When I first moved from Bristol to Wiltshire I found myself in Amesbury.

"Serving with the fire brigade I got around the patch a lot and came across a lot of air force memorials like Airman's Cross near Stonehenge.

"It gave me the idea that when I retired I would research them all."

Mr Priddle is secretary of the Wiltshire Historical Military Society that has been responsible for erecting memorials at the sites of some former military bases in the county.

Three years ago he brought together the sole survivor of a plane crash 55 years previously at Clatford, near Marlborough, and relatives of some of the five others who perished when an RAF Wellington bomber struck trees while trying to make an emergency landing.

During his research into air force memorials he also became interested in the large number of aviation-related memorials. Many of them, he realised, had stories linked with the many

military airfields that had sprung up in Wiltshire in World War 1, during the 21 years of peace that followed and again during the Second World War.

Wings Over Wiltshire costs £44.95 from Devizes Books and other good bookshops.