While the history of Swindon and its environs can be traced to before the birth of Christ, the emergence of the town as the crucible of the railway industry coincided with the dawn of photography. That has allowed some 160 years of Swindon's evolution to be charted by the dedicated historians of the Swindon Society, which this year celebrates its 30th anniversary.

SHIRLEY MATHIAS talked to leading member Brian Bridgeman, above

ACCORDING to Swindon Society leading light Brian Bridgeman, Swindon has a long history as a community of economic immigrants.

"People have been coming here to live and work ever since New Swindon and the Great Western Railway developed in the 1840s," he said.

"And it didn't take long for the newcomers to outnumber the original Swindonians, the folk who lived in little Old Town up on the hill."

The Swindon Society, of which Mr Bridgeman is a founder member, will celebrate its 30th anniversary on Saturday, April 4, by offering Swindonians old and new a chance to look at the town's roots.

It is staging an exhibition of old photographs, maps and memorabilia covering the town's history and the story of some of the memorable people who have lived here during the past 160 years.

The exhibition will be preceded on the Friday night by Brian Bridgeman's own slide show, called The Changing Face of Swindon. Both will take place at Lawn Community Centre, which used to be a pub called The Gamekeeper.

Also on show at the exhibition will be exhibits from Chiseldon and Wroughton local history groups, Lydiard House and its park, the New Mechanics Institution, Steam Museum, the old Midland and South Junction Railway, the Tramways Trust and the Wilts and Berks Canal Trust.

Visitors will be able to learn about personalities ranging from Hooty Up The Drainpipe, an old tramp who earned a meagre living by selling children's windmills on sticks before the 1914-18 war, to actress Diana Dors who was born in Marlborough Road to Bert and Mary Fluck, and who in the 1950s became Britain's answer to Marilyn Monroe.

Those who are curious about military history will also be able to find out, possibly for the first time, some of the wartime secrets which were kept from Swindon's citizens between 1939 and 45.

"I am interested in aviation and have been looking at the subject of aircraft which crashed in the area during the war," said Brian, who lives in Sandringham Road, Old Town.

"None of them were recorded by the Evening Advertiser because of wartime censorship."

They included a United States Air Force aircraft which came down in 1944 in Ladder Lane the path that leads toward Chiseldon from what is now Pipers Way. Brian believes the pilot survived.

A crew member of a Wellington bomber which crashed on Liddington Hill was less lucky.

He is buried in Whitworth Road cemetery.

The Canadian pilot of a Spitfire which crashed into a tree at the junction of Ermin Street and Church Street, Stratton St Margaret, also died. The tree survived, in spite of a huge split in its trunk.

These incidents, said Brian, were all part of the human history of Swindon.

The Swindon Society was founded in 1972 by a group which included well-known local historian Eric Arman, who worked for Swindon Council.

Brian said: "It concentrates on the social history of the town since the camera was invented.

"We have now compiled six books of local photographs, plus another collection called A Century of Swindon, and are now working on a seventh which will be published next year.

"Suttons, our publishers, tell us we are the only town in the country to have done so on this kind of scale. Some of our 80 members never go out without a camera."

He believes it is time critics stopped sneering at Swindon and took a long hard look at its people's achievements.

They could find that a visit to the exhibition and displays on April 4 at Lawn Community Centre in Windsor Road revealing.

It will be open from 10am to 4pm, with no entry charge.

Entry to Brian's slide show, which starts at 7.30pm the previous evening, will cost £2.