Ian Swift, photographer

He had worked on the paper from 1973 until 2009, when he took early retirement to care for his late wife, Pat, a former editor of the Hebden Bridge Times and the Todmorden News.

Born in Halifax, he had emigrated with his family to Australia at age five, under the resettlement scheme whose participants were known colloquially as £10 Poms.

He returned to England on his 17th birthday, and worked as a trainee signalman at Halifax station before joining the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment, which was then based at Wellesley Park. He was discharged in 1964 with a perforated ear-drum.

He worked for a while as a cutter and welder at Pullman Steel in Horton Street, Halifax, before training as a photographer in 1969 and landing a job with the Spenborough Guardian at Cleckheaton.

A member of Ryburn Golf Club for many years, he and his family lived for three decades in a house he built at Sowerby, before moving to Woodlesford, Pellon.

He leaves a son and daughter, four grandchildren and a great-granddaughter.