One of Saffron Walden's most famous sons had died at 79.

Press photographer David Campbell captured almost every major event in the town for the Weekly News, sister paper to the Cambridge Evening News.

He became interested in photography as a child and abandoned his work as an office boy at a grocery store to concentrate on photography during the Second World War.

He sold his pictures to the Weekly News and became such a success at newspaper work that he decided to turn professional as the war ended.

During his career he photographed Lord Butler, Jack Train, Lord Montgomery and Ralph Richardson.

His collection of pictures give an insight into the way his town changed over the years, and includes major event such as the Boxing Day fire at the Rose and Crown Hotel in 1969, where several people lost their lives. The local library holds around 5,000 of his prints.

His photos appear in several books about the town and the first book about his work Saffron Walden through David Campbell's Camera was published in December.

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