Former news photographer Eddie Wood, who pictured the highs and lows of the Westcountry for nearly 40 years, has died.

He was 78, and had been suffering from cancer.

Eddie started his career in his native Tyneside in 1937 on the South Shields Gazette.

But the biggest news story he covered was while serving as a Fleet Air Arm photographer during World War Two.

He took the official photographs of the surrender of the Japanese to Lord Mountbatten in Singapore, capturing the moment the Japanese military leaders surrended their swords.

In 1948 he joined the Bristol Evening Post and worked as the Yeovil-based photographer for the Evening Post and Western Daily Press before retiring in 1987.

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