NOW buried deep beneath Blackburn's shopping precinct, this bit of old Blackburn -- town-centre Victoria Street, viewed from Market Street across the town's market square that served as a free car park when the traders' stalls were removed -- comes back to life in a new book revealing more of the unique John Eddleston collection of photographs of the town in 1963.

It was in that year that Mr Eddleston, who now lives in retirement in Southport, bought a camera to take on holiday to Italy and decided to try it out first by taking nearly 200 pictures of central Blackburn -- just as it was set to be changed for ever by more than a decade of demolition and redevelopment.

More than 120 of his pictures, which form an incomparable record of the Blackburn that vanished in that upheaval, first came to light again last year in "1963 Blackburn -- A Proud Town," a book which was sold to raise funds for equipment for the Stroke Rehabilitation Ward at Queen's Park Hospital. It was such a success that extra copies had to be printed and with all 3,000 copies of that first edition sold -- and more than £13,000 donated to the Stroke Ward -- a second "1963 Blackburn" book, showing the remainder of the collection, has just gone on sale. Priced at £5 per copy, all the proceeds will again go to the stroke ward.

In the view above, Victoria Street is dominated at the left by the giant Crown Hotel, a building that was extensively rebuilt after it was ripped apart in 1891 by a gas explosion which killed five people and injured 11 others. The large building at the right is the Reform Club, opened in 1866 by Liberal Party

supporters but occupied in its later years by other organisations. It was demolished in 1967.

Beneath at the far right is the shop of clothiers Bradleys Ltd, while next door Redman's bacon shop and adjoining butcher B Sunter and grocers Melias Ltd were provision dealers that served generations of Blackburn shoppers.

Copies of the book are available in Blackburn at the Lancashire Evening Telegraph's head office in High Street, the Cathedral bookshop; Bookland in Ainsworth Street and at the Old Town Hall and the Central Library.