THERE is something marvellous about the way oral history can span the generations, bringing the voices of people long dead back to life. Roland Chilvers gives a beautiful example in the introduction to his new book, A Collection Of Pictures And Memories Of The Old Parish Of Hemingbrough, 1850-2000.

"My grandmother used to relate to me how her parents had described to her the times when the naval press-gangs sailed up the river and impressed any farm workers they could catch working in the fields, and how her father had at times to abandon his horses in the fields and run to the church for sanctuary," he writes.

"The only men exempt were the vicar and the squire, who was usually the local JP. These men carried a certificate called an Exemption to Impressments and it was one of these men who normally gave the all-clear."

How good to learn that all those years ago the vicar was so firmly on the side of his parishioners - and oddly moving to hear such a first-hand account of times long past. This brings history to life in a way that nothing else can.

Mr Chilvers, a 66-year-old retired farmer who lives at Landing Lane, Hemingbrough, has a real feeling for history.

On a shelf in his study stands a great, leather-bound family bible. He opens it reverently and shows the page where his grandmother's name is inscribed: Jane Newton, born in Hemingbrough on September 11 1872, and married in the village church 23 years later, in 1895.

On his grandmother's side, he says, his family has been in the area for generations - but on his grandfather's side, he is a relative newcomer. "My granddad came up here in about 1850!"

With such a feeling for the past, it is no surprise to find him compiling books of local history. Memories Of Hemingbrough, his first book published last year, was a record of a fast-disappearing way of life in old photographs and priceless memories gleaned first hand through patient interviews.

It was his sense that things were changing fast and the old ways were dying out that prompted him to write the book. "I've seen such a lot of changes in the last 30 years," he says. "Things have moved fast and memories are going."

He had a few old family photos himself and would see others when he visited friends and neighbours. "And I thought, it is a shame, I will put all these photos together, and save them for future generations."

Soon the whole thing was snowballing.

"It grows!" he says. "One person tells another, and people are frightened they are going to be left out, so they ring up and say, 'Oh, we've got some photos'."

After the success of his first book, which concentrated on Hemingbrough itself, he had little choice but to write a second, which focuses mainly on the communities around Hemingbrough.

"I had people coming from Cliffe and Osgodby, saying 'Why didn't you include our village?'" he says. "So I said OK, I will do another book."

His new Hemingbrough book follows the format of his first, and is exactly what is says on the cover - a collection of old photographs and memories gleaned by Mr Chilvers through talking to people in Cliffe, South Duffield, Osgodby, Barlby and other settlements which made up the old parish of Hemingbrough.

Within its pages, you'll find some marvellous old photos that bring the rural past vividly to life. You'll see Mr John Tindall, engine man, standing on a Burrell single crank compound engine used to drive a thrashing machine. It was taken, apparently, at Mr Lee's farm in Osgodby in 1911. Farm labourers stand on top of the thrashing machine in shirt sleeves and braces, waiting for work to begin.

Fast forward 40 years, to Fir Tree Farm, Cliffe Common, in 1954 and there is another wonderful rural image: Walter, Arthur and Dennis Hodgson, repairing a wheel on a milk trolley. Just behind them a haystack rears up, a ladder leaning against the side. It is a seemingly timeless photo yet a poster reproduced on the same page reveals that just a year later, on Monday, November 7 1955, the farm - a freehold holding comprising "48 acres, O Roods, 14 Perches or thereabouts" - was put up for sale at auction.

But what makes the book are the memories that go with the photos, family memories lovingly recorded for future generations.

Many are hauntingly personal. Take the entry about Jack Hinchliffe, for example, who, Mr Chilvers writes, was "wounded at Dunkirk and died in England and is buried here".

There is a photo of Jack in his Coldstream Guards uniform, another of the guard of honour at his funeral, and one of his war grave in the cemetery at Hemingbrough. "To me, this one is special, because I just do remember him in his uniform," Mr Chilvers writes.

But Jack would have remained little more than a name on a gravestone had it not been for his sister, Peggy, who carried the memory of him in her heart for years.

After Mr Chilvers' first book was published a year ago, Peggy called him. "She said, 'You never mentioned anything about our Jack'," he says. "I said I will do him in the next book."

He pauses. "She has died now, but he is there."

Along with many, many others.

A Collection Of Pictures And Memories Of The Old Parish Of Hemingbrough, 1850-2000, will be officially launched at Hemingbrough Minster's annual Arts and Crafts Fair on the weekend of May 25/ 26, priced £25. It will also be available from Sheila Bygrave (01757 630315) or Phyllis Clegg (01757 638213). All profits from the book will go to the church.

Updated: 11:40 Monday, May 13, 2002