GEESE and cattle grazing on the marsh; a carthorse drinking from the river at end of a hot day's hay-making; schoolboys in short trousers trudging through the snow to lessons at the village school.

These are some of the idyllic Scenes From A Hampshire Childhood conjured up by Fordingbridge local historian Gerald Ponting in his book published this week.

Born at Breamore, where his father and grandfather ran a smallholding and dairy, Mr Ponting delved into his own family photo album to compile the book which was given its launch in the appropriate setting of the Breamore Countryside Museum.

Following previous works charting the history of Fordingbridge and, most recently, the ancient Breamore church, Mr Ponting, 65, chose to write about his own life and times to show his grandchildren how we used to live before TV, computers and super-markets.

The inspiration for Scenes From A Hampshire Childhood is an archive of family photographs charting Mr Ponting's upbringing in Breamore and village life from the 1940s up to 1973.

The book reveals a bygone era where farmers collected hay in horse-drawn wagons, families plucked their own chickens and water came from a hand pump.

"I was also inspired by talking to my grandchildren about how our way of life has changed," said Mr Ponting.

"When I moved back into the area in the 1980s I realised my mother still had the photos and I thought it would be interesting to publish them in a book."

Mr Ponting's grandfather Percy became the village milkman in 1908, supplying villagers with farm-fresh milk from cattle which grazed on Breamore Marsh.

His father Ernest continued in his father's footsteps when he left the village school aged 14, delivering milk in the back of his Morris Minor in his own bottles until his retirement in 1973.

Scenes From A Hampshire Childhood is on sale at Fordingbridge Bookshop, Breamore Countryside Museum, The Old Pine Stores, Breamore, and Crosskeys Bookshop, Salisbury.

First published: August 19