Former Daylesford resident Peter Lane visited Daylesford Museum at the weekend to donate some historical artifacts and paraphernalia he had lying around his home.
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Mr Lane lived in the town during the 1950s and 60s, as his father Tom operated Lane’s Pharmacy on Vincent Street.
As a boy, Mr Lane attended Holy Cross School and was a keen amateur photographer.
He said he would often climb on to the roof of his house to take photographs of the town.
Among the items donated were many of his photographs, in both black and white and colour, some old editions of The Advocate from the 1880s and a snapshot of the layout, staff and exterior facade of his father’s pharmacy.
Mr Lane’s father was a member of the Daylesford Progress Association and the Australian Tourist Association, therefore he also had a collection of many magazines he had collected which featured the town.
In addition, Mr Lane also donated some photos recording a particularly heavy snowfall Daylesford which he snapped on Sunday August 9, 1964.
Mr Lane said he was also working on digitising old films his father had taken of Daylesford with his 16mm movie camera in the 1950’s.
He said he would make copies and donate them to the museum later in the year.
Daylesford Museum curator, Gary Lawrence, said the items fill a gap in the museum’s collection of that period of time.
Mr Lawrence said the collection predominantly had items from the 1850’s up to World War Two but that it is important to start collecting items from the last couple of decades.
“We are keen to have people looking through their personal photographs from the 50s through to the early 80s and allow us to take a copy of key events, places and people for future research,” he said.
“The region has transformed since the 70’s. It is now a revitalised place as buildings have been demolished and others have popped up.
“Many people would have snapped photographs on their cameras.
“These photos would be sitting in people’s own personal collections… we would love to see these so we can start recording recent history for the next generation,” he said.
Items of particular interest were memorabilia and photographs recording community events as well as anything which records the social and physical history of the region.
Such items could be school photos, which the museum has a big gap of in its collections, or photos of sporting teams.
