An Angus photographer has donated his life’s work of more than 75,000 negatives to a museum’s archives.
Freelance photographer Jim Ratcliffe has operated in Arbroath since the 1960s and meticulously catalogued every picture taken in that time.
The collection has been gifted to Arbroath’s Signal Tower Museum to be archived by Angus Council.
Mr Ratcliffe said: “My wife said she wanted the space back in the loft of our house so I wanted to find a good home for the negatives.
“They show the changing face of Arbroath and other towns in Angus over the last 40 years and I think there will be a lot of pictures of interest for the council’s archive.
“I’m delighted the Signal Tower Museum took an interest in them.”
Mr Ratcliffe, 77, started as a part-time photographer in the late 1960s when also working for the hydro board maintaining high-voltage equipment.
He opened his own studio in Lordburn, Arbroath, in 1974, which he operated for 30 years.
He started off with a Mamiya Press camera, which produced 6cm by 7cm photographs with eight images on a roll of film. He then moved to the lighter Mamiya 330, then a Bronica ETRS and a Canon F1 before switching to digital cameras.
“I loved doing the job there aren’t many occupations where you go to so many places and meet so many people and get paid for it,” Mr Ratcliffe said.
“Highlights included Andy Stewart and the Territorial Army both being given the Freedom of Angus.
“In 1976 I had the pleasure of going up in a helicopter with Courier reporter Ian Lamb to take a series of aerial photographs. We flew all over town.
“I photographed the Queen Mother so many times that there were occasions when she would come over to check I wasn’t getting tired if it had been a long day,” he went on.
“Doing the wrestling was great fun. Giant Haystacks and Big Daddy would frequently come to Arbroath and I’d have great craic with them.”
The donation was welcomed by the Signal Tower Museum’s curator Colin Easton.
He said: “It’s a huge collection which shows how Arbroath and the rest of Angus has changed over the years.
“A huge bonus is that there are descriptions for all the negatives. At the moment we have a large number of pictures in our archives but we don’t always know what or who the photo shows.
“I’d like to thank Jim for the donation. The collection will be passed to Angus Archives for them to study.”