THE sight of a fire engine whizzing past on its way to save lives has always been a vision to catch people's imagination.

From childhood fantasy to adult fascination, the vehicles that take firefighters to the scenes of a blaze have turned people's heads for decades.

Now, satisfying a wealth of interest in this subject, Hampshire expert Simon Rowley has chronicled the development of these machines of mercy in one of their most exciting periods.

Mr Rowley, who has his small collection of fire engines in Southampton, said: "During the Blitz every fire crew in London was stretched to capacity, and as the Luftwaffe poured down its nightly reign of terror in the form of incendiary devices, land mines and high explosive bombs, fire crews from other towns and cities were drafted in to help Londoners cope with the vicious onslaught."

"The Second World War placed massive pressures on the fire services, and this ultimately affected the way the brigades operated in Britain."

It is this period of development that Mr Rowley, a well-known photographer in the New Forest, captures in his photographic account, British Fire Engines of the 1950s and 1960s as part of the Nostalgia Road series.

Using original photographs, the freelance press photographer from Burley in the New Forest and assistant general secretary of the Fire Brigade Society describes the progress of these life saving machines into state-of-the-art vehicles.

The books are published by Trans-Pennine Publishing, available for £6.50.