FEW of you will know or have encountered one of the most magnificent, breath-taking panoramas which spans the south east of Port Phillip Bay, writes former Boltonian Dennis Stones.

"Where's that?" I hear you ask.

Well, if you look on a world atlas, Port Phillip Bay will be visible as a slight indent along the coast of Victoria, about due north of the 'left-hand' tip of Tasmania.

"That's better!" I hear you say, "He's on about Australia!"

On a clear day to the north of the best vantage point and almost exactly 60 kilometres away across the bay, the city of Melbourne rises mysteriously from the water. This view is possible from the steep sides of Arthur's Seat which rises steeply above a little bay-side holiday resort called Dromana.

Now let me now take you back about 50 years. To a time when a certain photographer, Samuel Victor Critchley, was busy in the Bolton and Farnworth areas.

Samuel was born in 1927 to Samuel and Edith Critchley, and was the older of their two sons. He went to school in Bolton in the earlier years but later attended Dunstable Grammar School.

During his three years 1946-48 in the Royal Engineers, and while in Germany, Samuel decided that his career should be in photography, and since his parents had returned to Bolton, that was where he set up his business. Between 1950 and 1971, Samuel operated his photographic business from studios at both the main shop at 211 St. George's Rd, Bolton ,and from later, in 1963, he opened up the business at 51 Market St., Farnworth. It was during this time that he took a series of photographs of the first hip-replacement operation at Wrightington Hospital.

In 1957, Samuel married Joan Hewitt who was a Nursing Sister at Townleys Hospital (now the Royal Bolton Hospital).

Samuel's speciality was photographing weddings, and as a struggling semi-professional photographer myself (but with my sights set on another profession) I held Samuel in high regard, noting his special techniques whenever I had the opportunity. In passing, I cannot overlook at this point, my own photographic mentor and dear friend, the late Derek J Thompson of The New Studio in Corporation Street, Bolton.

It was a real surprise to me to discover through a chance Internet encounter with Samuel's brother, Arthur, that in 1971, Samuel and his wife Joan emigrated to Melbourne. Joan became Matron at one of the private hospitals.

Samuel began working as a consultant photographer for the Howard Florey Institute at Melbourne University. His job was to photograph all sorts of medical procedures and operations. He made all their annual reports for which they won several Gold awards. Samuel also photographed watercolour paintings for reproduction, making huge transparencies on one of his three Sinar cameras. Several books were illustrated by him too. Not surprisingly, Samuel was also a talented water-colour artist himself.

In 1977, following Samuel and Joan in their footsteps as it were, came Samuel's parents. In 1980, Samuel's father died aged 80, and was buried in the Dromana Cemetery.

It is in this very same cemetery, and alongside his father, that Samuel Victor Critchley was layed to rest. He had died suddenly in Mitcham on August 25, 1993, very soon after his retirement. Some time later, Joan returned to England, and now lives with her sister in Sheringham, Norfolk.

Samuel's mother died in 1996, and was placed to rest with her husband.

Curiously, I have never actually met any of them, yet I felt I owed something to Samuel and Joan, and also to his brother, Arthur.

So it was last January, on a beautiful summers day, that Rita and I took a car trip to Dromana. Following Arthur's clear instructions, we turned into the cemetery in which Samuel and his two parents were laid to rest. Finding the two identical graves was easy. Engraved into simple, black polished marble, the gilded lettering provides no true indication of these people, nor of the impression they must have had upon the people of Farnworth and Bolton and later, the people of Melbourne. There is no difficulty in understanding why a photographer would choose to be buried in such a spot. The graves command a magnificent and permanent view.