THE cartoon from Douglas Whitworth, printed in Bygones letters, certainly produced memories of Notts photographer Edgar Lloyd.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, while I worked at the city council's public relations office, we used Edgar quite a lot for press, promotional and portrait photography.

Until a decade or so ago we still had hundreds of his photographs in our library, all with Edgar's distinctive rubber stamp on the back. As the city council moved over to a digital image library, the majority of Edgar's photographs, almost entirely black and white prints, were transferred to the Local Studies Library in Angel Row.

Edgar was such an idiosyncratic character and a real pleasure to work with.

He always wore a suit, usually with a hat, although you might describe him as slightly shambolic, and with a constant cigarette hanging from his mouth. He was very professional, but he didn't suffer fools gladly – probably irascible would best describe his manner.

He had an irritable, almost petulant attitude when taking photographs and organising his subjects.

It was a real joy to watch him at work – he took some terrific shots and treated everyone the same, whether members of the public, council officers or elected members.

Edgar would get people to stand exactly where he wanted them with a stamp of his foot and a sudden exclamation, such as "For Christ's sake, stand there; no, you, on the end!" with bits of ash flying from the cigarette clamped in the corner of his mouth.

Thank you for evoking such wonderful memories of this absolutely unique Nottingham character.

ROY MANTERFIELD.

(via e-mail)