FRED Judge was born in Wakefield in 1872. But he had to travel to the other end of the country to set up the business that made his name.

An engineer by trade, Fred's real love was photography. While visiting Sussex in 1902, he decided to turn his hobby into a career. Fred and his brother Thomas set up as photographers and photographic dealers under the name of Judge's Photo Stores in Hastings. Their postcards became renowned for their quality.

Today the Judge archive contains more than 35,000 glass photographic plates. It has been used for a series of nostalgia publications, and the latest, Yorkshire In Old Photographs, does exactly what it says on the cover.

It features black and white images from the 1990s backwards, each accompanied by a brief caption by Dave Randle.

The book includes more than 20 photographs of York, some showing the same scene "then and now", to draw out time-crafted contrasts. Selby, Scarborough, Helmsley and Pickering are among the other places featured, although you have to go through the whole book to find them as it comes without chapters, contents or index.

Yorkshire In Old Photographs is only one of a number of local history books to be published recently. Another is 100 Years Of Nestl Rowntree Band 1903-2003.

Two years ago, Yesterday Once More told a prcis of this musical journey. Now here it is in full, told through 236 well-illustrated pages.

It all began with an advert in the June 1903 edition of Rowntree factory journal, the Cocoa Works Magazine, suggesting "the formation of a brass band in the confines of the works would be welcomed by the many music enthusiasts within our midst".

The first minuted general meeting of the band took place in September 1905. Membership cost 1d a week, making the annual fee equivalent to 22p in modern money.

By this time the band was rehearsing twice a week albeit on 50-year-old instruments. The Rowntree directors splashed out £169 on almost an entire band of new instruments in 1907. That year the band entered its first contest at Crystal Palace, coming an impressive second out of 19 competitors.

The history of the band, through two world wars, into peacetime and up to the new millennium, is told with pride and passion. That is not surprising: the book is "written by the members, past and present", with Sharon Lang doing an excellent job of turning the memories into a readable narrative.

An early passage conveys the flavour: "By 1920 the band was once again preparing to contest.

"There is a driving force within most bandsmen to pit their skills and abilities against other like-minded individuals. It is almost impossible to explain this. There is a deep-seated need to be the best at what you do and to prove it beyond question to your peers.

"The 2003 band is no different in that respect."

The book concludes with a brief resum of 2004, a momentous year for the band, when it lost its Rowntree band room, secured new sponsorship to become the Shepherd Building Group Brass Band, and played for the Theatre Royal's production of Brassed Off.

"The changes this year at some points threatened the very existence of the band but we have come through and the set up is stronger for the struggle," says a stirring epilogue.

The pit is as much a symbol of Yorkshire as the brass band. Now coal mining belongs more to the region's past than its future, this is a timely moment for a book such as Images Of Yorkshire Coal.

The pictures come from the National Monuments Record in Swindon, the words from Peter Williams. It is not a history of the Yorkshire coalfields but "a personal, and evocative selection of images".

Peter writes: "If you were to say the word 'coals' you might expect to receive the reply 'to Newcastle'. If, however, you were to say the word 'miner' you will receive the reply 'Yorkshire'."

In 1896 more than 89,000 people worked above and below the ground in Yorkshire pits. These went from mines employing 1,000 to the "Blue Slates" staffed by two.

In a region which boasted the first commercial use of steam locomotion, at Middleton Colliery, and the first Mines Rescue Station at Tankersley, it is fitting that the last great mining innovation came at Selby, which became one of the largest modern deep coal mining projects in the world.

There are a handful of pictures of the lost Selby operation. But inevitably the book is dominated by pictures from south and west. Anyone with an interest in Yorkshire's industrial heritage will pore over them nonetheless.

Finally, Ordinary Heroes tells the "extraordinary tale of 106 Company, Royal Engineers" based in Doncaster. This is a remarkable work of social history by York writer Charles Jones, well known in these parts as the chairman of Fulford Battlefield Society.

Although it concentrates on the Territorial Army unit's war service, as the title suggests this is less a military memoir, and more a chronicle of ordinary men's response to extraordinary circumstances. Their stories are taken from contemporary diaries, their own written accounts and interviews, and are all the more evocative for that.

Yorkshire In Old Photographs by Dave Randle is published by Sutton, price £9.99

100 Years Of Nestl Rowntree Band 1903-2003 by Sharon Lang is published by the band, priced £8.50 at concerts or £10 including p&p from Audrey Brown: ring (01904) 425256

Images Of Yorkshire Coal by Peter Williams is published by Landmark, price £19.99

Ordinary Heroes by Charles Jones is published by WritersPrintshop, price £14.99

Updated: 11:34 Monday, June 27, 2005