What started out as a Christmas present for family has been attracting interest from people further afield.

Martin Thomas first had an idea for a book on his home town of Porthmadog a few years ago, but he wasn’t sure how to go about putting it together and it remained nothing more than a dream.

But now, with the help of his girlfriend, Martin has a finished product, and people other than his family are reading it.

“The book was not made for retailing in shops as it has no ISBN number and I have no publisher, but the townspeople and people from all over the country really have taken an interest in it and I have had to print some more copies,” Martin explained.

“I went about putting my book together as a special and different Christmas present for the family.

“I had this idea about three years ago but just didn’t have the confidence or know how on how to approach it at the time.

“Late last year I decided as it was only for the family, it did not have to be so professionally put together, so I ventured and got it printed.”

Porthmadog: Two Hundred Years - A Pictorial History contains images of the town from the 1800s through to 2018.

The mix of old and new photographs appear alongside historic information about the streets, buildings and businesses that have been in the town for over 200 years.

“The old photos I have included have been collected over many years, well before I had the idea for the book,” said Martin.

“The 2018 photographs are my own. I have tried to age them a bit on the computer so that all the photos have the same look to them.

“A lot of the information has been gathering dust for years and has come from local people and the National Library of Wales.”

See this week’s north papers for the full feature, available in shops and as a digital edition now