WITH the click of a camera, Martin O'Neill had no idea that he was capturing history in the making.

It was 1979 and the then 18-year-old was at the front of the crowd when Joy Division played a small midweek gig at a youth club in Bowdon.

Martin put the pictures in his album and thought nothing more of it until 2005 when he wanted to mark the 25th anniversary of the death of the band's iconic frontman Ian Curtis.

The Culcheth resident's images have since been displayed in Tokyo and have just been exhibited at Ono Arte Contemporanea in Bologna, Italy, as part of a celebration of Manchester's music scene.

"It’s very flattering," said Martin, whose pictures of The Smiths at Manchester's Free Trade Hall in 1984 have also been displayed.

"Obviously there are Joy Division fans all over the world and it’s just nice to be able to get my pictures in front of them.

"Ian Curtis was just mesmerising. He had a particular way of dancing. It was quite scary when he first started because I hadn’t seen anything like that before so to see this guy flinging himself about right in front of me was quite mind blowing."

Meanwhile, Martin, a former Warrington Guardian photographer, is returning to his youth with the 'Made In Eccles' exhibition which will be at The People's History Museum in Manchester from Saturday until April 19.

It features almost 100 photographs that Martin took while growing up as a boy in Eccles.

He added: "I used to practice being a photographer by walking around my home town with a camera, capturing friends, family, local characters and the architecture of the area."

Martin, who runs StudioFiveFour Photography at the CPS Centre in Common Lane, Culcheth, was inspired to become a photographer at St Patrick's RC High School.

Despite being too young, he joined the school camera club for students in years four and five.

The 54-year-old said: "I was only in the third year but I begged and pleaded to join this club and by the end of my fifth year the club had disbanded, the teacher had got bored and I had the key to the dark room.

"So I used to lock myself in there and develop photographs instead of going to biology class.

Martin saved up for his first camera, a Halina Paulette Electric, when he was 14.

"It was the love of my life I think," he added.

"I was so proud of it as I actually had the ability to start shooting then. The thing that I learned was how to approach people because as a press photographer you can’t be shy and retiring.

"I remember my first day on a newspaper when I was 18. I had to photograph the captain of Man United and I thought: ‘I’ve made it’. I was telling him what to do!"

- Made in Eccles is at The People's History Museum until April 19

DAVID MORGAN