FOX hunting has been one of the most emotive rural issues and has divided our nation for decades.

So when Norton-based photographer Andy Elliot started looking for a venue to show his pictures of the bloodsport, he was surprised at the response.

"A certain gallery in the North-East that shall remain nameless turned me down," he said. He feels this is symptomatic of the play-it-safe attitude that a lot of places take. "The people who pay for the galleries are buying what they want.

"It is a kind of propaganda by omission. When you start funding the arts, you can control the arts. If you take these pictures as a piece of local history, I was interested that that they would turn their backs on that."

Mr Elliot persevered and has found a home for his exhibition at the Margrove heritage centre, near Guisborough. It opens there on Sunday. The pictures form a sympathetic portrait of the sport. "I wanted to show the public something that they might not choose to go and look at. People have strong opinions without knowing a lot about it."

He was prompted to take the photographs when the government proposed to ban fox hunting. "In the summer of 1999 it appeared to be under threat, as it is again now. And the time to make a record of something is while it still exists."

This desire to document aspects of rural life that are threatened or on the wane has driven Mr Elliot since he was a boy. "I started in August of 1964, aged 12. I was watching a steam train at Darlington station and thought to myself, I will never see this again."

Coming from a one-parent family in Stockton, he relied on his ingenuity to fund the hobby that became his life's passion. "I sent off seven-and-a-half pence to Blue Riband biscuits for a camera offer. I developed the pictures myself in the house, using cheap chemicals I bought off the RAF."

After school he moved to Northern Ireland where he worked for the BBC for 20 years. But on his return to Cleveland, he has picked up where he left off. "It is a lifetime's work, of which this exhibition is just a small part. I've taken thousands of pictures - there are boxes and boxes and boxes of them."

This year he has been out trying to capture how the foot-and-mouth epidemic has affected the farming community and hopes to exhibit his results next year. He draws a parallel between this and his current exhibition.

"This year for the first time we have noticed that tourism is important and there is a link between farming and tourism. What has not been noticed is that farming people and hunting people are the same people."

He has switched his focus for now from the countryside to urban areas and is working in Middlesbrough trying to raise awareness of the town's drug problem.

But the next Andy Elliot exhibition will be of his hometown of Stockton, commissioned by the borough council.

"By complete coincidence I had photographed all the buildings they have recently knocked down. All the back end of the high street has gone, the workmen's cottages and the register office have all vanished."

He is less complimentary about the new development. "It has been replaced by Legoland, which shows the affect that single regeneration budget funding can have on a town."

Asked if he ever tires of looking at life through a lens, he laughs. "God, I wish I had started sooner!"

"I have spent the last 35 years taking pictures of people in the North-East at home, work and at play. I hope to keep on documenting this area."

So, whatever the future holds for Teesside and rural Cleveland, Andy Elliot will be there to capture it on film.

Golden thread: Photographs of Hunting, Farming and the Countryside can be seen at the Margrove heritage centre until July 15. Pictures cover the Cleveland, Bilsdale, Farndale and Hurworth hunts, and range from the judging of sheep at the 1999 Bilsdale show through to portraits of local characters and foot-and-mouth warning posters; opening times are from 10am-4.30, Monday to Thursday, noon-5pm on Sundays.

Dan Jenkins