But they are also important as a primary source of local history - images that illuminate the lives of those who lived in the past and illustrate just how much things have changed over the years.

They also add perspective and remind us that the world we live in now will one day also be far in the past - and that nothing last forever.

The Westmorland Gazette is planning to publish a Past in Pictures supplement, featuring images from this area in years gone by - and we are asking for your help.

We would like you to send us your old photographs from the South Lakeland, Furness, Eden and north Lancashire area.

They might be scenes from towns and villages in the area or pictures that show shops and businesses from years gone by - that are either still there or are long gone now.

We are looking for both upright and horizontal photographs to use in the supplement - they could be from the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s or even the 1980s - or perhaps you have access to even older photographs.

Please scan in your pictures and send them as jpg attachments in an email to chief photographer Andrew Thomas at andrew.thomas@kendal.newsquest.co.uk

You should include your name and contact details and, if possible, a brief description of what the picture shows - for example: Youngsters skating at Rather Heath Tarn, near Kendal, during the long winter of 1947.

If you know it, please also include approximately when the photograph was taken (if you are not sure simply suggest a possible decade - for example, 1940s).

If you cannot scan in your photograph, please bring in to The Westmorland Gazette Reception at Wainwright's Yard, Kendal, and we shall scan it in for you.