A HUMOUROUS and revealing diary of drunkenness has been produced by a Weymouth-born photographer.

Peter Dench, who is now based in London, has just had A& E: Alcohol & England published containing 134 images spanning 1998 to 2008 when the English were drinking ‘younger, longer, faster and more cheaply’ than ever before.

Two of the images featured in the book are from Weymouth – the first is of a man drinking Guinness in a nautical-themed bar on the Esplanade and the second of an Oktoberfest-themed evening at Weymouth Pavilion.

Peter says his book offers a visual history of drinking – the nation’s favourite legal high.

He said: “For the first 18 years of my life, home was never more than a few minutes’ walk from the seaside.

“Devenish Brewery, where both of my parents worked, provided the Dench family home.

“Each fortnight my dad would get an allowance of a crate of bottled beer.

“If I got up early enough on a weekday I might get to drain what the adults had left from the night before. I liked the taste, still do.

“The first time I got properly drunk was aged 12 at my former junior school summer fete.”

Peter first got into photography through taking pictures of local wildlife in Weymouth’s nature reserves.

He then went on to study at Bournemouth and Poole College of Art.

“After enrolling for a course at what was then known as Bournemouth & Poole College of Art & Design, a career making images looked promising.

“Aged 19, browsing through the books of Martin Parr, Elliot Erwitt, Paul Reas, Paul Graham and Greg Leach in the college library, I began to take photography seriously as a career.

“If you could travel the world, make people think and make them laugh, that was a fine way to live.

“If you could do all that with a drink in your hand, then that was the life for me,” he said.

A& E: Alcohol & England is available to buy for £19.99. See peterdench.com for more information.