BARRY Nesbitt was just two when his dad died. "I don't remember him," said Barry, now 58.

"Sadly I never had the chance to get to know him."

But there was a big photo of Ivor Nesbitt taking pride of place in the Wallisdown family home, so, in a way, he was looking over Barry, brother Brian, a year older, and sister Rosemary, who was 13 when cancer claimed her father's life.

In the sepia-tinted picture, Ivor is wearing ice-hockey gear.

Barry knew his dad played the sport for England, and when he retired from his job with the Ordnance Survey, thought that researching the ice hockey annals would be a good way of finding out more about his dad.

"But there was no record of him," said Barry, a father of three grown-up children who lives with wife Maureen in Charminster.

"I thought that was a great shame, so I set out to put the record straight."

And that is exactly what he has done, with a booklet titled That Great-Hearted Trier, which he has donated to Bournemouth Library.

Barry can remember tussling with Brian for possession of their dad's ice hockey stick, taller than either of them, and held together with black tape.

"And on Christmas mornings, we'd wake to find presents crammed into these giant socks, weighted down with oranges in the toes.

"It was only later that I realised they were my Dad's ice hockey socks."

Ivor was the son of Tom, who came from a family of photographers that had been in business in Blandford, Bournemouth and London from the mid-1860s.

Tom served as an aerial photographer with the Army in the First World War, flying over enemy trenches to gather vital intelligence.

He survived the Great War, and his experience helped him land a job in Quebec, taking aerial pictures for a Canadian paper manufacturer.

He crossed the Atlantic with wife Ethel and Ivor, then aged nine, in 1919.

A year after arriving, Tom was lucky to survive when his plane crashed in dense forest.

It was in Canada that Ivor learned how to fish, drive a car and play ice hockey, for which he showed a real aptitude.

When the family returned to England in 1932, Tom went into a business partnership with fellow photographer Jimmy James at the Royal Studio in Wimborne and Ivor, by now 22, embarked on a club and international ice hockey career.

Many towns, including Bournemouth, had ice rinks, and English ice hockey was about to enter its golden age, including a gold medal at the 1936 Olympics.

Ivor played for Westover, named after the Westover Road location of the rink, in the English second division.

His father, Tom, was the coach.

Tickets for the first game of the 1932/3 season cost between two and four shillings (10p to 20p today) and supper in the balcony was half a crown, or two shillings and sixpence.

Ivor's performance caught the eye of one Major Ratton, president of the British Ice Hockey Association, and he was picked to represent England against France, in London.

The following day, back in Bournemouth, he scored as Westover beat London Lions, and was, according to the Echo, "particularly brilliant" as the high-profile visitors were beaten 7-5.

A week later, Ivor hammered a hat-trick of goals up the road against Southampton Imperials, and in November he went one better, scoring four in a 12-1 demolition of Princes and Queens.

Westover's number four continued to star for England, played a tournament (with Queens) in St Moritz, and would later turn out for Brighton Tigers.

The Western Gazette, in 1933, reported that Ivor, "a keen motor-cyclist thinks nothing of riding hundreds of miles to play in a match".

(The manager of the Great Britain side at this time was James Robertson Justice, who would go on to find fame as a film actor in the 1950s.) An England team-mate, Carl Erhardt, had a son, now aged around 90, who lives in Christchurch and helped Barry with his research.

Erhardt captained the famous GB team that in 1936 captured the World, Olympic and European titles but Ivor missed out on the chance of glory to marry Marjorie Pugh (best man was fellow ice-hockey star Basil Tenier, of Birmingham Maple Leafs.) With the outbreak of the Second World War, Ivor hung up his blades and volunteered for the RAF, serving as an aircraft mechanic in many locations, including Egypt, Palestine and Italy (where there was no ice, but he still managed to get a game of hockey.) After his return to Bournemouth, he played badminton and tennis (as a member of the West Hants Club), to a high standard, before his death, at just 39.

Barry said his mother, who taught at schools in Talbot Village, East Howe and Somerford, never really spoke much about her late husband.

Sister Rosemary, who lives in Solihull, near Birmingham, was old enough to remember her father, "but all I remember is that fabulous photo of him in his ice-hockey gear".

Brian added: "I wanted to get recognition for someone who had a short, but quite remarkable, life.

"My grandfather, Tom, died in 1961.

"He never talked about Ivor at all.

"He was their only son.

"I didn't think I would get at all emotional as I delved into my father's life, but I did, although I'm glad I did it.

"The more I found out about him, the more I realised he was a good man who had a good time and lived through a very interesting period.

"He made the most of his life.

"I think he probably enjoyed himself."