LLECHRYD WORLD War Two veteran Pauline Penrose has had her wartime photo restored in colour.

Pauline, who celebrated her 100th birthday last month, worked as an RAF plotter at a Spitfire fighter station, tracking the movement of enemy aircraft in an ops room.

News of her milestone birthday came to the attention of Edinburgh-based picture restorer Mark Coley who said he was captivated by Pauline’s story.

“I went through a phase of restoring and colourising celebrity photos but, while interesting to look at Lincoln, Che Guevara and others I restored in high resolution colour, there wasn't much reaction to them,” he told the Tivy-Side.

“I much prefer to restore unsung heroes and just random people who may not be able to afford to pay someone to professionally restore old photos that are fading by the year.

I probably on average make a woman cry on a weekly basis when they see either lost loved ones or themselves looking back at them.

“Their emotional reaction and gratitude is my payment.”

Giving her reaction to Mark’s initial restoration attempt on her wartime photo, Pauline said: “A wonderful effort at colouring a black and white photo.

“You wouldn’t have known, but my hair was pale auburn and eyes green.”

Armed with this new information, perfectionist Mark duly produced a series of prints until his subject was finally satisfied he had accurately reproduced her light auburn hair of the 1940s!

“Picture restoration has become even better recently with the creation of a new artificial intelligence technology called a generative artificial network, which is a type of deep neural network,” explained Mark.

“Fairly soon, there will be no need for actual, living models and you will be able to re-cast your favourite movies using this technology.”