PHOTOGRAPHY captured Alf's imagination more than 30 years ago, when he would take his camera to the Hawarden Golf Club and photograph fellow golfers playing a sport dear to his heart.

With his silent movie camera, he would film the golfers at play and he even took it to John Summers Steelworks in Shotton where he worked and filmed men at the furnaces and in other areas of the massive steelworks.

As new technology became available, Alf was determined to master it in his quiet and efficient way. When computers came out, his son bought him one and Alf went to night classes to learn about spreadsheets, desktop publishing and word documents.

When digital cameras arrived on the scene, Alf moved from film cameras and started working with digital cameras, using his computer to edit the photographs after completing a basic course in digital photography.

Last year in true form, Alf Davies, who is also known by family and friends as Fred, spent a year studying advanced digital photography at Deeside College where he was the most senior student on the course.

Alf says he really enjoyed the course, where students ranged in age from 16 to 90, with most being in the younger age group. He praises the support he received from his lecturer and fellow students especially considering he does not hear very well which embarrasses him at times.

"Being deaf, you can't always converse with people," he says, blaming his deafness on all the engine testing he did during the war, which was 'very noisy'. He wears hearing aids to help him a little.

The shelves in Alf's lounge are bulging with piles of black and white and coloured photographs in all shapes and sizes, spanning his lifetime. Modestly he shows me his collection of photographs from Hawarden Golf Club taken over many years and where he continues to take photographs, each year presenting albums to the presidents, vice-presidents and captains.

Apart from photographing golf, he has no favourite subject in particular and enjoys photographing a wide cross-section of subjects.

Alf was born in Queensferry in 1917 and was the eldest of nine children.

When he was old enough, Alf went to work at John Summers Steelworks and when the war came, he left his job and his sweetheart Peggy Wilcockson and joined up with the RAF as an electrician.

For six years he was mostly based in Egypt on the delta, where he got malaria and spent time recovering in hospital. Fortunately the malaria only flared up once when he returned home from the war.

When the war finished, Alf returned to the steelworks and in 1946, he and Peggy were married and lived in Mancot, where Alf still lives. They later had their son, Alan, who now has two children of his own.

It was around this time his passion for learning was very evident. "I was determined to make myself an engineer so I started to study and I got my qualifications," says Alf, explaining he worked full-time and studied at night classes.

Qualifying as an electrical engineer, Alf eventually became the manager of the central electric department at the steelworks. When the steelworks closed in the early 1980s, he stopped working and enjoyed his retirement by going to night classes with his wife Peggy.

Over the years he has studied carpentry and upholstery and his comfortable armchairs and foot stools which he made, as well as the long curtains which hang in the sunny lounge are testament to his dedication.

Alf smiles and says if he had more notice I was coming, he would have baked me a cake - and he was not joking. Baking cakes and decorating them with icing is another one of his passions. He shows me his latest creation for the golf club and it looks as if it was professionally made.

For a while, Alf changed from being a student to being a teacher when he was a part-time lecturer in maths and electricity at the tech, teaching the subjects to female domestic science and nursing students who all did well under his tutelage.

Ever hungry to learn more, Alf took ballroom dancing classes and gained a gold medal with a star. Dancing became another passion and for years Alf, Peggy and two other couples used to go dancing every chance they could. "We had a smashing time – it was good dancing together," he says happily.

Peggy and Alf were married for 55 years and proudly he shows me photographs of his beloved Peggy taken throughout their life together.

Alf's eyes mist over when he speaks of her sudden passing when they were on holiday in Spain seven years ago.

Her framed decoupage artworks still hang in pride of place on the lounge room walls. On a chair in the hall is a solitary handbag.

In the corner of a room, with its rolling top folded back and not a speck of dust in sight is an electronic organ. Alf used to play it, as well as the piano accordian. "I used to play that organ and be in another world," he says.

"You know it's strange, since Peggy died, I haven't played a note," he says softly, shaking his head from side to side.

Peggy and Alf enjoyed many holidays abroad and he always had his camera. "Every year we went somewhere – there were six of us," he says, brightening up at the memory. "We went everywhere together." His smile fades as he says quietly: "There's only two of us left."

With all of the good times and bad over more than ninety years, has Alf enjoyed his life so far? "Yes, definitely," says Alf, squaring his chin and looking me straight in the eye.

He says it was a hard time at the start of his life being the eldest of nine and it was hard just before the war and shortly after. "But we have had a wonderful life together, Peggy and I."

Alf's passion for learning has helped to sustain him in so many ways, from a young man through to the present day. What does he say to people who believe 'you can't teach an old dog new tricks'?

"They are telling lies," he laughs. "I believe it does not matter what it is, you can practice and you can teach yourself. I have always said that. I have got a mind of my own and if I want to learn anything, I make sure that I learn it.

"That's been my life – learning all the while. It keeps you young."