•BBC Wiltshire: How long have you lived in Lyneham?

I have lived in Lyneham for over seven years now and have recently retired from the Royal Air Force to settle in an extremely peaceful and friendly community. My initial ties with this fairly large village started in the early 80s when I was posted to RAF Lyneham, just before the Falkland Island war. After spending three very enjoyable years in the North Wilts village, I was posted away knowing one day I was going to return. Being very privileged to return in the mid 90's, I made plans to settle here purchasing a beautiful house on the outskirts of the village, overlooking the rolling hills of Preston Vale.

What's on: Lyneham Wiltshire and Beyond's Village Diary

•BBC Wiltshire: How did Lyneham Wiltshire & Beyond get off the ground?

When I was stationed at RAF Lyneham, steeping into the village prompted some pretty basic questions: where is this nearest shop? What can I do with the children? What's going on? With this in mind, I got the inspiration to produce an online guide to answer these questions. My first website attempt was a visitors guide for the many personnel passing through the air base Knowing I had spent many long hours researching the information for the guide, I decided to expand the site and involve the local community too. At the time of retiring from the air force after 27 years service, I started planning Lyneham Wiltshire & Beyond. Burning many gallons of midnight oil I came up with a website that has ended up becoming a very useful portal for the community.

•BBC Wiltshire: so what are the main objectives for the site?

The main objective is to provide the community with an interactive portal - with the information you need in one place. If the information is not on Lyneham Wiltshire & Beyond site, it could be on one of the many links. At the last count there was over 2570 of them! I believe that a good website is never finished, and this one is only in it's infancy. I have numerous ideas up my sleeves and plan to introduce new themes as and when I get time.

Have your say: Lyneham Wiltshire and Beyond's Forum

•BBC Wiltshire: What do you reckon are the benefits of having a village website?

It's environmentally friendly with no printing, paper, storage or delivery costs and it's easily updated - in some cases automatically, as with the interactive events diary. The information is sorted and is kept up-to-date too. If it becomes stale, we can remove it at no extra cost. Archived info and news also serves as reminders on what has gone on in Lyneham in the past.

•BBC Wiltshire: You've made some recent changes - what have been the main updates?

The recent changes to the Lyneham Wiltshire & Beyond site are numerous. As the site is continually being amended daily, the major interactive items added include: Mothers Day message area, village diary, quick sales, guest book, weekly poll, and many new places to eat, drink and visit. If I don't like the balance of a particular, section I will revamp it, and make it more user friendly. I continually alter the many areas.

•BBC Wiltshire: So tell us about your award winning success!

The most recent award was the "UK Online Village Website of the Month Nov 2002". The UK Villages Online judges said of the site:

"Lyneham, Wiltshire, has a very attractive and clean web site with regular news updates. The village diary allows locals to logon and enter details of their events themselves. A comparatively new site, the quality and ease of use will hopefully bloom into a very useful resource for locals and visitors alike."

Part of Lyneham Wiltshire and Beyond's homepage

The award places Lyneham Wiltshire & Beyond website to be polled as one of the 12 sites for UK Village Website of the Year. Knowing this site is the only one in Wiltshire I hope we can bring the prestigious award to the county.

Last year, and after four only weeks of the site being online it received its first recognition and gained "The Golden Web Award" for February 2002, in recognition of creativity, integrity and design. It was great news considering the site had only been up and running for a month.

•BBC Wiltshire: So what about the future?

I still have many ideas to explore and hope the daily changes will maintain the site's popularity. We have been getting over 2000 hits per week, which is excellent for a local village site and I hope its popularity is reflected if the monthly award turns into a National prize. Looking at the other twelve nominees, I believe we should be in the top three. Let's see when the results arrive in early April!