FORMER museum curator and librarian John Mayes, who has died aged 90, was a tireless fighter to improve the library and museum in High Wycombe.

He was born on March 2, 1911 and described himself as "a country boy brought up in the town", the son of a horseman and a mother of Irish gipsy stock.

In 1932 he was appointed trained assistant in the new Public Library, Museum & Art Gallery in Queen Victoria Road. His job involved assisting in the library and helping curate the museum collections. He became Borough Librarian in 1936.

His meagre salary did not allow him to live in High Wycombe and he commuted from Watford on a motorcycle to arrive at 8.30am and to leave as soon after 9.30pm as he could.

In 1939 Mr Mayes left to serve in the Second World War and his wife Madeline, who died five years ago, took over the running of the library until he was invalided out of the service in 1944.

He often had to educate the public and even councillors as to what the library was all about. On one occasion he led the new chairman of the library committee around the building when suddenly the councillor pointed and cried out "that woman's stealing a book". Mr Mayes replied that the library did lend out its stock.

Mr Mayes was given the title of Curator of the Museum in 1948, in addition to Borough Librarian, after staging its first exhibition of Windsor chairs in the town.

He made the museum the centre for studying the local furniture industry and chairmaking and made a pioneering series of oral history recordings which preserved the memories of local craftsmen and examples of Bucks dialects, and collected important relics of the industry.

This work culminated in the publication of The History of Chairmaking in High Wycombe in 1960, which incorporated a huge amount of oral tradition that would otherwise have been lost forever.

Mr Mayes also wrote The History of the Borough of High Wycombe from 1880 to the Present Day (1960).

Mr Mayes realised the existing site was too small for both, and in 1962 he presided over the removal of the museum to Castle Hill House. This meant the museum and the library each had more space.

It was in this year that Mr Mayes had the honour of showing the Queen his work.

Mr Mayes retired as librarian and curator in 1971 and for the next 20 years was a well-known figure around High Wycombe, talking to local groups on a huge variety of historical subjects.

He was an adult education lecturer in local history at Great Missenden College, and Life President of the High Wycombe Society. He lived at Edgecott House, Amersham Hill, and he died on May 6.