UNIQUE photographs taken for a ground breaking book about a 1960s country GP and his patients are going on show for the first time ever in the village where he practised.

The photos, taken in 1966 for John Berger’s A Fortunate Man by Swiss photographer Jean Mohr, had never been displayed in the UK before being exhibited last week in Cheltenham.

And for two days, on the weekend of March 30 to 31, they will return to the location that inspired them, to go on show at St Briavels Assembly Rooms, where residents may recognise some of the people captured on film more than half a century ago.

The exhibition – A Fortunate Man: the Photographs of Jean Mohr – documents the work and life of St Briavels GP Dr John Eskell and his patients, as featured in the bestselling book of the same name, which has long been labelled a ‘masterpiece’.

The photos have been loaned by the University of the Musée de L’Elysée in Lausanne, Switzerland, which keeps the collection of unique images taken by Mohr 53 years ago, some of which appear in the book.

Mohr, who died last November at the age of 93 and is internationally known for his humanist photography, joined future Booker Prize winner Berger shadowing the GP day and night on his rounds and at his St Briavels clinic, where he practised alone.

Berger had come to know Dr Eskell, who he calls Dr John Sassal in the book, while living in Newland, and became determined to capture the GP’s selfless devotion to his community.

A Fortunate Man is a portrait of a quietly heroic individual and the isolated rural community for which he became the hub.

It draws on psychology, biography and medicine, and is a portrait of sacrifice and a profound exploration of what it means to be a doctor, to serve a community and to heal.

When republished four years ago, The Observer hailed the book as a “genuine tour de force… the intimate portrait of one man and his microscopic world reveals the faults and strains of a whole society,” while The Guardian’s reviewer said: “I only wish I could do justice in a few words to the richness that makes this book so compelling.”

The launch of the exhibition at Cheltenham’s Haydock Gallery on Monday, March 11, featured retired Yorkley GP and author Chris Nancollas discussing the photos and their contrast with the work of a modern-day Forest medical practice, with University of Gloucestershire photography lecturers Paul Roberts and Julia Peck.

Year 11 pupils from Five Acres High School and invited guests from the Forest also joined the discussion about what the images represented.

The loan and a project involving staff and students from the university’s Schools of Art and Design photographing the working lives of Forest people, has been funded by the Janet Trotter Trust.

The exhibition can be seen at the Hardwick Gallery until March 28, 6pm to 8pm.

Reading the Forest, with St Briavels Parish Council, has arranged for the exhibition to transfer to the Assembly Rooms for March 30 to 31, when they will be on show from 11am-4pm on Saturday and 10am -5pm on the Sunday.