A MAN who helped create the blockbuster Star Wars films is helping bring the past to life at the award-winning Vale and Downland Museum in Wantage.

Former Nasa technician turned Hollywood designer, Harry Lange, is working alongside his curator son, John, in creating new-look galleries for the revitalised museum, which should be open to the public later in the year.

Mr Lange, 67, who won an Academy Award for his art direction work on 2001: A Space Odyssey, and was also an Oscar nominee for the Star Wars sequel, The Empire Strikes Back, is giving his services free to the museum, which is undergoing a £500,000 revamp thanks to a Lottery grant.

Work began last November despite fears for the museum's future after its county council budget was cut by £40,000 a year.

The immediate threat was lifted when the Vale of White Horse District Council promised financial support until April 1999.

Now Mr Lange junior is busy creating detailed designs for the new galleries. Two audio-visual films have been made, each narrated by Sir David Attenborough - the first on the geology and natural history of the Vale, and the second on the history of Wantage and the Vale.

Mr Lange's German-born father, who was involved in the design of space stations and the forerunner of the Shuttle with Nasa before moving

into films, is helping his son on set design and graphics for the new galleries, particularly in creating an authentic Georgian room, and recreating what Wantage was like in Roman times.

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