A FIREFIGHTER has told of his surprise at finding his wife repeatedly appearing in images on a popular mapping website while she was taking her dog for a walk.

Curiosity led to Terry Southgate, 55, taking a look at his own property in Elmswell on Google Street View, an online system created by the web search giant which gives a 360-degree view of nearly every street in the country in close-up detail.

But when the first image of his property appeared, he noticed that his 52-year-old wife Wendy had been caught in the frame walking their dog Trixie.

He then looked in a nearby street – and again saw his wife.

He decided to follow the entire route of the couple’s dog walking circuit and she appeared in image after image.

He said he had no problem recognising his wife – whose face is blurred in the images under Google’s own policies – because of her boots and Trixie.

“I just clicked on our house as the Google Street View thing has not been out that long,” said Mr Southgate, a former village football referee and who is part of Wattisham Airfield’s red watch fire crew. “I saw Wendy and then there she was again. And I just kept clicking on it and there she was – it was definitely her. She always goes out on that walk – we call it the ‘winter walk’ because it is a good long walk.

“She wasn’t aware she was being photographed. At the time she did mention she had seen this funny thing down the road. I came home from work and she mentioned it and I told her I had seen it as well.

“We both think it’s quite funny.” The Google camera car pictured Mrs Southgate, who works at Connexions in Bury St Edmunds, over a half-mile route.

Mr Southgate, of Rowan Green, counted 43 different shots with his wife in them.

He now wonders whether his wife is the most pictured person on Google Street View – a question Google said it was currently unable to answer. Google’s Street View system went live nationally just last month. Ed Parsons, Google’s geospatial technologist, said: “Street View takes mapping to a level not possible before.”

He said people could use it to plan journeys or go house hunting online.

laurence.cawley@eadt.co.uk