Well, another of my birthdays has come and gone, as they seem to every year. The day before I spent an enjoyable time with a coach load of Borehamwood ladies and gentlemen touring Kent.
In particular, Bob and Vera Graham and myself had a pleasant pub lunch and I was amazed how much Bob, even in his eighties, can drink in an hour!
That was before we stopped at the vineyard, so I was forced off the wagon just to appear sociable.
I also found myself visiting a house of ill-repute with Jason and Craig. At least it was in the time of Charles I, but now is a respectable pub in Whitehall. We then watched the spectacular outdoor military tattoo in Horse Guards Parade, looking back over 1,000 years of British military history.
We were all issued with a free cushion on arrival. When the show finished at 11pm it was a strange sight to see thousands of people spilling out into Westminster clutching cushions like delegates to a haemorrhoid sufferers convention!
Among the flypasts was one by the one of only two surviving air-worthy Lancaster bombers, with that familiar sound of the Merlin engines which brought memories to many in the audience, including Craig. They even played part of the Dam Busters march, which of course was shot at Elstree Studios.
Peter O'Toole has been filming at Elstree on a movie called The Final Curtain. Some of us may remember him filming the re-make of Goodbye, Mr Chips at MGM in Borehamwood more than 30 years ago. The 68-year-old actor has not filmed much here in his long and distinguished career, so it is good to see him back in town.
A very attractive lady in her mid-20s serves behind the bar at Elstree Studios. Her name is Dita and she is from Eastern Europe. A couple of weeks ago she passed a note across the bar which read 'Miluji te', which apparently is 'Johnny Foreigner' language for 'I love you'.
Then, for my birthday, Dita gave me a present gift-wrapped with the message 'To sweet Paul'. I have the same trouble when I have been abroad. An obvious attraction young ladies have for debonair, suave, intelligent, middle-aged men, as opposed to youths in their twenties who need half-a-dozen lagers before they come to life.
It is good to see the Henson Organisation back at Elstree Studios once again. Of course, they were responsible for the hugely successful Muppet Show at the old ATV Studios in the 1970s, but also made movies at Elstree. The company was created by the late Jim Henson, and I remember his son Brian attending one of our Save Elstree Studios meetings back in the bleak early 1990s.
I viewed with interest a television documentary on George Walker and how successful he is nowadays in Russia building a gambling empire. He is obviously still bitter about how the banks ousted him from his own company, Brent Walker, and then asset-stripped it. He commented: 'When the banks started selling things off to recover debts I had a film library that I had turned down an offer for of $28,000,000. They sold it for £1.'
It made me reflect that I must be the only person left who is still directly connected to Elstree Studios who was present throughout those unsettled years, from Cannon's purchase in 1986 onwards. If I ever write a book about telling the true story of Elstree, it will make interesting reading. I still own 200 shares in Brent Walker, but when I phone their number nobody ever answers. Does this mean I need to write off my investment, as those shares cost me five pence each!
It is now an amazing 20 years since The Empire Strikes Back was made at Elstree and its director, Irvin Kershner, has been looking back. 'George Lucas only visited the sets at Elstree a few times,' he said. 'I think it was the best of the original trilogy and I would love to direct another one. The only problem at Elstree was Stanley Kubrick burning down one of the large stages during the filming of The Shining just prior to us moving in. It meant some rapid reorganising.'
I still remember seeing the smoke and driving down to the studio to watch the firefighters stop the blaze from spreading to the three adjoining stages. The 15,000 square feet sound stage was rebuilt at a cost of more than £1 million, but little did we know that it would be bulldozed only a few years later.
No doubt I park on its site when shopping at Tesco nowadays.
by PAUL WELSH
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