Well, we have all hung onto the wreckage for another week and so again we venture down Memory Lane. This week I am reflecting on my television appearances over the decades.

The first was I think in 1982 when I was asked to comment on the closure of our local cinema in Borehamwood, then known as Studio 70. I had been going there since the 1950s when they had Saturday morning cinema for kids. For me there were two thrills. Firstly letting friends in via the emergency exits for free. Then sitting in the balcony and throwing orange peel on the kids in the stalls.

The cinema was given a facelift in about 1966 and was opened by several Carry On stars as the first film was I think Carry On Cowboy but my memory is shot. Alas, by 1982 attendances could no longer support the cinema. I was asked to appear on ITV to defend keeping the cinema. They placed me in the foyer in front of a poster of a film then showing which was an American comedy called Meat Balls. I told everyone to watch as I was on ego trip but sadly my head obscured the word Meat and the remainder was a comment on my performance.

In 1984 I was invited to a breakfast television programme hosted by Anne Diamond and Nick Owen to plug the 70th anniversary of film production in Borehamwood. The fellow guests were Douglas Fairbanks Jr, famous footballer Jimmy Greaves and comedy actor Jimmy Edwards. It was fun in the green room, although I guess they are are all nearly forgotten names today.

In about 2001 I applied to a morning show hosted by Chris Evans, who wanted town mayors to bid on screen for him or one of the other presenters to switch on the Christmas lights. From memory the other presenters were Richard Bacon and Denise Van Outen. Our Town Mayor was Jean Heywood and it was literally the crack of dawn when we had to report at their studio. Alas, Jean failed but that is life.

I will not go into my many television appearances whilst chairing the Save Elstree Studios campaign from 1988 to 1996, which embraced the world. Most of them I have never seen, which I think in hindsight I prefer.

I was once asked to appear on a Noel Edmonds programme in which celebrity guests had to guess what film title I was talking about. My part was shot in another studio so I never got to meet the panel.

I must have appeared in four documentaries about Simon Cowell over the years. One was for America and the others for here but I forget which channels. I think I told the same old stories. They all pleaded poverty budgets so if I got a free meal I was ahead of the game. There is no money in documentaries.

Over the decades I have made many other appearances that I can no longer recall. However, I will leave you with one behind the scenes memory. I was being interviewed in the viewing theatre at Elstree Studios. They had me seated with the 35 ml projector on behind me to symbolise being in a cinema of yesteryear. The director felt it needed more atmosphere so a poor young runner had to hide behind my seat and blow cigarette smoke into the projector beam. I suspect it would not be allowed today but it looked good.