In 1996 the British Film Institute decided to celebrate the centenary of cinema with the awarding of 200 film plaques to be spread around the UK. They were free but the recipients had to organise suitable unveilings and fund them. At the time I was involved with Elstree & Borehamwood Town Council and due to our town's unique film heritage, I applied for and got nearly 20 plaques, but now my task was to get to work with the unveiling ceremonies.

I was allowed a very modest budget by the town council but luckily Elstree Studios had just been saved and as its chairman, I was able to persuade the management to host most of the events and provide small scale receptions.

Now my task was to organise 20 events, mainly in 1996 but with a few the following year. I don't think I could do it justice today but back then the old stars rallied to my support without any talk of a fee and even sending a car for them was debatable. However, they came and what wonderful memories - the names, the names! If I may drop a few, they included Bernard Cribbins, Honor Blackman, Richard Todd, Hayley Mills and Malcolm McDowell, not to mention Olivia de Havilland, Ralph Fiennes and John Mills, plus a number of of other great names.

It was lovely to see old stars meet together after many years. For instance when I introduced Bernard Cribbins to Richard Todd we had a laugh because Bernard recalled: "I appeared in a 1950s film with you made at Elstree Studios called Yangtse Incident: The Story of HMS Amethyst but we never met as you played the captain of the ship and I played a humble rating down in the boiler room, so at last we meet."

I will come back to more memories of these occasions in the future with your patience and hopeful interest. If not just sit back and think of England.

Ten years later we restarted the scheme and that year I organised two more at Elstree for Simon Cowell, local lad made good, and Sir Roger Moore, who of course spent most of the 1960s playing The Saint at the studio. For the latter I assembled some of the production crew and guest stars for what would the last such possible reunion.

In my retirement year of 2008 I went out with a bang and organised another four ceremonies at the Studio with the support of the town council and the management. Believe me, they were still done on a shoestring budget but had quality, proving what can be achieved without large amounts of money. The same applies to making movies and just look at some of the great pictures of yesteryear that even allowing for inflation were shot on low budgets.

The last four included Sir Cliff Richard, who was joined by co-stars from the Elstree-made Summer Holiday, and Jess Conrad from his first movie Serious Charge, made in Borehamwood 60 years ago. I asked Sir Tim Rice to do the unveiling and they all drove themselves to the studio as I was asking a favour.

Then there was the lovely Barbara Windsor, now a dame, and the mix of guests included the great Stanley Baxter, television star Dale Winton and former boxing champ Terry Downes. She was a great hit with everybody as I always invited members of the public to attend.

As a lover of those old Hammer movies it was fun to invite Sir Christopher Lee to be honoured, with his old co-stars Barbara Shelley and Francis Matthews doing the unveiling. Sir Christopher had done the unveiling of Peter Cushing's plaque back in 1996 for me.

The last was for Bryan Forbes, who once ran Elstree Studios, joined by his old mate Dickie Attenborough. It was to prove the last visit by either of them to Elstree Studios and like many I have mentioned are no longer with us.

If you believe in fate it was just the right time to have done those events and I was so lucky to have enjoyed the pleasure of organising them. You can see the plaques, now upgraded into heritage trail boards, all along Shenley Road and Elstree Way in Borehamwood starting from the railway station. Until next time, take care and keep warm.