Well so much for sitting in my garden and enjoying the plants and flowers that have now bloomed. Due to this damned weather I am back indoors with the heating on. However, we must venture out for another walk down Memory Lane and this week I salute a true Elstree Studios veteran who has just died only two years short of his hundredth birthday.

I am referring to film director Michael Anderson, who spent his formative years at Elstree Studios and with whom I had the pleasure to correspond in the last few years. Alas we never got to meet as he lived in Canada and was in failing health. He told me he was writing his autobiography, which I hope will get published although film books about the old days are not great sellers today.

Michael started as an office boy at Elstree in the mid 1930s and even played a school kid in a film entitled The House Master in 1938. During the war he served in the military and also worked on the crew of such films as In Which We Serve, a wartime hit for Noel Coward.

After the war Michael became a producer and made one of the first films to utilise the newly rebuilt Elstree Studios called Private Angelo, which starred a young Peter Ustinov.

He then went on to direct a couple of low budget movies at Elstree, including an early comedy starring George Cole called Will Any Gentleman in 1953. In later years I was always inviting George back to showbiz events but he always politely declined as he felt uncomfortable at such occasions. I last saw him just after we reopened Elstree in 1996 filming a camera advert with the famous photographer David Bailey.

Perhaps Michael's crowning achievement was his superb direction of the classic Elstree 1950s film The Dam Busters. That movie is about to be given a revival in May with a big event at the Royal Albert Hall and a limited re-release. The film took two years to prepare and he told me the studio boss said if they were unhappy with the early rushes then he would be replaced. In fact he did a wonderful job and it established Richard Todd as a major star.

Michael went on to direct another two films at the studio shortly afterwards. The screen version of George Orwell's 1984 got mixed reviews. Perhaps they made a mistake in importing Hollywood star Edmond O'Brien rather than using Peter Cushing, who had great success with the BBC television version around the same time.

Then came The Yangste Incident, which told the real life story of a British warship named HMS Amethyst caught in a river in China and a fight with the Communists. Richard Todd starred as the captain and below decks was a young Bernard Cribbens. I reunited them at a plaque unveiling honouring Richard at Elstree 40 years later and Bernard admitted they had never met as their scenes were shot separately.

Michael made two films at MGM in Borehamwood. The first, entitled The Wreck Of The Mary Deare with Charlton Heston and Gary Cooper, and Operation Crossbow with Sophia Loren, George Peppard and a host of guest appearances by British stars. I guess George is best remembered today as the cigar chewing leader of The A Team, a silly 1980s television show. He somehow squandered a potentially great film career, possibly due to his drinking, and was sacked from the lead male role in Dynasty and replaced by John Forsythe. Sadly George died aged 65 in 1994.

Michael last worked at Elstree directing the legendary Gary Cooper in what was to be the star's last film The Naked Edge. Away from Borehamwood I guess his best known films were the 1950s hit Around The World In Eighty Days and the 1970s hit Logan's Run, both of which made a fortune.

Well, that is enough from me for this week. Cling onto the wreckage and join me again next time for a dose of nostalgia, which, as they say, never goes out of date.