This week I must start with a big thank you to the Elstree and Borehamwood Rotary Club, founded in the 1940s, who treated about 200 of us old residents to a free screening at our local Reel Cinema along with food treats. It is a great idea and I know the audience were grateful.

The film was Downton Abbey, which I found entertaining except for two minor points. Perhaps too many sweeping camera shots, which I guess were done as the film is mainly dialogue. Secondly I thought the film was a touch too long but they left enough plot lines open for a sequel which I am sure will come. Alas, it may not include the character played by Maggie Smith, who announced she was dying, but considering the character must be about 120 if you followed the television series, it will come as no surprise.

This week I take you back half a century to 1969. In those days you could buy a three-bedroom semi for £4,000 yet a family saloon could cost you £1,000. The latter was the average working man's pay but fuel was cheap at seven pence a litre. You could buy £18 worth of groceries in today's money for one pound. I know - I was earning 10 guineas a week.

Meanwhile at Elstree Studios a number of films were being made, albeit none that you could call a classic. Hoffman was a comedy starring an over-indulged Peter Sellers and even he offered to buy the negative when he saw the final result. Alas, mentally I think Peter was a sick man and physically he had major heart problems. Sadly, producers often do not care if you still have some box office potential.

The Man Who Haunted Himself starred Roger Moore, fresh from playing The Saint for seven years on television, which made him a star. The film did not do well although Roger once told me it was one of his favourites as it gave him a rare chance to act, unlike the Bond movies.

Hammer films were well established at Elstree and made several films that year. I think Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, starring Peter Cushing, was probably the best. It had a great cast and Peter was in great form just before he lost his beloved wife Helen. Thereafter he was broken man and worked to keep himself busy. I have never met anyone in the business who did not like Peter and that is a rare thing.

By contrast, Christopher Lee was at the studio reluctantly portraying Dracula in Taste The Blood Of Dracula. He always feared typecasting and was almost a last-minute addition after money was thrown at him by Hammer as their distributor would not release the film without him. When I organised a plaque unveiling in his honour at Elstree in 2008 I asked him what films he wanted mentioned on it. He refused to have any Hammer films, so track down his heritage board in Shenley Road, our high street, to see his choices.

Finally, a lesson to be careful about ever remaking a once popular movie with a new cast. Elstree tried a remake of a 1950s classic called Laughter In Paradise in which heirs to a will have to perform certain tasks to inherit. It was called Some Will, Some Won't and had a great cast of Ronnie Corbett, Thora Hird, Michael Horden and Leslie Phillips, supported by the likes of James Robertson Justice, Arthur Lowe and Dennis Price. What could go wrong? But it did at the box office. Older cinemagoers recalled the original and younger people were not interested as this was now the swinging 60s, albeit they swung by me in Borehamwood.

I asked my solicitor if I could set tasks for my heirs but he felt there may be a problem in as he called it direction from beyond the grave, which is a pity. Until the next time we travel down memory lane, you take care.