Hello everyone and I must start this week by asking if you are a natural hoarder or clutterer like myself? I appreciate new built homes have little space for such indulgence but I have the luxury of space, which is my downfall. Every so often I get the urge to declutter but usually no sooner have I started than I begin to rediscover items or decide it seems a waste to throw it away although it has not been used in decades.

The other day I started looking through some old engagement diaries of mine from the 1980s when I was far more active than today. They looked fit for the bin but then I started flipping through pages and memories were ignited .

For instance in the mid 1980s I was helping Elstree Studios arrange a visit from HRH The Princess Royal to open the newly built Maxwell Building on site. This building had been funded by the then owners Thorn EMI, who had owned the Studio since 1969. It seemed a vote for the future but within a year or so they sold to a company called Cannon and they in turn sold to Brent Walker in 1988, causing the disaster to come.

However, that was the future and I certainly did not predict it as Elstree was enjoying great success, especially due to the films made by Lucasfilm, including the original Star Wars and Indiana Jones trilogies.

Anyway, I am rambling yet again so back to my appointment diary. I note that I was invited to a meal in the executive restaurant at the Studio, which has now been converted into office space. My host was the late great managing director and friend Andrew Mitchell, who was awarded an MBE for his successful efforts in keeping the Studio afloat in the very dangerous 1970s. I am the only other person in the Studios' 90 year history to have been awarded the same honour but I am humble to be in such great company.

Who were our fellow guests ? Well, I invited my friend Eva Hart who was a survivor of the 1912 Titanic disaster. At the age of seven she was put into a lifeboat with her mother by her father, and he then stepped back into certain death as it was women and children first. Of course, some men did take to the boats including the chairman of the shipping line that owned Titanic, who ironically had gone to school in Elstree village. He was shunned by society and never the same man again. Such different standards in such different times. Eva died about 20 years ago and she was bit strait-laced so I am not sure she would be pleased to know they have named a pub after her in her home town.

Then there was Major General Sir George Burns, who was then the Lord Lieutenant of Hertfordshire in charge of royal visits. He was an elderly gent who reminded me of Nigel Bruce, who played Doctor Watson in those 1940s Sherlock Holmes movies with the immortal Basil Rathbone. Sir George had been the ADC to the last Viceroy of India and the Colonel In Chief of one of the Guards regiments. Younger readers may be thinking, did these people really exist? But he was a nice chap and certainly a character.

The last guest was Douglas Fairbanks Jr , a film star who was Hollywood royalty as his father and step mother Mary Pickford were the megastars of the silent era in films. Doug became a friend and was a lovely gentleman . He would come over to England each summer and very kindly attended events I put on and helped with such things as the naming of the Fairbanks Building on the BBC Elstree Centre. I still recall escorting him onto the set of a new soap opera called EastEnders, where they stopped filming so cast members could get his autograph!

Sadly all my fellow guests from that meal are now gone. I wish I had a photo but this was before mobile phones and none of us would have thought to ask a photographer to attend. What a different world it is today when friends send me pictures of their latest meal. For a council house kid from Borehamwood I was so lucky to be part of these memories, but perhaps it is time to dump these old diaries.