Gerry Anderson pioneered a genre of TV. PAUL WELSH reveals how, compared to modern programmes, these came with strings attached

Hands up anyone who can remember a black and white television puppet show called Four Feather Falls from the Sixties.

For some strange reason it stuck in my memory, but for it's creator, greater success lay ahead.

Gerry Anderson later enjoyed hits with other TV puppet shows such as Fireball XL5, Stingray and, of course, Thunderbirds.

Gerry was a pioneer in such television entertainment, and author Chris Bentley has covered all these series and more in his new book entitled The Complete Book Of Gerry Anderson.

In a companion volume entitled The Complete Book of Gerry Anderson's UFO, he explores in depth a live action TV series Gerry made at the old MGM Studios in 1969.

In the storyline, this uniformed organisation fighting alien invaders coming to Earth has its headquarters in a fictitious film studio, so the creators were conveniently able to shoot around the sound stages and the standing sets on the MGM backlot.

If you live on the Studio Estate in Borehamwood, you might be interested to see what your area looked like in the days when it was a 120-acre movie studio. In certain scenes they also used the then modern-looking frontage of the ATV Studio's office block, which even today crops up in Holby City as the entrance to the hospital.

In fact, a few months ago some Italian fans travelled here to photograph that building but were not permitted on site. Instead, they photographed the exterior of flats in Stratfield Road, which apparently featured in an episode.

A couple of years ago I attended a Gerry Anderson fan convention at the Holiday Inn, off Rowley Lane. Gerry was in attendance, but sadly the two male stars of UFO, Ed Bishop and Michael Billington, died within days of each other not long before the event.

After they had shot about 17 episodes of UFO, they were notified that MGM was closing the studio and there was a gap of several months before filming recommenced at Pinewood. It was therefore one of the last productions shot at the historic facility.

About a year later, Gerry decided to start production of an action TV series to be shot on location in Europe and at Elstree Studios. It was called The Protectors, and was funded by Lew Grade who took it upon himself to cast Robert Vaughn and Nyree Dawn Porter in the lead roles.

Robert had enjoyed recent worldwide success in The Man From Uncle, but he found this experience less than enjoyable and, at the time, vowed never to work in England again.

By this time, UFO was suffering in the critical ratings in the United States, and the plug was pulled on the series. Gerry decided there was still a market for a science fiction series, so he decided to launch Space 1999.

It was due to have been made at Elstree, but the cloud of possible closure hanging over the studio at the time convinced Gerry he was not going to be caught out twice, so it was shifted to Pinewood. I visited the impressive set and met the star, Martin Landau, and my old friend Barry Morse.

The books by Chris Bentley are obviously a labour of love, involving extensive research, and bring back memories of what we used to watch on television during the Sixties and Seventies.

Kids today probably would think it crazy watching puppets on strings, but this was the era before clever computer technology. Heaven knows what they would think of Muffin the Mule or Bill and Ben.