I cannot think of a particular theme this week as I sit typing by candlelight in my attic so here is a pot pourri of thoughts.

After 36 years and nearly 2,000 articles, my thoughts flow less easily as I feel the first flush of middle age, give or take a decade or two.

These days everything either hurts or does not work. I feel like the night before and I have not been out, and my back goes out more than I do. My knees buckle but my belt will not and I get winded playing cards.

In fact, the only exercise I get is being a pallbearer at the funerals of late friends and I have begun to regret not giving in to all those temptations I resisted.

Still, it could be worse. Some of my married school mates tell me they get a shock when they realise the grey-haired old lady they help across the road is their wife and their children are
looking middle-aged.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about newspapers keeping obituaries ready for the rich and famous and one of those I named has sadly gone to the big film studio in the sky.

The lovely Deanna Durbin saved Universal Studios from bankruptcy with her musical films as a youngster in the 1930s but after a few movies became disenchanted with Tinseltown and went to live in France, avoiding any interviews and shunning the spotlight. Deanna lived to the grand age of 91 with apparently no regrets on giving up stardom.

This year marks the centenary of actor Peter Cushing’s birth, although he sadly left us a number of years ago.

Peter’s career as a star of the British cinema reflects how little actors over here were paid compared with their Hollywood contempories.

He starred in a number of iconic Hammer horror films but was, on average, paid about £6,000 a time. He made a guest appearance on the Morecambe and Wise Show in front of some 20 million viewers and got £367 from the BBC.

Peter also guest-starred as the supreme commander of the Death Star in the Elstree-made Star Wars but was only paid £1,000 for his week’s work.

Alec Guinness had a larger role and his agent wisely negotiated a percentage-of-profits deal, which meant Alec earned more from the Star Wars movies than all those great roles such as the Ealing comedies, Oliver Twist, Bridge On The River Kwai and many others put together.

The tragedy was that Alec grew to hate his association with the role, realising it would overshadow the rest of his distinguished career.

I have just been to an exhibition about the plans to build an 11-storey block of 150 flats next to McDonald’s in Borehamwood where the Isopad and Hertsmere House offices currently stand.

The site was occupied by our local cinema until 1982 and my visits to it in my youth were also the subject of one of my recent columns. It is amazing to think those once new offices, which I watched being built, will now in turn bite the dust. Now that does make me feel old.

Finally, I have just been reading some 1929 national newspaper press cuttings about a
property company planning to buy up 600 acres of Borehamwood and turn it into another
Hollywood.

Hundreds of homes for key workers were planned, along with several top class hotels and even a country club. There were also plans to extend the underground train service to Elstree and it is fascinating to speculate how different Elstree and Borehamwood would look today had both plans gone ahead.

Instead, the rail plans were abandoned with the outbreak of the Second World War and the plans for a “new” Hollywood bit the dust. Instead, after the war, the LCC, later the GLC, bought up the acres and created the huge new estates around Manor Way and Leeming Road.

One of these homes brought my late parents to the new town and without that I would not be writing this column today. For my older readers, as Tommy Trinder used to say: “You lucky
people.”

Until next week, look after yourself and I look forward to your company down memory lane.