This week, due to the hot weather, our walk down Memory Lane will be shorter so we can all enjoy a tipple or two under a shady tree by a babbling brook. We are only going back to 1996, 2006 and a decade to 2008.

I have no idea where those years have gone but they certainly have, albeit they left me with some fond memories.

If you walk down Shenley Road in Borehamwood from the railway station, currently celebrating its 150th anniversary, you will see a number of film heritage boards reflecting the unique motion picture history of the town.

Their origin goes back to 1996 when the British Film Institute decided to acknowledge the 100th anniversary of cinema by allocating 200 plaques to be sited across the UK. I applied for 20 of them, on behalf of the town council, and we were awarded about 20 free of charge. The only challenge was that I had to arrange unveilings for each of them at virtually no cost to the council.

Well, in those days I had energy, plus I had been the Chairman of the Save Elstree Studios campaign from 1988 until 1996. The latter year was when we saved the studio and as Chairman of the Elstree Studios Partnership Company, I was able to use the studio as a venue for the plaque unveilings and to provide some basic sandwiches and cheap wine for our guests being honoured or acting as guest unveiler.

They were fun events to organise and host, with support from many stars including Sir John Mills, Richard Todd, Honor Blackman, Olivia de Havilland, Ralph Fiennes, Freddie Young and Bernard Cribbens, to name a few. The plaque we 'unveiled' for Stanley Kubrick, who had just died was somewhat less organised. Tom Cruise had declined my invitation but I learned that Clockwork Orange star Malcolm McDowell was working at Elstree for just a few days. I asked the unit publicist if he might do the honours. Out of the blue while I was gardening I got a call saying if that if I brought the plaque down now I could have a photo opportunity. Hence the 'ceremony' was just a photo of me and Malcolm holding the plaque, but I had 20 to worry about so that sufficed.

Ten years later in 2006 I persuaded the council to support the idea of adding to the plaques and I selected Sir Roger Moore and Simon Cowell, and I could still persuade the studio to provide the venue and foot the hospitality bill. Roger was an obvious choice for the years he spent filming The Saint at Elstree. It was a real pleasure to assemble surviving guest stars and crew members and we even got an audio message from his Persuaders co-star Tony Curtis. He sent me a lovely letter afterwards saying how much he enjoyed the occasion.

I chose Simon Cowell as he was very big with The X Factor and was raised in Elstree so he was a local boy made good and an attempt to appeal to younger residents. I got Pete Waterman to be the guest unveiler and he warned me Simon would arrive late, which he did. That is always good to work everyone in to a state of tension but for an old veteran like myself I knew it would work out. Simon was great on the day and again sent me a lovely letter afterwards. His first job in the business was as runner at Elstree in the late 1970s on a television series called Return Of The Saint. He was sacked and then decided music rather than motion pictures or television was his destiny and how right that proved to be. We have not met since although I have appeared in four television documentaries about him.

A sucker for punishment, in my last year with the council we agreed I would organise another four plaque unveilings. Those I selected to be honoured were Sir Christopher Lee, who had done the honours for the Peter Cushing plaque in 1996, the lovely Barbara Windsor, the great Bryan Forbes and Sir Cliff Richard. It was always a nightmare arranging dates but certainly worth it. The guest unveilers included Francis Matthews, Baron Richard Attenborough, Barbara Shelley and Sir Tim Rice. All the honorees attended.

There is a story about each of those occasions but that can wait, hopefully, for another day. A few years ago the original plaques were upgraded into the heritage boards thanks to the efforts of Elstree Screen Heritage and First Impressions. I am chairman of the former so you see I keep an eye on such matters and the town council ensures they are cleaned on a regular basis.

I would not accept such a task today as it would be a nightmare as so many of my showbiz friends have gone from us. The really sad thing is that these events were filmed but due to copyright reasons cannot be shared . I was brought up in the era that a handshake was good enough but alas times have changed. Until next time take care.