As I type this I am looking out at 3pm to a horrible grey day and have already had to light the candles to see what I am typing. I hate this time of year but it could be worse. Remember that awful winter in the early 1960s when we had snow on the ground for three months and ice inside our bedroom windows, but we survived.

In those days, we only had two television channels to watch and you had to wait while the tubes warmed up on your 17-inch television. Whatever happened to that girl on the colour chart when there were no programmes to watch during daytime or turning off and watch the screen blackout to a dot.

For the first time ever I have been watching I’m A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here and have enjoyed it. The tasks seem a bit boring and would be more exciting if contestants were being hunted down by wild dogs but I guess health and safety rules that out. They seem a nice bunch of celebs and I guess are being paid very well when otherwise they might have been unemployed due to the virus.

I have been told the producers paid another ten celebs £50,000 each to be on standby for two weeks in case anyone fell ill. To me, this seems obscene waste of money but that is the way showbiz works. Some may feel Government has gone the same way but I could not possibly comment as my late friend, Sir Nigel Hawthorne may have said in the TV series Yes Minister.

One of my oldest pals, actor Dave Prowse has sadly died, aged 85, perhaps a blessed relief as he was not in good health. Many years ago I privately campaigned to get him an MBE for his work on the Green Cross Code campaign, a generation ago. He always told me that is what he wanted to be remembered for albeit he knew his obituaries would be for his role of Darth Vader in the three original Star Wars movies.

Dave was a bit bitter about the way LucasFilm treated him. He realised they could not use his voice but felt betrayed they used the face of another actor when he was unveiled. He felt the company thereafter was against him. However, on the plus side he enjoyed decades earning very nice money attending Star Wars conventions around the world.

Whenever he was available, Dave always supported my events at Elstree free of charge and driving himself from his home in Croydon to attend. We would joke about him playing the Frankenstein monster in Hammer films at Elstree and even in Casino Royale at MGM in Borehamwood.

It is hard to say goodbye but all I can say, Dave, you saved thousands of lives and I look forward to the pleasure of your company in a galaxy far, far away. God bless you my friend.

Paul Welsh MBE is a Borehamwood writer and historian of Elstree Studios