Once again thankyou to various readers who have stopped me in Tesco and elsewhere to say that after 30 years they still enjoy this weekly stroll down memory lane.

It encourages me as I sit alone by candlelight in my attic compiling these words with only my portrait in sight, which is supposed to guarantee eternal youth!

Special thanks to a member of my football team, Bill Ryan, who says his life would be incomplete without this weekly dose of nostalgia. He sounds like one of those endless young contestants on The X Factor who declare their life will be without meaning if they fail to become a rich popstar. What happened to the days when youngsters dreamed of being a fireman or train driver?

Sad to report the loss of two more Elstree veterans. Terence Morgan has died aged 83, having been retired from acting for some years. He starred in the Sir Francis Drake TV series at Elstree over 40 years ago.

We have also lost Michael Sheard, aged 65, who appeared as Admiral Ozzel in The Empire Strikes Back, and in two Indiana Jones films, but will always be remembered as teacher Maurice Bronson in Grange Hill when it was made at the BBC Elstree Centre.

You begin to feel your age when you look round and find the passage of time has taken its toll on the favourite pop group of your youth. In my case it is The Beatles with two members now dead and the other two of pensionable age. Thankfully their music has stood the test of time and is as popular as ever.

Back in 1963 they were heading for the height of their fame and enduring a hectic schedule of engagements. For instance, take one long weekend in that far off time. On Friday, November 29, The Beatles performed at the ABC cinema in Huddersfield. They were interviewed by a young man from the Huddersfield Tape Recording Society, Gordon Kaye, who later found fame as Rene in the long running BBC hit 'Allo 'Allo.

On Saturday, they moved on to the Empire Theatre in Sunderland and on Sunday the De Montfort Hall in Leicester.

On Monday, December 2, they were driven along Shenley Road, into Clarendon Road, and arrived at the ATV Studios mid-morning.

The day was spent rehearsing and then recording a guest appearance on The Morecambe and Wise Show. Studio C was used with only a small audience. The lads performed live their hits This Boy, All My Loving and I Want To Hold Your Hand. They did a comedy sketch with Ernie and Eric, including a brief rendition of an old number called Moonlight Bay.

That evening they were whisked off for a charity cabaret at the Grosvenor House Hotel in Park Lane but black tie audiences were not their thing and such an engagement was never repeated. I remember getting their autographs but, being a youngster at the time, swapped them for some others a few months later, thus depriving myself of probably £1,000 on eBay today.

Twenty years later I met the legendary Paul McCartney across the road at Elstree Studios. I was then helping the Elstree Youth Theatre who were performing the musical John, Paul, George, Ringo and Bert at Hillside School and found out that Paul was shooting Give My Regards To Broad Street just a few hundred yards away.

I thought it would be a publicity coup to have the lads portraying The Beatles meeting a Beatle. At first the film's producer refused until I persuaded him that it could result in negative publicity which I might have difficulty hushing up, so he asked Paul, who was more than willing. We took the lads down to the studio and met Linda and Paul in his dressing room and he spent about 20 minutes chatting with them. It was a memory I am sure they will never forget.

A few days later I had to return and meet with Paul and the photographer to approve which photographs could be released. He also insisted the prints be made available only to the lads and this paper and if we leaked them to the nationals we would be sued for breach of copyright.

Paul returned a few years later to do a full scale in front of an audience rehearsal for his world tour and for several years his group Wings used to rehearse at the studio.

Well, I guess those Elstree Youth Theatre lads are now in their 40s, like Paul and myself, as it is an unwritten showbiz law that none of us ever reach the age of 50. That's why we all depend on those ageing portraits in our attics