THROWBACK THURSDAY: "Don't Tell Him, Pike!"

Graduation Day (left to right): Paul, JJ, Pricey, Me and Rose

Our graduation ceremony took place in November 1998, in the vast arena of Bournemouth International Centre.

After receiving my degree certificate from Formula One commentator Murray Walker, I was milling around in the venue foyer when I was approached by a nice woman who explained that, due to the size of the venue, she and her husband had accidentally taken pictures of me going up on stage before realising I wasn't their son!

She said if the pictures turned out okay did I think my parents would like copies? Naturally, I said yes, although my parents were taking snaps, it never hurt to get extras I reasoned.

The lady and I were chatting while she took note of my parents' address to mail the pictures to (yes, folks, this was still the age of snail mail - especially for sending photographs) and she asked what course I had taken.

When I said Scriptwriting for Film and Television, she replied with words to the effect of: "Oh, my husband's an actor. You may have heard of him. Ian Lavender."

Mind. Blown.

I was talking to the wife of Private Frank Pike!

Naturally my dad, a lifelong Dad's Army fan, was suitably impressed when I told him later.

I remember the pictures turned up at my parents' house and are, no doubt, neatly stored away in the many, many photo albums Rachel and I inherited from them when they died.

A larger selection of the merry reprobates on my Scriptwriting For Film & TV course

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Dad's Army

Dad's Dad's Army - miniatures painted by a friend in Sevenoaks as a present for my dad

Dad's Lance-Corporal Jones and his famous butcher's van

When I was growing up, Dad's Army was a hugely popular show in our household, both mum and dad having been kids during the war, and dad later serving - courtesy of National Service - in the Royal Corps of Signals.

Knowing his love for the show, over the years, I got dad a number of Dad's Army themed gifts, which, when he died, I inherited and have loving cared for since.

The documentary for the show's 50th anniversary in 2018, hosted by Pointless's Alexander Armstrong, also got me thinking about a series of articles I read as a child - in my father's collection of Airfix annuals - about staging Hitler's aborted invasion of Britain (aka Operation Sealion) as a wargame.

This was my first introduction to the idea of wargames and, although I never pursued it further (instead being drawn to the Battle of Waterloo with my giant Airfix box set of soldiers and the Wild West with my larger Britains toy soliders), it stuck with me ever since.

Selection of pages from the original series of articles in the Airfix magazine

However, the Saluting Dad's Army documentary briefly reignited my childhood fascination with Operation Sealion and wargaming a "what if..." Nazi invasion of the UK.

I immediately started trawling through the Warlord Games' website - knowing they had the licence for official Dad's Army miniatures - and was dreaming about creating my own miniature Home Guard regiment to fend off the German invaders.

Official Dad's Army miniatures from Warlord Games

My flights of fantasy even embraced the idea of creating a scale replica of Walmington-on-Sea for the Home Guard to defend, but thankfully that's as far as my wild ambitions went, and I didn't pull the trigger on any miniatures or terrain (it quickly dawned on me that my scenery building skills weren't anywhere near good enough to build a 1940's town that I would be happy with).