Spin drying early ambitions..

Borehamwood was where I grew up.
It was apparently known as the British Hollywood because of the proliferation of film studios in the area. I say apparently, because while growing up as children we were aware of the studios but possibly not quite so aware of Hollywood.
Elstree film studios, the Gate studios and the British MGM studios were all on my doorstep. I even lived next door to The Invisible Man. Bob Hedges was such a small chap that he slipped into the Invisible Man costume a treat. Well, that's what I was told and I was very excited at the proximity of such celebrity. And he was indeed a very small chap.
When I was about eleven I came across a book by Egon Larsen, The History of Film-making. It was absolutely riveting. Much more interesting than Enid Blyton which had provided my literary diet up 'til then. So when I met up with Rosalind at secondary school and found out that her mother was a Continuity Girl in films I almost fell over myself when she offered to take me to  Elstree film studios to see her mother at work.
Her mother was working on The Avengers at the time with Patrick McNee and Linda Thorsen. Patrick McNee was very charming to us wobbly-kneed teenagers and suggested we said hello to Roger Moore who was filming The Saint round the corner. Sure enough, there he was in a sports car with a huge blue screen behind him. Can you blame me for being hooked? This was the world that I had read about in Egon Larsen.
I went to a conventional girls Grammar school, Queen Elizabeth's in Barnet. In my second year they asked us to write down what we wanted to be when we grew up. Midst  the suggestions of doctors, lawyers, and teachers written down by my contemporaries, I put, Continuity Girl.
When I cam home later that day, my mother was grappling with a new spin drier which was doing a bucking Bronco across the kitchen floor. Over the noise I told her what I'd written down as my ambition.
"A what?" she shouted.
"A Continuity Girl", I shouted  back.
"A what??! A Call girl?" she sounded perplexed, searching for the off switch.
I walked away wondering why she showed such consternation when she'd mistakenly thought I wanted a job in the telephone exchange...