Vague biography and CV : sort of updated SEPTEMBER 2009
As I seem to have been involved with a wide range of subjects over the years - though OK, most associated in some way or another with 'media' - trying to list these in some sort of order for anyone morbidly curious, (for whatever reason?), to know more, isn't easy! So, in somewhat rambling order, below are a few details...
Recent projects have included devising, designing and setting up, One Small Step, a museum display for Spaceport on Merseyside; re-building and running the original K-9 for his new appearance in Series 3 of The Sarah-Jane Adventures; re-establishing the use of models for The Sky at Night, (after about a 25 year gap!); helping with a new website, Scale Model News; starting at last the book on the BBC Visual Effects Department, (due late 2010) and setting up my own Model Show - HaMeX, (29th November 2029).
More details (hopefully) on the new Diary & Events page
Other Things :
Left : a talk on the first 'space' flight of SpaceShipOne, June 2004 , with two models of the craft - the 1:72 scale model of the whole craft, White Knight and SpaceShipOne from Unicraft on the table, while he is holding the semi-scale SpaceShipOne - a flying model from Estes. The image on the screen shows the pilot, Mike Mevill after his record-breaking flight - part of a video I shot at the time.
Left : during the talk on 'Space - As It Should Have Been', which discusses the various space designs that were around in the 1950s which - if built - could have got us permanently into space 30 years ago! (And which forms Chapter 3 in Creating Space)
Left : with his largest 'plastic model', Reliant Scimitar GTE, during the making of TECHNO,
(pictured at the Reliant factory in Two Gates, Staffordshire, with new SE6 bodies in the background)
Right : using a convenient foot-rest during a break in the filming of the Doctor Who 3D charity special
TELEVISION : I have spent most of a varied life associated with many aspects of the media. I was for many years with the BBC, the majority of the time as a Visual Effects Designer, working on programmes as diverse as Doctor Who and Blake's 7 to Tomorrow's World, QED, Horizon and The Sky at Night. Also many of the 'science specials' - The Comet is Coming; Origins and the three-part Spaceships of the Mind. Children's programmes included : Think of a Number and Think Again; Rent-a-Ghost; Galloping Galaxies and Space Vets - plus the series that arguable started all these 'challenge-type' programmes - The Adventure Game. Comedies from Dave Allen at Large to Are You Being Served, the odd Casualty and Bergerac, and the BAFTA Award-winning dramas The Singing Detective and Edge of Darkness (aka MAGNOX).
The last released as newly re-mastered DVD a few years ago, with all the extras.
[The Blake's 7 Second Season boxed DVD set also has extras in the form of three other programmes on which I appeared and which have mentions of B-7.]
I appeared regularly in such Saturday morning programmes as Multi Coloured Swap Shop and Saturday Super Store and have done over the years many one-offs, including: Pebble Mill at One; Small World; The Great Egg Race; Top Ten Sci-Fi and Channel 4 News for the 25th Apollo 11 Anniversary.
I co-presented and co-produced the ten-part series TECHNO, (RTS Award winner), the first specific programmes on design and technology, for BBC Education. I also complied and directed many in-house videos for the Design Group.
I returned temporarily to the BBC and as one of the producers on the Future Fantastic series (as introduced by Gillian - The X-Files - Anderson), and directed the episode titled Starman - on space, and time, travel.
I was one of three that created the BAFTA-nominated ROBOT WARS in the UK, acting as one of the main Technical Consultants over the first few series, (below left) . Later I was 'laterally transferred' to the Judging panel (right).
The same situation applied to the Robot Wars' spin-off TECHNO GAMES - devising and working on the first three series, although I wasn't part of the fourth (and last) one......
I currently still work freelance in the media industry on all aspects to do with programme making - producing, directing, writing, consultation, the odd special effect and even odder occasional bit of presenting. There are a number of projects currently being worked upon and up-dates will hopefully appear here, if and when....
Oh, and I still occasionally run The Dog as I'm seeming the only one who knows how his insides work.... Most recently this has been for Series 3 of the highly successful, The Sarah-Jane Adventures, the series that re-introduced Elizabeth Sladen, as the character she played during early Doctor Who stories.This most recent series is the first SJA to be shot in HD, and involved a rebuild of K-9, the first since 1990 when a complete re-build was done for the education series, Search Out Science. In effect it took 'him' back to the correct colour I devised for K-9 & Company, which isn't entirely 'metallic blue', but metallic blue over brown! And for those really interested in such minutiae, this is now the MkIIIA1, or V.03.02.01
It almost made 50 years.
The fully illustrated book on the (almost) half century, by myself and Mike Tucker, is in the works, due to be published late 2010 by Aurum PressBOOKS : To date I have written twelve books; co-authored several others and acted as a consultant on even more. Some of these were on technological topics, (one pictured below, right); one on a kids' introduction to Space; one on Doctor Who Special Effects (below, left), two on model cars and Creating Space and Scale Spacecraft Modelling.
Details of the car modelling books can be found on The Car Page, and Creating Space, and Scale Spacecraft Modelling on their relevant pages.
MODEL MAKING : I've also been associated for many years with model making both professionally - as part of the efefcts work - and in the amateur sense. I've written many articles, and the odd book, on many aspects of the hobby for various magazines. I've also set up several model displays for such as the Model Engineer Exhibition, The International Model Show and the UK IMPS Scale Modelworld.
More recently larger scale models have been produced. See the Smallspace Model Services page.
TECHNICAL ADVICE : Advice on astronautical, astronomical and space in general topics has also been given to various organisations, from what the surface of Mars looks like, to comments on the accuracy - or lack of - mock up Apollo space suits!
EXHIBITIONS :
The most recent exhibition I have devised and designed is One Small Step for Spaceport, on Merseyside. This opened in April 2009 and is due to run until at least January 2010, maybe longer. It is based around the 40th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 Landing, but is much more besides, it looks at Man's attempts to reach the heavens with some of the very earliest (and wackiest) ideas; shows the largest model yet of the BIS Lunar Lander design (which in effect became the Apollo Lunar Module); runs through the 20th Century pioneers, Tsiolkovsky, Goddard and von Braun, and into the beginnings of the Space Age. From Project Apollo - where you can have your photograph taken against a full-size Lunar Module leg! - we move to the present day and the International Space Station; onto Mars, and to the Far Future, with a look at what - possible - alien life could be like? Finally the newest approach to space travel - space tourism where anyone who is ft enough, and er, has the odd $100,000 to spare, could take a trip into space.
There was my own exhibition in the Space Gallery of the Science Museum in London, called Creative Space that ran for six months in the 1990s, (below).
CREATIVE SPACE at the London Science Museum
Then I was a Guest Curator for an exhibition for the visionary, the late Sir Arthur C. Clarke
Titled Eye to the Future this told his story in objects and models, including several models illustrating his visions and craft from his books.
EYE TO THE FUTURE - the Life and Times of Sir Arthur C. Clarke
(left) models representing the 'Visions' of Sir Arthur as depicted in his various novels.
(right) The copy of The Fountains of Paradise as flown on board the Space Shuttle.
This was followed by a display on the Search for Life, that included building a full size model of the Mars rover - Sojourner, (below). (This Sojourner model is currently part of the One Small Step exhibition in Spaceport.)
The 1:1 scale model of Mars Rover Sojourner built for the London Science Museum
Also for the Science Museum I have built, or co-built, a 1:48 scale model of Mir for the Museum, and when the Space Gallery itself was re-designed (early 2000) I added several more displays, including the very popular 'Rocket Park'.
Other displays have included the Oxford City Museum and Abingdon Museum
More on these on the SMALLSPACE MODEL SERVICES pages.
VIDEO : In 2000, for some reason (presumably known only unto itself?), the specialist video production company Reeltime Pictures decided to add me to its MYTH MAKER series of videos. These started as a celebration of the actors behind Doctor Who, and later branched out to include Blake's 7, then some of us 'behind the scenes'. I think I'm number 49 in the series?
DVD versions are now available.
There are also many interviews I have done on DVDs recently issued, on classic Doctor Who stories, including The Invisible Enemy; Warrior's Gate and K-9 & Company.
TRAVELS : Having worked on many television programmes over the years that dealt with astronomy and space subjects, it got me intrigued as to what these sites actually looked like 'for real'.
More photographs of these visits are on the SPACE SITES page
By the monument to Robert Goddard - who launched the world's first liquid fuelled rocket in 1926 at Auburn, Massachusetts. The site is now the municipal golf course, though this still involves missiles going in various directions...
Waving from the platform overlooking Meteor Crater - Arizona's biggest hole in the ground
And checking the new sundial at the McDonald Observatory, Davis Mountains, Texas - it was a bit slow...
SOCIETIES :
I am a founder member of the Astronomical Society of Haringey, a Society who can boast connection with not only the Night Sky, but two Knights of the Realm. The Society came out of a suggestion from Sir Patrick Moore, and had the late Sir Arthur C. Clarke as Patron.
For the Society I co-organised many of their well-known Space Age exhibitions, have been Secretary and Chairman, and I'm currently back as Editor for the ASH magazine 2002, as well as Vice-Chair and PRO!
One of the regular display items at the ASH exhibitions was the Baader Planetarium, seen here [left] at 'Space Age 4' - organised by the ASH in 1974.
However the years took their toll and the main drive motor ceased operation. However with thanks to Thomas Baader at the Baader Planetarium Company, a new motor was located.This then allowed me to re-built the planetarium back to operational status [right].
Click on the right-hand picture to find out more about Baader products.
I am also a Fellow of The British Interplanetary Society.
