"Listen, my name's Mullins! There's something very queer going on!"

"Listen, my name's Mullins! There's something very queer going on!"

We've just dug out our old Canon FS11 camera, which is now about ten years old. It was lurking in its original box in my wardrobe in the bedroom and I was surprised and delighted to discover it still works after all this time.

We bought it soon after we moved to Poole and used it to record three episodes of a very silly series that we christened 'Trowby & Lisa' after what must have been several seconds wracking our brains.

I'd written a number of scripts that were inspired by Paul Chandler's magnum opus 'Sutton Park' as I wanted to get back into filming again.

I think I wrote about five multi-part stories that involved us tackling 'Torchwood' style problems with no budget and a guest cast that mostly consisted of soft toys.

Without digging out all the scripts again, I can't quite recall all the plots, but I do remember a story where there was a pretend alien invasion of Earth. Pretend in that the Alien Army thought the ruler of the planet wanted to conquer Earth when he didn't, but being peaceful sorts themselves just thought they'd just tell him they'd invaded and all go home again. Eventually everyone admitted the truth to each other and it was all sorted out nicely.

We managed to persuade the talented Dan Tate to knock us up a theme tune (which we still use on 'Round The Archives') and the professional tones of I.T. Williams gave us an opening narration that might ring a few bells.

I was clearly taking it seriously as I bought a tripod from our local branch of Jessops (I remember the lady who served me had a bad cold at the time) and splashed out on Adobe Premiere Elements to aid with the editing.

I must admit I always find editing a bit of a slog, which is why we never got further then the third instalment, but looking back at them now I do feel a twing of nostalgia for the the fun we had working on the them.

We'd got Paul and Warren on board to do a bit of actoring and experimented with a few video effects where possible. Our plasma globe was pressed into service along with some Christmas tree lights.

The three episodes ('A New Assignment', 'Curse Of The Dragon' and 'The Shadow Dimension') are still available on the old ATrowby YouTube channel if you fancy a gander at them. If nothing else, you get to see a bit of our house, although the front garden has changed a bit since then.

Apologies in advance for my fairly dire Welsh accent as Mullins (who was influenced by Idris from 'Ivor The Engine' as well as Talfryn Thomas from 'Spearhead From Space'), but Episode Six was going to reveal the reason why as he turned out to be half-phoenix. If I can't pull something off convincingly, I always try and use it as a plot point!

So, the camera has survived and we'll be experimenting with a few videos in the near future.

But I think it'll be a while before we attempt anything in the way of fiction again...

(And they all breathed a sigh of relief!)

(By Andrew Trowbridge)