Back in what would have been the summer of 1958, in the Fans Own Film Annual there is featured a very interesting article on two young ladies who were obviously film fans who were invited to pay a visit to tour the studios and see what was happening and, maybe, meet some of the stars.

The two young ladies in question were 20 year old Judy Pickering and 23 year old recently married Pamela Hoisington

Judy writes :

I think every film fan must have wondered sometimes about all the work that goes into a film before it appears on the screen. I don’t just mean how many times a certain scene is shot before the director is satisfied, or how much time is devoted to the arduous task of learning lines, but how long it takes to construct the sets needed for the film and the materials used, the job of obtaining unusual props, how costumes are designed and made, the work of the continuity girl, the time spent in hair-dressing, make-up, tea making – the list is never ending.

My friend Pam and I found the answers to a great many of these questions in our visit to Elstree Studios

Pam and Judy are greeted by Stanley Baker who is at Elstree filming ‘Violent Saturday’

Our charming host, Mr Toy Curtis-Bramwell, the Publicity Editor, met us at the main doors and led us into his spacious office with portraits of our favourite stars on the wall. He introduced us to Mr Bob Penn, our photographer. Together they showed us around the immense buildings and surrounding countryside that forms Associated British Studios.

First to the Props rooms which are housed in an enormous two-storeyed building

ABOVE – Pam among the bottles – plenty to drink there by the looks of it

This is just the start of Judy’s recollections of a very interesting day.

We will continue this with more details and pictures – we will see them finding memorabilia from ‘Tommy the Toreador’ a film that had starred Tommy Steele. It had been filmed to a great extent in Spain with the interior scenes done at Elstree