Farewell Gerry Anderson

Very sad to hear today of the death of Gerry Anderson, creator of Thunderbirds. I was lucky enough to have Supercar, Fireball XL5, Stingray, Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet as the background to my childhood and I thought they were all wonderful. But I really loved Thunderbirds most of all. It had the longest episodes, the best stories and the biggest gadgets. We used to watch it in black and white on the telly that took ages to warm up. I vividly remember getting a copy of the TV 21 kids magazine and finding out that Thunderbird 2 was green.

Gerry Anderson managed to create a future that we all wanted to live in. So what if there was a gigantic lemon squeezer on the hanger of Thunderbird 1, people moved a bit strangely, and there were never more than about five of them in a room, that was what a whole generation of kids (including me) wanted to grow up into. If you want to find out more about this wonderful world you can start at the Haynes manual for the programme and go on from there.

I’m going to put on a choice episode, perhaps “Path of Destruction” and drink a toast to one of the most visionary TV producers there has ever been.