Just over thirty-two years ago (oh, heavens!) I left university and joined Time Out as their television editor. My appointment was not greeted with enthusiasm by the temporary incumbent of the post. She persuaded the chapel (the in-house union) to strike and stopped at least one edition of the magazine from reaching the newstands. Among my other problems was not having access to the advance television schedules, which I needed to write the previews. This difficulty, however, was soon solved through the kind offices of the then BBC Head of Plays, James Cellan Jones. I have always been grateful to him, and I was delighted just recently to discover that three years ago he published his memoirs with Kaleidoscope Publishing. (I should say that I do not feature in the book.)

Time Out, first. Regular weekly television previewing in those days was practiced only by three outlets: The Sunday Times (where it had been pioneered by Elkan Allan), The Observer (where my TO predecessor W Stephen Gilbert was starting to write) and Time Out. The two newspapers received assistance from the BBC publicity office of the day, and TO was tolerated at screenings. But the magazine was regarded as not weighty enough to be granted access to the schedules sufficiently far ahead to permit a weekly column to be compiled.

The solution for the magazine was to obtain a samizdat proof copy of Radio Times from a friendly printer there -- but thanks to the response of the person who felt that she rather than a callow youth from college should have got the job, this was denied to me. The magazine's publisher then, as now, was Tony Elliott, and he located a friendly BBC exec who on a Friday was happy to pass over his proof copy to allow me to submit the copy on Monday.

Recognising that he would rather have his productions trailed with accurate information, this kind soul was James Cellan Jones. Each Friday lunchtime I would make a brief pilgrimage to his office on BBC Television Centre's fifth floor where his secretary would hand me a large brown paper envelope. I like to think that this did not compromise my judgements on his department's work, although I suspect I am deluding myself about this now as I did then.

The late 1970s, however, were an exceptional period for BBC drama, with Pennies of Heaven, 1978 and Play for Today enjoying a great period under producer Richard Eyre. And it's the chronicle of these years that I found most interesting in Forsyte and Hindsight, or Screen Directing for Pleasure and Profit. Which, overall, is an agreeably eccentric and entertaining book (with an excellent filmography, including details of which productions survive and which have disappeared).

In the foreword, James Cellan Jones demonstrates admirable self-awareness about his memoirs.

'It's absolutely fascinating, but it's nothing but a collection of anecdotes,' said a friend after reading this book. 'Don't knock it,' I said, 'there's a lot of mileage in anecdotes.'

As indeed there is, especially when the tales span a professional career from Lorna Doone, made for BBC West in 1963 to a couple of episodes of Holby City in 2001. Along the way, Cellan Jones directed two adaptations of Henry James' The Ambassadors, in 1965 and 1978, episodes of The Forsyte Saga, 1967, the wonderful Sartre adaptation The Roads to Freedom, 1970 (with Michael Bryant, which made a huge impact on my young, existentialist-inclined mind), Oxbridge Blues, 1984 and Fortunes of War, 1987. He also produced (although is not credited on) one of the very film dramas that the BBC has ever made, Langrishe, Go Down, 1978, directed by David Jones from a Harold Pinter script -- this stars Jeremy Irons and Judi Dench, pictured above.

As regular readers will know, I am increasingly fascinated by the history of theatre on television -- and I'm convinced that memoirs like this, for all its casual qualities, are rich and largely unrecognised sources for understanding the production contexts in which productions were conceived and achieved. That's part of the fascination of this lightly-edited manuscript (by Chris Perry and Simon Coward), as is the take-no-prisoners attitude towards some of those who Cellan Jones encountered in his career.

Here is part of his take on The BBC Television Shakespeare in the late 1970s, a project that ever since has been regarded more or less as a disaster.

Before I took over [as Head of Plays] it had been decided to mount a series of all of Shakespeare's plays over six years. Trevor Nunn had approached the BBC and suggested a co-production with the Royal Shakespeare Company. This had been turned down and Trevor was not pleased. [I don't know where else this has been documented.] Cedric Messina was to be the producer; this filled me with foreboding. When I asked him what his policy was to be, he said, 'I'm an instinctive person and shall follow my instinct.' My heart sank.

There then follows a brief account of the disaster of the first production, a Much Ado About Nothing with Michael York and Penelope Keith.

When it was put together I said to Alasdair [Milne, BBC managing director], 'I want you to watch this; I think it is so bad that we can't put it out.'
'Christ, boy,' he said, 'Do you know how much money that will cost?'
He watched the tape and telephoned me. 'I'm halfway through it,' he said. 'You're right, it's absolutely dreadful, we'll have to junk it.'
Cedric was puce with fury.

One more extract, this time about the immensely distinguished drama producer of Pennies from Heaven and other plays by Dennis Potter.

A few weeks after I took over [again, as Head of Plays], I an Trethowan the Director General, came to see me. 'I want you to sack Ken Trodd,' he said. 'He is a communist and his contract is coming up for renewal.' I hated Ken Trodd, who had changed his name from Kenneth to Kenith. He was a particularly ruthless Marxist I thought, and I had worked with him at Granada very unhappily.

To his credit, James Cellan Jones did not sack Ken Trodd.

Forsyte and Hindsight is a strange book, and at £20 comparatively expensive. I can't pretend its audience is a wide one, but I enjoyed it hugely. And future historians of television and its programmes will undoubtedly cite its anecdotes for a good time to come.