Hollywood was on another World from where I grew up in the wilds of Lancashire although I was very interested in photography and home movies. I even constructed my own dark room.

My Father was a WW2 Wellington Bomber Pilot, sadly killed in action in 1942 before I could remember him so there was no parental guidance as to future careers.

Our family moved to London in the late 50s and I gained a place at Kings College London University studying Pure Maths. This led to teaching but my heart was not in it.

Then things changed dramatically. My sister Diana met and married the truly excellent Alex Thomson. He saw that I was at a loose end and took me onto the set of "The Fall Of the Roman Empire" in Madrid where I was on holiday, He was working on "A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum" at the time. I was really excited and enthusiastic although completely overawed. He asked me if I was interested in making it a career, and of course I was.

Alex got me an interview with Sydney Samuelson (now Sir Sydney) and I was taken on in the Camera Department at Samuelsons Film Service in Cricklewood in 1967/8 and so became familiar with every type of Professional camera equipment including Panavision anamorphic.

When I left Sammies I went as an unpaid runner with Alex on the 2nd Unit of "Far from the Madding Crowd" where I met Nic Roeg and Tony Richmond, and again as 2nd unit Loader on "Alfred the Great" on location in Ireland.

After that initiation by fire working under Jim Devis and Keith Jones and later Mike Fox and Tony Coggans, I was ready for anything.

Lots of commercials followed and also loading on "Girl in my Soup" under Harry Waxman Gerry Anstiss and Mike Drew (focus). I went up to Focus in 1971 and then Operating in 1980.

Happily I was focus puller and operator for Alex on quite a few more produtions including operating on Nic Roeg's "Eureka", which won a BSC cinematography award, and focussed for Tony Ricmond on "The Greek Tycoon" "Bad Timing", "Love and Bullets" and " Success" (Jeff Bridges)

During my time as an Operator I was privileged to work for Ossie Morris, Dougie Slocombe . Freddie Francis many other talented Cinematographers.

I'm delighted to say that my son Alex Golding has followed me into the industry. Firstly at Panavision in the Digital Imaging department and then as a fully fledged DIT on major productions.

See imdb.com for details.