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Post by mark687 on Jan 7, 2016 21:17:23 GMT
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Post by alanhayes on Feb 17, 2016 9:47:39 GMT
Only just seen this now that it's enshrined in an Avengers area (thank you, whoever added the section).
Leonard was an amazing man. Without him, it is no overstatement to say, there would be no Avengers. Certainly not as we know it.
However, he was not only a talented director and producer, he was also, fortunately, an archivist; someone who recognised the importance of those pioneering days of independent television. Were it not for his compilation and preservation of scrapbooks documenting his time on The Avengers, we'd not have any Tele-Snaps for Series 1; the reconstructions my wife and I made for the DVDs would not have been possible. In turn, we and Richard McGinlay would not have written the three books about Series 1, and, very likely, Big Finish would not have ended up adapting Series 1 on audio.
Leonard started all those things, indirectly, but his influence was certainly there.
I also discovered, in the last few years of Leonard's life, what a kind and generous man he was. He helped Richard, Alys and me with our books, was kind enough to say they were "excellent", which was like receiving a glowing school report from a teacher who you thought the world of.
When Leonard was 93 he contributed to the DVD range. He even voiced two of the reconstructions and sounded, remarkably, like a man in his sixties, not nineties.
The letters that I received from him will be treasured in years to come.
I thank him for those, his kindness, and his talents in television production and direction - my DVD collection would be less rich without Leonard having been in the world: The Avengers, Armchair Theatre, Out of this World, Sky, King of the Castle, The Georgian House, The Clifton House Mystery...
I'll miss him.
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