As a kid, I used to love watching The Range Rider and his side kick Dick West on our tiny black and white telly.  I decided to invite The Range Rider and Dick over for afternoon tea, and wrote a letter to them which I hand delivered to Girdlers, the shop in Tooting Junction that we rented the telly from.  Two or three days later I got a reply, a long hand written letter  from the Range Rider, also signed by Dick (who always wore black) making their apologies for not being able to come around. They were having trouble with some dishonest ranchers that needed their attention, and after that had to make a long ride to sort out some other bad fellas frightening the townsfolk with too much drinking and unnecessary gunfire. Dick’s horse Lucky needed new shoes to make the trip and couldn’t make up her mind which shoes to choose from?  This made perfect sense to me as the Range Rider himself never wore cowboy boots like most cowboys, he only wore moccasins.  The letter continued about some old timers falling down a gold mine, and Rawhide, The Range Riders own horse having to pull them up and out.  I imagined what it must be like to be sleeping under the stars, singing Home on The Range with the Range Rider and Dick, the all American boy!  Not long after receiving that letter, Gene Autry himself made a personal visit to the Tooting Granada’s Saturday Morning Pictures session. I knew he was involved somehow with the ‘boys’ and thought of sending a return (via Gene) message to them,  but after his horse did a huge poop on the stage making us kids howl with laughter, I didn’t think it cool to approach him.  I kept that letter from the Range Rider for a long time, and many many years passed before I realised, and only from the beautiful hand writing, that you Iris had written it.  Thank you for such kindness.