Croft original

Almost everything they wrote is still repeated today.

"I have done comfortably out of it," he admits modestly.

One thing he is certain of though, is that - however "well" he may have done - wild horses wouldn't drag him to domain of the mega-rich, Sandbanks.

Croft says he watched the recent Piers Morgan documentary with grim fascination. "It really didn't appeal," he says. In fact his overall verdict is: "Awful people and ghastly houses too."

Croft has good reason to pass judgement on this area's most expensive postcode - he was actually born there some 85 years ago and spent his formative years in a house overlooking the harbour on one side and the sea on the other. It was called Sharcroft - named after his father, actor Reginald Sharland and mother, actress Annie Croft.

"We didn't think of it as being special. In those days Sandbanks was just an ordinary middle class area. Heaven knows what our house would be worth now but my father sold it for about £600 in 1936."

His father's life seems to have been blighted by unwise decisions.

Sharland's career ended after he went to America to make his fortune. For a while he enjoyed huge success with wartime radio show, The Honourable Archie. Audiences particularly liked his Japanese manservant - until Pearl Harbour. "It came off overnight," says Croft ruefully.

In contrast Croft's own career has been helped by being in the right place at the right time. He talks warmly of the 60s and 70s when TV offered him so many opportunities. "It was a golden era and I wrote about a third of it!"

One of the biggest Croft-Perry hits was, and still is, Dad's Army. This week finds the much-loved fictional Home Guard platoon from Walmington-on-Sea in action once again as two missing episodes from the original TV series live again on stage at Lighthouse in Poole.

The production, which is part of the celebrations to mark Dad's Army's 40th anniversary, opened in Poole last night and runs until Saturday. The cast is headed by one time EastEnder Leslie Grantham as the spiv Private Walker.

It recreates two missing episodes. Croft is delighted and particularly pleased to see his lost stories, first screened in 1969, finally resurrected.

He is clearly exasperated at the penny-pinching executives who had them destroyed nearly four decades ago. Even though he must have told the story a thousand times there is still a note of incredulity. "Because the tapes were expensive, about £350 each, it was policy at the time to recycle them and that's what happened with those two episodes.

"They had other programmes put on them, even though I, as writer, director and producer, never gave permission."

He says he's glad people are able to see them again. "They're very good stories."

Croft admits he's still thrilled by the on-going success of Dad's Army, originally taken on with some reluctance by the BBC who felt it poked fun at wartime volunteers.

Viewers thought otherwise, instantly recognising the affectionate portrait of British resolve in the face of adversity. The programme was an instant hit and continues to entertain into the 21st century.

"We expected to get about 13 programmes out of it. We got 80," says Croft who adds: "What's really gratifying is that generation after generation of new viewers absolutely love it."

Croft had his own youthful wartime experiences as a teenage air-raid warden in Parkstone.

However he says he was nothing like the bullish ARP man portrayed by Bill Pertwee in Dad's Army. Not for him screaming: "Put that light out. Don't you know there's a war on."

"Heavens no," says Croft. "I used to knock timidly and ask if people would mind making sure that there curtains were properly closed. I was terribly polite."

• Dad's Army: The Lost Episodes, Lighthouse, Poole until March 15.