It was fun and I suppose it was instructive.The industrious Black had a further career in films, whether writing original scores or orchestrations, and for many years was the resident musical director at Associated British Film Studios. What he described as his “long trek” in the film studios began in 1939. His first 10 or 11 films were documentaries, “which people assured me was the best way of learning the craft”. His scores include It Always Rains on Sunday (1947), Laughter in Paradise (1951), The Naked Truth (1957), Too Many Crooks (1958), The Battle of the Sexes (1960) and The Long and the Short and the Tall (1960).

“I’ve got a particular soft spot for a film I scored called Hell is a City with Stanley Baker in 1959,” Black said: It was a northern story and I was rather pleased at the way it turned out. I find that the public often get the wrong idea about film music. Miklos Rozsa wrote a wonderful score for Ben Hur and people were always complimenting him about his music for the chariot race. There is no music in the chariot race – he decided that the cheering, the chariot wheels and the horses’ hooves would be enough.In 1960 Black wrote the signature music and a music library for the Path?ewsreel. He scored the Cliff Richard films The Young Ones (1961) and Summer Holiday (1962), winning an Ivor Novello Award for his work on the latter: I was responsible for the orchestrations and, as always in a musical, all the numbers are pre-recorded and the artists go through their high jinks and dance to the playback. I loved doing the show sequence in The Young Ones immensely.At first, Black was not impressed by the Beatles: I’m very strictly a middle-of-the-road man My ideal artists are Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald. If I were to pick an all-time favourite record, it would be Sinatra singing “You Make Me Feel So Young”.

When the Beatles burst upon the scene, I wasn’t entirely hooked but then I heard an album of Keely Smith singing the Lennon and McCartney songbook and I realised that they were wonderful songs. The Beatles never grabbed me as performers but they certainly did as songwriters.With advances in recording technology, Black recorded the very popular Film Spectacular series for Decca’s Phase 4 label. He created a worldwide interest in scores from the golden age of cinema including The Sea Hawk and Stagecoach: Lots of people were recording “Theme From” albums but I went further and presented the whole story in musical form in 10 minutes. It was like a resum?f the score and I especially liked what we did with Gone with the Wind.In 1977 Black scored the controversial film Valentino, directed by Ken Russell. He made worldwide appearances as a guest conductor and was the first British conductor at the Boston Pops. One of his favourite concert items was taking “Three Blind Mice” and dressing it up in the style of well-known composers. In 1984 he was asked to write a fanfare for a Royal Film Performance and, two years later, he was appointed OBE in the New Year Honours.