It's been raining pretty much all day today, good for my garden and allotment but not quite so good if this happens to be your school summer holidays or you're the parent of a child on holiday.

I was thinking back to my school summer holidays, the best six weeks of the year. No school!

We used to spend our time outside. Either playing at each others houses or off in the woods making dens and pretending to be Robin Hood or King Arthur.

When it rained though, we had to resort to playing indoors, and that other staple, watching children's daytime tv. This was in the days before home computers, and in particular the ZX Spectrum at which point my summer holidays would take a different path.

Hard as it may seem now, there were only three channels and daytime tv for kids was reserved for the school holidays only, the rest of the year it was educational programmes and perhaps some Mr Ben at lunchtime.

In the school holidays though the daytime tv was awesome. There was everything from Larry "Buster" Crabbe in the black and White serials of Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers.

There was also the original (and in my opinion, the best) Superman, played by George Reeves

My favourite though had to be Space:1999

This was the series that was made for me, it had everything, great stories, action, was set in space, and had the. Best. Spaceship. Ever! The Eagle

This is what summer holiday tv was all about.