Ref. 29477-14A series on Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who built the Great Western Railway, has started on ITV1. David Ellis, 72, of Pinehurst, who started work in the locomotive works office in 1948, gives his opinion on the first programme.

Richard Wyatt, who has been a respected and popular presenter on HTV for many years, came over well in this mainly introductory programme, which had to set the scene for the following five in the series.

It also found time to include the best features of the wonderful Paddington station, probably the best known of Brunel's achievements.

It was still pleasing to see that due credit was given to the architect, Matthew Digby Wyatt.

Even I, still a frequent user of the terminus, will try to find time to look about me, as exhorted by Richard Wyatt, to appreciate the views shown so well in the excellent camera work in the programme.

The programme was bound to start with the Thames Tunnel, Isambard's initiation into the practical and dangerous side of civil engineering which was then in its infancy and without modern equipment or the restraints of health and safety requirements.

I thought a strong point was made by one of the experts, who said that if the young engineer had not gone to Clifton, in Bristol, to recuperate from the effects of an accident in the depths he would not have gone on to design the Clifton Suspension Bridge and to be employed to such great effect by the directors of the infant Great Western Railway.

The expert consultants were well picked but predictable.

There were two Brunel biographers: Adrian Vaughan, who was once a railway signalman at Uffington and Challow, and Professor Angus Buchanan, who recently lectured in Swindon, along with the curator of the Brunel Engine House Museum in East London.

All in all, this was to me a promising start to yet another series on the great man, whom our local council sees fit to belittle by sometimes allowing canned music to come out of the ears of Brunel's statue in our shopping centre.

At least the shopping centre is named after him, although the statue has its back to the railway!

One black mark for the programme's researchers why was it necessary to show a steam locomotive designed by another railway, to appear along the coastline near Dawlish?

It could at least have been a Swindon Great Western Railway product. There is plenty of film about of those!

The series, called Brunel: The Little Giant, continues on ITV west tonight at 7.30pm