WHEN a teenage Rob Cope wrote to Hi-de-Hi! star Su Pollard, it was as a fan of her unique brand of showbiz.

And almost three decades later he picked up his pen again to spend two years writing an authoritative guide to the hugely-successful show, its cast, crew and filming.

Thirty years to the month that work began on recording the hit sitcom, his hard work paid off as his book was unveiled.

The Hi-de-Hi! Companion was launched by the show's writers and stars at a signing session during a reunion at the Essex resort where it was first filmed.

Rob, aged 43, from Burslem, said: "There were fans there and we had a big signing morning when we unveiled the book.

"They were signing for something like two hours and we sold £2,000 worth of books in a couple of hours. It was very popular."

Hi-de-Hi! was the third collaboration between writers Jimmy Perry and David Croft, who had previously penned Dad's Army and It Ain't Half Hot Mum, and became one of the biggest comedy series of the decade, with about 13 million regular viewers over its 58 episodes.

The show featured the goings on at the fictional Maplin's holiday camp in the late 1950s and made household names of its stars .

It was recorded at the former Warner's Holiday Centre in Dovercourt Bay, Harwich, which is now a housing estate, and won a Best Comedy BAFTA in 1984, as well as spawning a West End stage musical and a play.

The show's final episode was broadcast in January 1988 and earlier this month writers and stars reunited at Dovercourt's Cliff Hotel, where TV crews were based during the original filming of the hit show.

Rob became a fan as a schoolboy in Leek in the early 1980s. The former Westwood High School pupil wrote to Su Pollard, sowing the seed of a correspondence which would later see Rob visit the star as she made studio recordings and the pair ultimately become friends.

Rob said: "I was in and around watching these shows being recorded and for years I wanted to write about these shows, which remain popular and are still being shown around the world."

That opportunity came on the back of the success of a companion book to Dad's Army, which was published by the Dad's Army Society five years ago.

When Rob approached the group with the idea of writing a similar book about Hi-de-Hi! two years ago he was told that, if he could get it together by the 30th anniversary, the society would publish it.

So Rob, a senior sales adviser at the Regent Theatre in Hanley, set to work with his friend Mike Fury, from Beverley, East Yorkshire.

They began to catalogue details of the show, the history of the holiday camps it lampoons, interview Hi-de-Hi!'s stars, writers, extras and production staff and delve into the vast archive of photographs of all those connected with production.

The result was an official book launch during the show's 30th anniversary reunion.

And Rob said: "We had the most amazing weekend and it was great fun.

"David Croft came down, but unfortunately Jimmy Perry was recovering in hospital."

Rob attributes the longevity and enduring popularity of the show – which first appeared on BBC television on New Year's Day 1980 – to the fact its writers preserved its timelessness by setting shows in the past.

A quarter of the companion book is also dedicated to You Rang M'Lord, which was Croft and Perry's project after Hi-de-Hi! and featured many of the faces made familiar from their time at Maplin's.

The book is available from Sunday, priced £18, and can be ordered online or in bookshops.