Barry Gray's achievement was extraordinary. If you listen to his music today what is perhaps most striking is the sheer size of his sound. This he achieved by hook or by crook: getting as many of the best players together as he could on the sometimes tight budgets he was given, overdubbing where necessary, playing a range of musical instruments himself and by a deep, hard-earned but always humble understanding of resonant harmony, counterpoint and orchestration. From Barry Gray I learned resourcefulness.

Gerry & Sylvia Anderson's Supermarionation worlds risked inappropriately being ridiculed, inhabited as they were by aimiable, machine-idolating puppets in desperate situations. Gray's approach and sound left no doubt as to how seriously he expected audiences to take the films his music accompanied. If you laugh at Anderson's puppets, you are missing the point. Gray's music was the elixir by which these worlds become real for the viewer.

I am proud to have been bequeathed by the Gray family one of his earlier Ondes Martenots. I have had this instrument professionally restored and maintained, and now use it in my film scores. I also studied Martenot performance under Pascale Rousse-Lacordaire, a distinguished pupil of Jeanne Loriod's at the Conservatoire de Boulogne Billancourt in Paris. Film scores &c. in which this instrument plays include:

• Martyr (2006)
• Brend, Mark: Strange Sounds (Backbeat Books, 2006) book containing information, pictures and sound samples.
• The 3 Kings (1999)
• Alien Invasion (1998) for Silva Screen Records
• Pervirella (1997)
• A Fistful of Fingers for Edgar (Hot Fuzz) Wright (1994)