David Nelson Godfrey Mitton (27 February 1939 – 16 May 2008) was a British director, producer, writer, model maker and special effects technician. He was best known for producing and directing the children's television programmes Thomas & Friends and TUGS. During the 1960s, he worked with Gerry and Sylvia Anderson as a special effects technician on series such as Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, Joe 90, The Secret Service and UFO. Early life Mitton was born on 27 February 1939 in Preston, Prestonpans, East Lothian and educated at The Strathallan School in Perthshire. On leaving school, he briefly attended art school before joining the Royal Air Force. He served with the RAF at Christmas Island, and at Honolulu before returning to serve at Southern Region Air Traffic Control, RAF Uxbridge, later he served at RAF Riyan up-country from Aden in what is now Yemen. He also served in Cyprus with the air-sea rescue service, and then left the Royal Air Force in 1962. Career Early career On his return from RAF service in the early sixties, Mitton embarked on a career in children's television. He began working as a special effects technician on a series of programmes created by Gerry Anderson's AP Films that used a puppet technology called supermarionation. Mitton was a member of the supervising visual effects director Derek Meddings team, displaying a special skill in setting up the electronics necessary to blow up buildings on cue in Thunderbirds (1965–1966), Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons (1967–1968), Joe 90 (1968), The Secret Service (1969) and UFO (1970–1971). As Gerry Anderson moved away from puppet animation, Mitton became freelance. He worked as assistant director to Ridley Scott on the famous Hovis commercials of the seventies in the United Kingdom and began directing animated television commercials himself. In the mid-seventies, he established a company called Clearwater Films (later Clearwater Features), with former Thunderbirds director Ken Turner and American-born producer Robert D. Cardona. The company soon gained a reputation for innovative stop-frame animated television commercials. Clearwater produced two award-winning commercials, one for Hovis set in an orbiting space station and another for PG Tips tea bags. Thomas & Friends Another commercial for "Prize Guys” yoghurt attracted the attention of television producer Britt Allcroft, who had acquired the television rights to a series of books known as The Railway Series from its author, the Reverend Wilbert Awdry. Allcroft approached Mitton to develop