A TV producer whose innovative ideas turned Dartmouth into a 1970s film star has died aged 84.

John Fabian moved to Kingswear after taking on the incredibly popular Onedin Line series.

As associate producer, he helped turn Bayards Cove into a mid Victorian Liverpool dockside – with the help of huge amounts of straw, old barrels and some donkeys.

During the series, Kingswear was reinvented as Cardiff; a local quarry became a Turkish volcano; and a stretch of the Dart near Dittisham was turned into the Amazon complete with dug out canoes and natives – some played by locals roped in as extras.

He also managed to recreate the Arctic using artificial snow during one summer when temperatures climbed to 84F.

While the series ran, the Onedin Line, created by Cyril Abraham and starring Peter Gilmore and Anne Stallybrass, was hugely popular and put Dartmouth in the national spotlight.

Its two stars, Gilmore and Stallybrass, fell in love with the area and move to Dartmouth – only moving away relatively recently.

Mr Fabian lived in Wood Lane, Kingswear. More than 50 people attended a graveside service conducted by Rev David Lambert before he was buried at the Kingswear village cemetery. He is survived by his wife Margaret, their son and four stepsons.

Mr Fabian was a member of the Dartmouth Probus Club. Dartmouth Museum Association chairman David Lingard, who had known him for some time, said: 'He was an absolutely lovely guy. A very gentle individual who I think was frustrated because he could not get around as much as he used to.

'He told a brilliant story.'

John Fabian was born on May 9, 1927, in Wolverhampton where his father was a director of the Star Motor Company. From Merchant Taylors, he went to Birmingham University to read medicine and did his National Service in the Royal Army Medical Corps.

He joined Birmingham Rep as a student and made his West End debut in Blood Wedding, with Maxine Audley at The Playhouse.

He diversified into radio, making features, drama and poetry programmes. He joined the J Arthur Rank Charm School and appeared in Hitchcock's Under Capricorn in 1949; with Gene Kelly in Crest of the Wave in 1954; the Cockleshell Heroes in 1955; and A Town Like Alice in1956.

Settling on a career behind the camera, he became a director on Panorama and the Tonight programme with Cliff Michelmore. He moved to the BBC drama department, directing Dr Finlay's Casebook, Z Cars, Compact and The Newcomers.

He was later contracted as production manager, planning and deploying multi-million pound budgets for new programmes such as Warship and The Buccaneer and was associate producer on Secret Army, Juliet Bravo, Angels, Morgan's Boys, Trainer and Howards Way. His work on the Onedin Line led to an invitation to direct action sequences for a film company based in Holland, Germany and Belgium.

When he left the BBC in 1987, he became a freelance lecturer and producer.

In his later years he qualified as a psychotherapist and worked with the Training Enterprise Council on the problems of the long-term unemployed and training of young people with special needs.