PROSPECTS look bright internationally for Southampton hovercraft manufacturer Griffon. Backing by Lloyds TSB Corporate is proving invaluable ... with just a measure of help from 007 James Bond.

As well as winning a series of major export and domestic orders GHL, which produces the largest range of hovercraft available, provided equipment, personnel and expertise for the opening multi-hovercraft chase sequence of the latest James Bond film Die Another Day.

For the Bond film, Eon Productions initially chartered one of GHL's demonstration craft. Company founder John Gifford and colleague Rob Trussler then spent six weeks on the Die Another Day set at Pinewood Studios and on a location near Aldershot, which doubled as a North Korean minefield, acting as advisers/drivers/instructors for world's first filmed multi-hovercraft chase.

"It was a hard few weeks," says John, "on the set from 6am to 3.30pm and then back to the office to get in a few hours' work! - but worth it. The film will be around for 20 years or more with our name on the credits."

John continued: "With so much of our business overseas Lloyds TSB Corporate's expertise in international work, letters of credit and that sort of documentation is absolutely vital to us.

"Coast guards and airport crash rescue services across the world are our main customers. The Swedish, Lithuanian and Estonian Coast Guards operate Griffon craft and we have just completed orders for airports in Korea and Singapore."

During the coming months the Hampshire-based company will complete a multi-million-pound order to supply the Saudi Arabian Coast Guard with five of its largest 8000TD(M) craft.

The craft will be used for general coastguard duties including anti-smuggling patrol and search and rescue. GHL will also continue work building specially modified smaller craft for the RNLI, the first of which is now operational in Morecambe Bay.

The Indian Coast Guard recently purchased six Griffon 8000TD(M) craft to be used for anti-smuggling and anti-infiltration operations in shallow water coastal areas and among offshore islands. The firm was founded in 1976 with a workforce numbering just two by John's father Edwin. He had worked with the hovercraft's inventor Sir Christopher Cockerell and is now Griffon's chairman. The company now employs 35 people building hovercraft ranging from the smallest five-seater 375TD to the 8000TD(M), which carries a payload of around eight tonnes or up to 80 people.

Southampton-based Lloyds TSB corporate manager Clive Derwent said: "We are proud to be associated with GHL helping to successfully export such an exciting and uniquely British invention to so many parts of the world.''

Formerly based at an inland site in the New Forest, GHL - with financial support from Lloyds TSB Corporate - relocated to waterside premises at Woolston on Southampton Water in late 1999 where an additional workshop has been built to house the larger hovercraft under construction.