If it's the same as the OR946 display in the Gnat, the wire-mounted bead was part of the flight director system and the aircraft was manoeuvred to keep the bead centred.
Extremes of pitch attitude were indicated by a zenith / nadir star. If I recall correctly, to recover from an extreme attitude, you rolled to put the 'star to the six o'clock', pitched in the direction indicated by the longest arm of the star to the nearer horizon, before spot rolling out if inverted.
Mate JF when he almost lost a Lightning recalled seeing the nadir star in the centre of an all-black attitude indicator, gently rotating......shortly before his 11+G North Sea avoidance manoeuvre!