It was morning in Studio A. Apart from me it was deserted. I was operating camera 4 that day and was the last camera to be lined up; the rest of the crew was down in the restaurant having morning coffee before rehearsals started. The emitron camera was set up on Test Card “C”. I had used my headphone lead to measure the distance from camera to the testcard, and made sure it was squared up. The focus check had been finalised, and racks had said that I could mark in the limits. Remove viewfinder ground glass screen, apply liquid soap from the “gents”, and use “bronco” loo paper to wipe off the “old” limits. Back to the Studio, mark in the “new” limits with pencil, after inserting the glass screen and focusing viewfinder. Having “capped up” I was just leaving the Studio for a quick coffee, when Dickie Meakin came limping over to me from racks. His face was ashen, and what seemed unbelievable – he had a 3ft long spike sticking out from both sides of his blood-soaked trousers! “I’ve had a terrible accident Bo, see if you can get Nurse to come up and help me” I heard him say. With out any hanging around I rushed out and along the corridor, down the back stairs to her surgery. Nurse was sitting comfortably, sipping her coffee and reading the newspaper. “Come quick Nurse – Dickie Meakin has had a terrible accident!” I blurted out. Nurse looked at me calmly, glanced at her watch, and said “Tell Dickie I’ll be up in a few minutes”. I could not believe what I was hearing, but I was far too young and inexperienced to argue – I just dashed back as fast as I could to see how Dickie was. Studio deserted – no Dickie. Into racks, and there he was, sitting on the high chair, smiling. He saw the look of total disbelief on my face, and slowly pulled his trouser leg up, above his shoe, to reveal the latticework of an artificial leg! Using some “stage” blood, and some white powder from makeup, old trousers from wardrobe, and a spike from the “stagehands” he had completely fooled me! |
| I wonder if anybody remembers Henry Caldwell and Cafe Continental? I suppose this show was produced at Lime Grove – although I have an idea that it has gone out from Studio A at Ally Pally. As the programme starts the viewer is in a moving taxi. It stops and we see out of the window the “Café Continental”. A Major Domo in uniform comes forward, salutes and opens the taxi door. We step out, look at the billboard on the right of the Café entrance and read the names of the stars. Pere August comes through the Café door, welcomes us and beckons us to follow him into the Café. The programme then continues with the cabaret. The end sequence is the reverse of the beginning, we leave the Café, look at the billboard once more, move back and into the taxi. You can imagine all the things that could go wrong (and they did!) with this o pening and closing sequence to the programme, all live and on one iron man camera. Before going on air the painted plywood cut out of the side of a taxi (mounted on castor wheels) would be put in front of the camera. On cue the camera and the cut out pushed by a scene hand, would move sideways and then both stop opposite the Café entrance, simulating the taxi stopping. We would see the Major Domo through the window, he would step forward and open the taxi door. The taxi cut out is in two halves, joined in the middle. As the camera moves forward to follow, the scene hands pull the two halves of the taxi apart, to allow the camera through. After that it is simple. Go in, pan right onto billboard. Pan down to read names. Cue Pere to come out. Pan left onto him and follow him in. Cut to main stage cameras and start the Cabaret with compere Helene Cordet. The ending was shot in the same way – camera on Café door, Pere says “Au Revoir – hope you enjoyed the show!” Pan right onto billboard, pan down names, pull back to marks on floor, hope the scene hands have got the cut out in front of the camera and on its marks, pull back to second mark to reveal (hopefully) the taxi window. Cue major Domo to step forward, salute, smile and wink as he closes the taxi door. Now for the really tricky bit! A scene hand would be lying on the floor, in front of the camera, out of shot. He has a ladies long white evening glove over his hand and lower arm, and on cue he reaches upwards, grasps the tassel of the window blind, pulls it down to reveal “The End” tastefully written on it. We did this opening and closing sequence for every “Café Continental” and I can’t remember it ever going completely smoothly. You think what could go wrong attempting this routine, and I assure you that it happened at some point! Perhaps the worst mistake occurred in the end sequence. The long white evening glove was necessary to hide the hairy, tattooed arm of a burly scene worker. On one occasion the arm came a shade too high….. I can still hear Henry Caldwell’s irate voice coming down my cans, using some very choice expletives! |
| In the early days of AP we would sometimes do a “Local OB” from our garden in the grounds of Alexandra Palace. It was about 500yards from the building, and we fed a camera cable from racks, through a duct under the road to the garden. We rigged one emitron camera, mounted on a tripod set on a three-wheeled wooden dolly, and we would take all morning to get rigged, ested and lined up. We would go “live” on air at three o’clock, without a rehearsal, but this was no problem because the programmes were very simple, with just a presenter talking to camera, with demonstrations, and the director would talk us through the action. I was the cameraman on one occasion, and I lined up a head and shoulders shot of the presenter, who was standing in front of a demonstration table. The opening music faded, and I heard over my “cans” the continuity announcer, Winnifred Shotter introducing our programme. “Cue Bill” said the director, and we were off. ” This afternoon I’m going to show you how to hive wild bees” (just the sort of thing your average viewing gardener needs to know!). Bill Gamblin continued, “First of all you must put on fully protective clothing”. He then proceeded to put on protective coat, headgear, veil and gloves. Then he reached under the table, saying, ” I have here a skep of wild bees”. He promptly turned over the basket of bees onto the table. In an instant 10,000 bees were swarming round and about us. I could feel them crawling about on my focusing hand and bare arm. I pushed my face closer into the viewfinder visor to prevent any bees getting in there! I was only some six feet away from the angry swarm and felt somewhat uncomfortable. “First of all you must identify the queen bee,” said Bill. “I’ve marked her with a spot, and you can see her here”. “In you go,” said the director over my cans. In we went – close up of queen bee at limit of focus – about 18 inches away, my viewfinder showing a mass of bees, with a big bee with a yellow spot marked on its back in the middle. The noisy humming was now intense, and I could feel the wretched bees everywhere on me, hands, and arms and back of head. After some further talk from Bill I thought that we had seen enough of the queen, and I signalled to Ronnie Koplick, my tracker that day, to pull back. No response to my finger. Frantic movement of finger – but still we do not move. In desperation I pulled my head out of the viewfinder to see what the problem was. No Ronnie to be seen behind the dolly but there he was on the far side of the garden by the fence, with the floor manager and make-up girl, sheltering from the bees! Well I guess we got through the programme somehow, without anyone being stung. When we had finished and were packing up “Sutt” (Mr Henry Sutton – SME), came down to see that all was OK. He hadn’t been in the garden for more than a minute, when a bee came zooming onto his forehead, and stung him – our only casualty! Of course nothing like this could happen these days with “Health and Safety at Work”, but I can vouch for the truth of the above reminiscence, those many years ago. A suggestion that John has accidently switched some names around from Gordon Waters – ” The SME referred to was Mr Leslie Sutton , the other SME on that shift was Mr Henry Whiting” . Thanks Gordon. |
| …and this is how it must have looked, apart from the bees. From the Radio Times 1946. |  | |
| It was May 6th 1946, my first day in the Television Service. I had taken the little single decker red bus from Wood Green Station, up the hill to Ally Pally, hurried up the steps, through those heavy metal doors to report to reception. I then ascended to the sixth floor in the little lift, to report to Mr Baker, E.i.C. After a short lecture from him, he told me to report to Mr Whiting, S.Tel.E. in charge of Studio A. Mr. Whiting said to me, “Well Summers, what do you want to do – sound or cameras?” Full of excitement I replied “Cameras please Mr Whiting”. “There’s a boom – you’re on sound!” was his reply. Up I climbed, was quickly shown the controls, and donning a pair of “cans”, my operational experience of television began. Very soon a distraught voice came over the cans “I can’t hear a word – for Christ sake get the mike closer!” This was followed almost immediately afterwards by a somewhat annoyed Director – “Get that mike out of shot!”….. So it went on – for the rest of the afternoon – either the Sound Supervisor couldn’t hear what was being said – or I was being told off for having the mike in shot. I felt boom operating was not really for me. The following morning, before rehearsals started, Mr Whiting came up to me and said, “Report to Ted Langley, Summers. You’re on Cameras!” |
I joined the Television Service in 1946, and became a “dolly operator on crew 2, under Senior Cameraman, Ted Langley. He was a really macho type, and did much to create the prestige of camera operation in TV. He demanded 101% concentration from his trackers, and big close ups and fast tracks were his hallmark. He was a scourge to incompetent directors, and would sometimes become exasperated with them. Once in a while he would get so annoyed that he would throw off his cans, and rush up the stairs to the control room, to give a luckless director a piece of his mind. We lads on the floor would push our headphones a bit closer to our ears so that we didn’t miss a word! We were in Studio A rehearsing a variety programme. A knife-throwing act had just finished on camera and we were waiting for the next turn to arrive. Ted leaned forward from his camera, and asked the knife thrower if he would throw at him. He agreed, and Ted replaced the lovely girl in front of the target and had five knives thrown at him – all landing behind Ted jolly close to his body. Can you imagine this happening today in T/V? Well nothing untoward occurred, and afterwards Ted got back on his camera, and we carried on rehearsing. Of course we lads were all very impressed with Ted. The next day we were rehearsing a play. The action took place in a hospital with a blood donor, and Ted set up on a still shot of blood dripping into the bottle. Although the scene in the viewfinder was up side down – it was in colour. After a while it proved to be too much for Ted – he fainted! |
