Geoff Fletcher
I look back on my BBC years at TC, Lime Grove, Riverside, TV Theatre et al as being very happy ones – it didn’t feel like work, more of a subsidised hobby, and what a great bunch of people to work with.
Geoff Hawkes
Memories tend to blur, but as they say, “Those were the days” with so much to look back on. My regret is the lack of photographic record of the people we knew, apart from the occasional groups. The place was full of characters from the scene boys and sparks, the studio attendants and fire patrolmen, to the man on the gates with one arm who addressed everyone as “Chief”. From the fierce looking receptionist, Miss VanDerGroot, who wore a gold chain round her ankle which made me wonder if this was just her day job and that she had another by night, to the vast army of make-up and wardrobe people dressed in blue and pink. The Floor Managers, AFM’s and Floor Assistants; the piano tuners, pianists like Patrick Harvey and Tom (?); set designers, producers and directors, let alone the regular actors on the series we did, to those who occupied the upper floors – it would be nice to have pictures of them all. We remember them with a smile and perhaps some of them remember us happily too….
Peter Fox
Now a TC1 story.
“Once in a Lifetime”: 1988 Brian Blessed, Zoe Wanamaker and many others of note, all gone to the club. House lights on and the glamour has evaporated. Crew 7 is derigging as normal, when someone shouted “Hey ” pointing up. Remember the gathering hum of all the hoist motors chiming in as fast as the switches could be flicked?
A gorgeous chandelier was being hoisted aloft….just by its power lead. I hardly need tell you what happened next, the plug came out and the chandelier descended, rapidly, until it was brought up short by its scene hoist and it stopped. At least some of it did, but all the crystals kept going. There was a man down below, waiting to dismantle it carefully and take it away. He was in tears before the last tinkle of glass hit the floor.
Bernie Newnham
Sometime in the nineties I made a kids’ documentary in “The Lowdown” series. At one point we were filming (on DV) in the haunted pub in the middle of the stone circle at Avebury, talking about a ghost there. She was apparently mischievous and did things like slamming doors etc. I set up to record the owner behind the bar telling us this, using my two lights. With everything set up, there was a lot of noise from the other bar, and the man said that he’d go and get them to be quiet. We stood waiting there for some minutes with lights on and camera ready. Eventually he came back, and we miked him up again and ran the camera. I cued the girl asking the questions – and the lights went out. “That was her that did that” said the owner. In fact, a powerbreaker had tripped, but it had never done it before and hasn’t done it again. Spooky!
Hugh Sheppard
[Ed: section updated 18 November 2017 with more detail]
‘Banished’ to AP and News. That’s how it felt when others were allocated to Lime Grove etc. but in reality it was a blessing. We manned pesticon cameras, vision-mixed and ‘mingled with the stars’ such as Bob Dougal, Kenneth Kendal, Dickie Baker and Nan Winton, with the tyrant Paddy Rigg in charge under EiC Jock Strathairn.
Released to real television, I was a know-all; been there done that etc. It took Bob Warman on crew 8 to take me down a peg.
As a new boy to real studios, cable-bashing was my role and, after being on AP’s Pye Pesticons, I was awfully keen to do more. At last let loose on a ped-mounted studio camera, in D or E at Lime Grove, David Jacobs was in the frame on-air when I thought to widen the shot a smidgeon, against Bob 1’s mandate to stay rooted to the spot. The cable-guard jammed against my soft-soled suede shoes and I lost it. Totally. The camera went up and I went down, still tied to it by the headphones. David Jacobs’ live interview of Vanessa Redgrave was interrupted with his “Mr. Cameraman, Mr. Cameraman – are you alright?”, but this paled in comparison with Bob 1’s interviewing me. What a lesson to learn; Crew 8 was then perhaps the most prestigious; the 2 Bobs with Ron Peverill on 3, and the Oat in the gallery, set standards to aspire to – and Oh how I subsequently tried.
Oh the ignominy. It still lives with me, a mere 57 years later.
John Howell
It’s difficult to imagine now, we once had 20 Camera Crews plus ‘Pools’ of camera staff, Dolly Operators, Sound Assistants I, II, and General, Tape/Grams, Inlay, Vision Operator Reserve, as well as staffing 2 Pres. Studios and many staff on Detachments, (Info from Jan 1968 Staff List when there were 19 Crews before anyone corrects my mention of 20!).
Mind you back in the 1960s we were often working 2 days a week in the Summer on programmes such as ‘Captions for CETO’ in TC5 with a full sound crew and no sound element to the final result!
Angie Wilson
Nineteen Camera Crews etc and, at the time of my enforced departure end ’87, thirty-two VMs! That figure I believe is now down to zero?
Ah yes, those short working weeks in the Summer … normally three days for us VMs, in my time anyway (1974-1987). Such happy memories of long summer days spent with Heather, Pat Mordecai and others on the Motspur Park tennis courts. RIP Pat and Heather.
Tony Grant
“Two Ronnies” … do you remember that Ronnie C always insisted on Sabby on Autocue? I was also always impressed with Ronnie B’s wordplay sketches. Plus I’ve just remembered I also worked on the “Porridge” that had David Jason, mostly based around a hospital ward in the prison, and the end pay-off was on TK. Being on camera, and not having a monitor in my eye-line, I never did get to see what the ‘punch line’ was until the show was transmitted. It was where someone went off to dig up loot, and the floodlights came on to reveal them in the middle of a football pitch. Well worth the wait for a good laugh.
Alasdair Lawrance
In the mid Sixties, I cable bashed on “The Walrus and the Carpenter” with Felix Aylmer and Hugh Griffiths (Tom Jones). Also “Catch Hand” with Mark Eden, I think, and Cherie Blair’s brother, Tony Booth.
David Brunt
None of the episodes of “The Walrus and the Carpenter” have survived.There’s also only one episode of “Catch Hand” existing (the fifth, with Trevor Bannister guesting) and that’s a recording tape rather than the edited version as screened.
Trevor Webster
“Catch Hand” takes me back. I was on a SS attachment to Gordon Mackie. Poor Gordon had a very painful hand so I got to mix all his drama. Lucky me! I got on well with Gordon because I had gram opped for him many times, so I said something like “I am not unsympathetic but I am rather glad that you can’t mix at the moment”. Gordon paused and then said in his wonderfully expressive Scottish voice “Ah! It’s an ill wind!” – and that was the end of the conversation.
Alasdair Lawrance
One classic that is available is “I Didn’t Know You Cared” with Robin Bailey, Liz Smith and John Comer amongst others.
I recall sitting in the 4th floor canteen with Michael Bentine and Sydney Lotterby (what a CV!), and the two of them trying to work the ‘flea circus’ into a joke about yogurt. I never did really understand it, but they thought it was very funny…. I was 19 in 1964 and had had a very sheltered life!
Peter Hider
The arrival of Barbara Francs on Crew 5 was the defining moment when Jim Atkinson showed us how women should be treated. He gathered the crew together on the studio floor at the start of the day and instructed us that this new girl MUST be treated EQUALLY as one of the lads, no sexist jokes or favouritism. He took a shine to her immediately. Barbara carried a small wooden box instead of a handbag and after slightly self-conscious introductions, (does one shake hands?); Jim said to Jon Christie, “OK son, I’ll just show Barbara the studio while you take her box up to the gallery”. She was always respected and treated as one of the lads, going on as she did to a great career in films and documentaries and, if I remember correctly, as a photographer. She was also an extremely good Mole swinger.
Bernard Newnham
Jim didn’t show me the studio, he said “get out to the tea queue before everyone else, watch out for the fireman when I’m smoking, and in the canteen, anything – but no fish on Mondays”
Peter Fox
I seem to remember someone generating a lot of smoke on John Davies’ “The Woodlanders” or maybe it was the Emile Zola “Germinal” by setting fire to the cyc in TC8 with a 2k on a stand, not that I am casting any aspersions, but that dramatically enhanced the lighting for a while. That was the old fashioned way, although not actually an “arc” lamp.
Ian Hillson
When someone points out that you’ve just set fire to the cyc, the correct answer is “wot, you mean the fireproof cyc?”
Hugh Sheppard
This site is a reminder to us all of the dedication our tech ops jobs required. As a cable-clearer, dolly-op and cameraman, it’s a sobering reflection that the precision I thought my job required was no more and no less than for everyone around me, be they cast or crew.
Bernard Newnham
In 1986 we had a celebration that they called TV50 – fifty years of television. Part of it was to run a whole load of ancient programmes on BBC2. – someone had the idea that we would intro the programmes with some of the in vision announcers of old, so I got to have lunch with them in the Bridge Lounge and then help them write the evening’s script – Sylvia Peters, McDonald Hobley, Peter Haigh (both knocking it back in the club just a bit), Anne Gregg and Valerie Pitts. When Valerie was about to go on with the first live link, the Autocue failed. The link was probably 45 seconds worth but she said don’t worry, and did the lot from memory. “Just like the old days” she said.
Pat Heigham
It takes long experience to front up as a presenter. Even seasoned professionals screw up (‘Merry Christmas VT”) from time to time.
My freelance career led me to record an American presenter, very pretty, ex-Olympic swimmer, but useless in front of camera – Athens, prior to one of the Olympics: location, the original horseshoe arena – piece to camera, near 30 seconds long – 34 takes! Sue Lawley or Sue Barker would have done it in two takes, one good, for timing, one safety – and an early lunch for the crew.
Albert Barber
We all know those older office interiors when we joined the BBC at Television Centre, despite the modern looking building there was Civil service style furniture and dull coloured walls. Even the stiletto heel marks on the floor were a surprise when I joined one of the most creative television hubs in the world. AND we spoke in ordinary language when we wanted to put our ideas. Of course, every profession has its shorthand: VT, CAR, BH, and even TVC and LGS had to be explained to the general public plus the famed but fictitious engineering title of EIEIO.
Today’s BBC has still some way to go in cleaning up its language and worrying less about office image. But as the item says it’s better than it was. New Broadcasting House’s (NBHs) red walls are a doubtful route to creativity as is hot desking. I don’t know what most people’s desks are like when they worked at the BBC or even now write these blogs at home on the tech-ops site but mine is a mess and most of my ideas come from the clutter on it. What is yours like? At NBH even a waste bin is frowned upon!
EIEIO
Jeff Booth
Engineering Induction and Engineering Information Officer (EIEIO).
Patrick Heigham
EIEIO – I heard this one as coming from BH, where a duty officer handled calls from the public with reception queries: External Inquiries, Engineering Information Office.
(There’s no truth in the rumour that a chap named MacDonald held the job!)
Initial-wise, I recall the proposed re-structuring of the Regional Engineering posts. There was to be an overall Regional Supervising Engineer – RSE – but what about his Assistant?!
Alasdair Lawrance
I heard it was similar, Engineering Information External Inquiries Officer. There was also an Assistant Regional Sound Engineer…..
Roger Bunce
Once I worked for: ‘Technical Operations’. The document which listed our duties was called the T.O.D.S. (Technical Operations Duty Schedule (or Sheet)).
Then Technical Operations changed its name to ‘Studio Operations’ and the duty sheet was renamed the . . .
No doubt, there were many in Middle Management who felt that this was a apt description of the people listed therein
David J Denness
Do you remember the closing episode of ‘It’s a Square World’ where Heinkel, or Trojan, and Messerschmitt bubble cars ran round the statue of Helios re-enacting the Battle of Britain?
During the shoot of this episode the special effects dept singed a brick in the ‘fountain’ and Michael Bentine received a letter from the head of services of TVC telling him ‘under no circumstances are the premises of Television Centre to be used for the purposes of entertainment’
Seems that person eventually got their wish.
I know Bentine was immensely proud of this letter which he kept framed on the wall in his office.
A wonderful man, very clever, a delight to work with and naturally funny.
Geoff Fletcher
I took this photo on 16 August 1964 when the Bentine show crew were filming a triffid sequence at TC. If it was after the famous memo, then he obviously ignored it. The triffid looks a bit tired – must have been a lot of takes!
BBC Club at Television Centre
Patrick Heigham
I’m sure everyone remembers Eric, the splendid Jeeves-like commissionaire at the TVC club. Muir & Norden, who used to frequent the side bar (usually the domain of the LE Producers) used to wind him up, terribly, by phoning from their office, conveniently on the same 4th floor, and asking him to page someone. They then rushed back, to witness Eric striding through the Club, asking for “Mr Andrew Pandy” and ” Would the cast of The Woodentops please return to the studio!”
I did hear that Eric was forced into retirement through age, and very shortly after, died – for that had been his life.
Mike Felton
My memory of Eric was on the opening night of BBC2 which was a fiasco because there was a power cut.
I was in the club which was now lit by candles and Eric was doing his rounds calling for “Mr J. L. Baird”.
Martin Bell
Eric had a sense of humour, too. I remember sitting one lunchtime by the door of the small bar with Ken somebody who was a presentation co-ordinator and who considered himself to be a Fleet Street hack and looked like it. Eric appeared at the door and forlornly looked round the bar – full of News and Pres and LE, and then turned to Ken and said quietly, “Excuse me, sir, but are you by any chance a member of the Bee Gees pop group?”
