TC1 Tank

Bill Jenkin

I see on Martin Kempton’s excellent history of TV studios site (http://www.tvstudiohistory.co.uk/) that the proposed ‘tank’ under TC1 was never actually built. However I seem to remember being told that it had been used on one occasion.

Was it ever actually built? I know the loading levels on the floor were reduced in the centre of TC1 because of the tank underneath.

Bernard Newnham

I’m pretty certain that the tank never got past the early planning stage.  Just the thought of driving a 100vDC Mole on a Stewart Morris show with a tank full of water makes me shudder.

The area became first the VT tape library then area 4 (I think) – certainly full of edit suites.

John Wardle

The walls of the tank were certainly built under TC1 and were very thick. This area was used by VT for stores and edit suites and we later took some of it for our basement laboratory area for Technology Group of Project Management Services/Resources Consulting & Projects. B049 was the main lab where we did camera evaluations and trials of other equipment and was outside the ‘tank’ but we used a room inside the ‘tank’ area as well at one time.

John Henshall

Certainly it was never built but I thought it became the GPO PABX area, where all the uniselectors resided, alongside a room full of ladies answering incoming calls to SHEpherds Bush 8000.

Roger Bunce

I was once shown a small inspection door, somewhere in TC basement, through which you could look into the TC1 ‘Tank’ – or the void which would have been the tank. You couldn’t actually enter, because the whole space was packed full of scaffolding props, holding up the floor above.

Chris Eames

I believe that the TC1 tank was never used. It was covered over permanently before the studio came into use. The reason I was given was that nobody could devise a removable cover that could:

1 – be flush with the floor when not in use
2 – be strong enough to support the weight of a mole crane
3 – be able to be removed and stored without a large crane being built into the studio structure.

I think that it was later used as a VT tape store – presumably a door was cut into the side.

Peter Hider

When I first saw TC1 in 1961 it was a shell and I was astounded by its size but there was, I remember, a very large hole dug in the middle to house a tank. The story goes that calculations showed that should the pool have leaked it would have flooded Shepherd’s Bush and at that point the idea of a tank was dropped.

I am quite sceptical of this and think that cost was major factor.

Albert Barber

I remember the Ealing tank….used for “The Cruel Sea” and a few more including a Ken Russell film.

Peter Cook

I remember the Ealing Tank. I did an underwater shoot (09/12/91) with Alan Jessop and Chris Bretnall there on “Tales From Hollywood.”

The tank was dressed as a posh swimming pool, and the action involved Jeremy Irons who contrived an underwater collision with a ‘marble’ column, followed by a ‘dying sequence’ using vfx blood gushing from his head. Hi8 camera in Amphibicam housing, video fed to and recorded on poolside BVW35.

Alan Machin

Yes, “Tales from Hollywood” was in Simon Curtis’ “Performance" series of top class drama when drama was still made in TV studios. Top class cast too – besides Jeremy Irons there were his wife Sinéad Cusack, Robin Bailey, Jack Shepherd, Americans Charles Durning and Elizabeth McGovern in her pre “Downton” days, and even Alec Guinness in a cameo role. I believe Elizabeth McGovern married Simon Curtis the following year, 1992. Howard Davies, a theatre director, directed with great help from Geoff Feld as Technical Director.

Most of the play was recorded at TVC, but we moved to Ealing Studios Tank for the scenes at the Hollywood swimming pool. As someone brought up in safety conscious TV Centre I remember being horrified at the conditions at Ealing with lights, cable connectors and water all over the place. I was told that Ealing was not subject to the same (query) GLC regulations as TV Centre.

Resource Coordinator Pete Manuel had a shock in more ways than one when he tried to move some lighting equipment and was thrown off his feet. Not LD Duncan Brown’s fault, just the old equipment at Ealing. Duncan did a terrific lighting job as always.

Bill Jenkin, Neil Dormand

There was a tank in Lime Grove Studio F (Stage 4 in Gaumont-British days). The BBC never used this studio except for storing scenery etc, It was also made unavailable for production when they constructed the VT/Graphics area for the TPC.
The tank was removed and the area turned into a windowless rest room called "The Gainsborough Room".

"We Dive at Dawn" was made at Lime Grove so possibly the tank was used then.  It was definitely used for the Battle of Trafalgar in “The Young Mr Pitt” made in 1941.

Peter Hider

My source tells me that Zoltan Korda’s 1937 film “Elephant Boy” with Sabu was shot in the Grove and that the elephant’s leg went through the cover of the tank.