Alasdair Lawrance
There was a story I heard about an unmanned RBR transmitter somewhere which regularly went off-air every second Thursday, between about 08:30 and 09:00.
By the time an engineer had been notified and driven there everything was fine.
It turned out it was a contract cleaner who unplugged the tech. supply to plug in the vacuum cleaner.
Peter Cook
In the very early days of BBC2, an OB crew were in Oxford to do a live fashion show with Michael Aspel as compere (it might have been a pilot show). Not far into the show we went unexpectedly off air. The RBR had failed. It later transpired that the power supply was from a house left temporarily empty for renovation. The decorators knocked off the power when they had finished work, ignoring instructions to leave main breaker alone.
I have vague recollections of a swift derig and then a pub crawl which ended up with a number of stragglers in one M Aspel’s hotel room, probably at the Randolph.
Peter Neill
Doing a “Question Time” once at the Greenwood and the line to TC failed just before recording. This was tracked down to a cleaner unplugging a DA in the Bermondsey telephone exchange. A links truck was despatched so we could do it live but, fortunately, the problem was discovered in time.
Roger Bunce, Jeff Booth, Alec Bray, Dave Buckley
The stories on this page have come about as a result of a problem at NATS just before Christmas 2014, where a new person logging on for a shift caused a system overload and the disruption to a large number of flights.
The dependence of Air Traffic Control upon a 13 amp plug is hilariously described in an After-Dinner Speech by an Air Traffic Controller (I never did know his name).
There was a similar, but much more tragic case, involving life-support machines in a hospital. Apparently the person in the bed nearest the door kept dying (it was not the same person each time). The hospital installed a camera to see what was going on. The cleaner was unplugging the Life Support kit to plug in the floor polisher/Hoover. Clearly in the days before battery backup/UPS! This story line of a cleaner unplugging a life support machine in a hospital turned up in an episode of Frost some years back.
Ian Dow
I was doing an OB from an operating theatre and asked which sockets I should use for the lighting. I was told there were ordinary sockets for general use, but red sockets for critical equipment, but that they sometimes ran out of the correct colour so some white sockets should have been red, and some red should have been white – but nobody could remember which ones they were!
We had to take our radios to a technician to check they didn’t interfere with hospital equipment. I was expecting him to have a frequency meter, but to my surprise he took me along to the cardiac ward and asked me to transmit on them all – he saw nobody fall over, and said they were OK.
Also I was doing a live OB into BBC News from outside No10, and had lit the street. After our item we were cleared, so I switched off the lights, and out of the corner of my eye saw the monitor showing ITN’s “News at Ten” suddenly plunged into darkness – that’ll teach them to be lazy and not rig their own lights!
Hugh Sheppard
A propos ITN: Apollo 13 (I think it was) in 1970 had Dick Francis as Editor and me as the Pres. co-ordinator – in theory. By then there were a mix of simulations from BBC, NASA, NBC, ITN and ANOther, all just slightly different, and they filled a row of monitors in the gallery as the modules separated prior to the moon landing.
At Dick’s elbow, I saw that at one time, we were on our own simulation – but so was ITN (on our simulation). Dick didn’t believe it until I persuaded him to cut to Cliff Michelmore engrossed in watching a monitor on the studio floor.
Sure enough, Cliff, who then symbolised the BBC, was suddenly on all the nation’s TV sets. It lasted longer than it should and as Ian says, we thought ‘That’ll teach them’. The Daily Mail liked it too.
Dave Plowman, Alasdair Lawrance, John Howell
I seem to recall being told that the unplugging of critical equipment was the reason that tech supplies at TVC etc used those dangerous D&S (Dorman & Smith) 13 amp plugs, where the live pin was the fuse. The problem with D&S was that the fuse screwed in and could work its way loose eventually remaining in the socket when unplugged, potentially, (no pun intended) leaving a live fuse exposed.
Walsall Gauge struck me as being rather sensible, it was the same as UK 13Amp size but with the pins rotated through 90 degrees. London Transport used them about the same time as the Beeb.
Bernie Newnham
After a “TOTP” in Studio G I put my hand on a mains wallbox to pull out a plug and put it straight onto the fuse that had broken off one of those things in the next hole. My first BBC mains shock – but not my last.
Dave Plowman
Spawn of satan, those things. They also only had a rubber grommet as a cord grip. But the fuse pin didn’t even need to break off – it could unscrew itself quite nicely. Given the number of times this happened it’s outrageous it took so long for them to be changed for something better.
Bob Auger
Same thing happened to me when I moved a monitor – I think it was in TC4. Plug was tight, so one hand on the bar to stabilise myself, the other on the plug = 240 volts right across my chest. Fortunately the plug came out, accompanied by a loud expletive from me.
"Quiet on the floor" called the FM, as I lay there quivering…
Peter Cook
Buckingham Palace banqueting hall some decades past. A State banquet for Indian PM. Rig, rehearse, retire while they eat, record or transmit the after dinner speeches, retire to the pub again until they finish. So far so good, a swift derig in progress until one of the sparks wanted to move one of the palace’s huge warming cupboard on wheels and grabbed the metal handle. I don’t recall if he was touching anything else, but he was zapped and floored. Fortunately he got up and was still breathing. I always wondered what HSE might have done!
Alex Thomas
I was there as OB Floor Manager and discovered that the waiters didn’t get a shock when they took the trays of food through to the invited guests because there was a rubber mat in front of the warming cabinet.
Apparently the Royal Palaces in those days were not liable to the Health and Safety Regulations.
I came across a similar exemption at Ely cathedral where Benjamin Brittain’s “ Burning Fiery Furnace” was to be performed in front of an audience. This piece of work is not licensed for performance in UK theatres because of the use of dozens of fully practical lit candles!
As there were lots of singers in long flowing costumes I went for advice to the Fire Brigade Station up the road.
“They are exempt from Fire regulations” said the Chief Fire officer “which is why that work is only performed in cathedrals”.
He lent me several fire blankets and some extinguishers which I distributed around the edge of the rostra.
My small team of helpers sat with bated breath as the music played and, thank God, nobody caught fire.
I just hope that the regulation have caught up with this anomaly.
Dave Buckley
I found the comments about particular buildings not coming under certain official regulations interesting.
I went to a performance at the Royal Albert Hall (RAH) during the late 1970s, and looking over the balcony, was dismayed to see that the stage lamp immediately below me didn’t have a safety chain on it.
The next day, I rang the GLC and asked for the ‘Fire Inspectors’ office and pointed this out to them, stating that I worked for the BBC and was about 50 yards from a small TV studio which never had an audience in it, yet all the lamp units had to have (at that time) two safety bonds on them (this requirement did change later).
I was told that the RAH and a number of other buildings (I think the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane was another) didn’t come under the GLC regs and all the GLC could do was to advise.
Even earlier, the old Middlesex County Council fire officers used to come round my old school and test the scenery and any drapes (particularly the front curtains) with a blow lamp to see if they were fire proof (the lining on the back of the curtain showed a lot of scorch marks).
On one occasion, a lampshade hired from Strand Electrics burst into flames when subjected to the blow lamp test, and all Strand got back was the framework!
Patrick Heigham
The nickname ‘Sparks’ has been around for years, presumably because messing around with electricity can cause just that.
I witnessed a very exciting example on location for "Fiddler on the Roof" (memories of filming in Zagreb).
Our Tim Blackham, ex BBC Aeolian Hall, was Sound Maintenance (a real title in those days) and as we were running the cameras and the playback amplifiers from 2 x 12v high amperage lorry batteries, he built a charger from scratch to trickle the batteries in the sound truck, whenever the genny was in use.
The electricians thought this a great idea, as they were also using 12v car batteries for some low-volt lights which weren’t being cable fed – so they coupled up 20 12v batteries in series in the back of one of their lorries.
Unfortunately, they had not done what Tim had – built in several diodes to prevent the current from flowing the reverse way.
Thus when the genny was killed and beginning to run down, without the charging batteries being disconnected first, these batteries attempted to run the genny! The shower of fireworks as all 20 batteries simultaneously rapidly discharged at max. current was a sight to behold – I thought Tim
would expire with howls of laughter!
Sara Newman
A 2-dayYvonne Littlewood music spectacular with a major London Orchestra who had decided to take industrial action by working to rule all day. Taking every break – 10 mins here and 10 mins there. Caused no end of grief to our rehearsals and blocking. I was on the back of the Nike with Roger on the front and Vince Spooner was on a Vinten with Peter Goldring on the front. Vince was crabbing from behind the Orchestra, panning round the harpist and coming to the front where we were to take over with a shot of the artist who was Daniel Barenboim (who was not present as he had food poisoning with Oysters.) As Vince came round he hit the mains cable and severed it with accompanying blue flash. I have never seen an orchestra move so fast to the exits. My main memory is of the harpist lugging her instrument across the stage, scattering Yvonne’s unique music stands in every direction. I seem to remember that after that they settled down and as usual we got the show completed as planned.
Vince Spooner
I’m afraid I had plenty of shocking experiences at TVC!
I don’t remember the particular chopped cable incident that Sara Newman recalls but I do remember a dress run of the Val Doonican show, 2 hours or so before live tx, when I managed to get the Mole crane’s 110V DC cable snagged under its rear cable guards during a fast repo. The entire weight of the crane basically sank onto the cable under full load and I vividly recall the bright orange roman-candle jet of flame aimed at the nearby violinists. I’ve never seen an orchestra disintegrate so fast and the ensuing chaos will forever be with me.
As will the memory of Steve Cockayne, who was on the front of the Mole, wildly waving his arms and legs about in a desperate attempt not to touch anything metal shouting at me to "turn the ******** thing off!".
As will the memory of Roger Fenna who, having marched me with a look of thunder to the tech store and satisfied himself that everyone was all right, thank me profusely as he thought we were never going to get a tea break.
A cable man managed to put a new end on in time for tx but we couldn’t make most of our marks as the cable was now ten feet shorter than it started.
Also, in one bad week, I managed to get electrocuted 3 times: twice as a result of the mains plugs that had horizontal earth-pins falling apart and once when an F & E video socket on a lighting barrel had mains on it!! Such was the level of concern that I was summoned to see one of the camera managers and it was put to me in no uncertain terms that if this continued I might have to consider my future in the camera department.
Sara Newman
I remember the one with the plug: Vince was thrown at least 20 ft across the floor and looked ashen and his arm was paralysed for the rest of the day!
On another occasion. I managed to cut the cable on a live “Blue Peter” 9 mins before transmission with some record breaking attempt being done.(RF was very stoical). I had to let the engineers know that I had no power. “Ah thought it might be you!” and they valiantly remerged en mass from their cubby hole known as engineering. Complaining that they had only just sat down for a cup of tea and cake to watch BP. I wonder if Biddy Baxter knew she had a huge engineering following? They pushed me around the studio for the programme and took unrelenting light hearted “p*ss” out of me at every future opportunity. On future programmes occasionally I’d have a voice in my ear piece reminding me of my shame?! I became utterly obsessed by the cable guards thereafter. I swear the elves sharpened them in the scene store at night!
Maurice Fleisher
All this talk about electric shocks brings to my ancient mind a show from the TV theatre, Shepherds Bush. As I recall it was a “What’s My Line” with a panel including Lady Isabel Barnett, Gilbert Harding and two others.
I can’t actually remember if it was during live transmission or during the rehearsal, but there was suddenly a loud bang and a ‘sparks’ came sailing out from the wings and slid along the stage, motionless. It was not generally known at the time that Isabel Barnett was a qualified MD. She leapt out of her seat and immediately started resuscitation on him which fortunately worked and she kept by him until the ambulance arrived.
Peter Hider
I was behind the Cyc rigging a Mole in either D or E at the Grove. As I offered the power cable up to the wallbox I discovered the box itself was live. I took the 410 volt three phase from my hand to my soft soled shoes via my, now, very surprised heart which much to my amazement was still pumping.
My temperature rose dramatically as I staggered out into the full view of the rest of the crew. I must have looked like a Tom & Jerry cartoon character with my hair standing on end. I went down to the nurse on the ground floor who took my temperature and explained how a shock can kill you if the heart is in a particular part of its cycle. Very reassuring, I thought, but this was long before Elf and Safety and other than a single line in her report book that was it. I merely went for a cup of tea, waited for my temperature to return to normal and went back to the studio in time for rehearsals.
Back in the 1970s one of our TM1s (it may have been either John Treays or Dennis Channon) employed one of the studio electricians to do some rewiring at his house. The electrician was reassured that the fuse had been removed from the 32 amp circuit. Not being a trusting sole the electrician asked the TM1, who had done some preliminary work, to prove it. Wires were protruding from the wall boxes, so the TM knelt down and without referring to the brain cells put his tongue on the bare red cable. I think you’re ahead of me. He went across the room towards the electrician without touching the floor. The Sparks was pleased he’d asked.
Bill Jenkin, John Howell, Graeme Wall, Alex Thomas
There was the story about someone getting very bored sitting on the back of a Heron with very little to do. So to pass the time of day he decided to unscrew the fuse holder and stick his finger down it (the Heron ran on 415 Volts 3 phase (although it may have been a curious 3 phase voltage of around 230 volts), and had it had three fuses, one per phase.). He was surprised to get a shock. They had to put some sort of protection on it after that so protect any other pi**ocks.
Alex Thomas, Graeme Wall, Dave Plowman
I am reminded of the Mole crane which ran on 110 volts DC but the supply from rotary converters in the basement of Lime Grove was 55 volts above and 55 volts below so that you couldn’t get a lethal shock.
However, the Mole in the TVT had to have the swinger monitor insulated (with camera cards!) from the cradle. This was something to do with the tech mains being different, probably to do with the ‘earths’. Tech earth was separate from the general one to improve ‘noise’ etc performance. Connecting the two together negated this advantage – but not really a safety issue. There should not have been more than a few volts between them. But may well have caused a warning to come on somewhere. There was not problem in the other studios.
Dave Plowman
It could be the supply for the cranes in the main studios used tech earth – but not in the theatre. And thinking on – wouldn’t the camera body also be earth and earth the crane via the head? Or is the head insulated?
Grounding to prevent loops which make for noise has always been a bit of a black art.
I remember being shown the DC supply for the Mole in the Golder’s Green Hippodrome. It was a mercury arc rectifier which glowed beautifully. Looked like something from an early “Dr Who”. Seems like it was originally for arc lamps.
Sara Newman
Does anyone remember rigging “Grandstand” at Lime Grove from Jan to June 1981. I did 6 months – just about every Saturday. The pecking order for the in-studio production personnel was that if you had your own mini monitor you had really made it ! Each week the number of monitors increased and began to far outstrip the mains supply. Spaghetti and knitting come to mind. These mini monitors had a metal casing and after many weeks of being dragged up from stores and so on they began to give off small shocks. One Saturday we measured it as about 11 volts but still the production personnel wanted them as they were the latest status symbol and the rig just got longer and longer and then poof! they were no more. Never found out who decided that 11 volts was a health and safety risk – or had it increased?!
Neil Cameron, Geoff Fletcher
Another sparkling incident. On TO19 back in 1964, Neil Cameron was fiddling about with something under the bonnet of his frog-eye Sprite.
Neil Cameron had parked his Sprite on the pavement outside the Club in Evesham because his insurance did not comply with the BBC requirements for taking private cars on site. As very basic anti-theft device he was removing the rotor arm from the distributor when the incident occurred.
The battery on Sprites were at the back by the cockpit bulkhead and close under the uplifted bonnet.
The Sprite had a starter switch, also mounted on the bulkhead and connected to the dashboard pull switch by a cable, that took the full starter current, no solenoids in 1960s Sprites. The back of the switch was not shrouded so there were two 1/4” studs sticking out and about 2” apart. Somehow Neil’s metal watch strap bridged both of these studs causing full starter current to pass through it. It melted almost immediately – burning off a chunk of skin the shape of the watch strap. The engine turned over but didn’t start because Neil had removed the rotor arm.
Everybody in the bar had a different idea as what to do regarding the burnt skin, after a few tasters the majority opinion was that Rum and Blackcurrant would be an effective pain killer, it was !!
Neil says: “I don’t remember getting back to Wood Norton that night and I still have the scar and for some years after that I used a leather watch strap.”
Peter Cook, Dave Buckley
Queen Mother’s Birthday (80th?) service in St Paul’s Cathedral. Morning camera line up. Point camera at chart; dark, reach out and switch on pup. Sh******t, should have let go of panning handle first.
Lamp and scanner on different phases so more than 240 curly volts! (in fact, some 415 volts + between phases!) Sat down involuntarily for several minutes. Had to write out an accident report.
The Queen Mother’s Birthday was not a good programme for me, says Peter.. The previous day I got a parking ticket at my local Met line station as they had sneakily changed the times for street parking. On the programme day I parked in a city street east of the cathedral, returning after derig to find my car broken into and my briefcase missing. I did subsequently get a phone call from a security office who had found the case abandoned in their grounds, behind railings.
Ian Hillson
And much-recounted story of John Treays, BBC LD, grabbing hold of a floor lamp while holding onto some other metal object (boom?) with other hand on the studio floor – result, mains straight across heart.
Fortunately, the director of said drama was present – Dr. Jonathan Miller – to revive him.
Bernie Newnham
I was on a camera on Blue Peter in TC1. Sometime during afternoon rehearsal I noticed that a floor monitor video cable wasn’t connected and needed a barrel to join the wall end to the monitor end somewhere in the middle of the studio. Having obtained said barrel from the engineers I picked up both video ends and was zapped by some large voltage right across my body from hand to hand. Next thing I notice is being surrounded by BP presenters, floor manager etc. I have no idea how the fault happened but it too was something to do with phases.
Ian Dow
When the new TV Centre opened at Wimbledon (as in Tennis) I went into my office and plugged in my phone charger which exploded. Went next door to find a sparks covered in the remains of a strip light.
The three phase power to each technical area was fed from 5 solid copper bus bars running along the ceiling of each corridor, and a clever arrangement allowed the user to push a connection box through a protective insulated cover and clip onto the bus bars (similar system at National Exhibition Centre). What had gone wrong was that the man allocated to feed the bus bars with the three phases, neutral, and earth, had gone to the wrong end of the corridor, turned round, and connected up as per his diagram. Two of the phases did have 240v, but neither neutral was at earth potential, and my phase had 400v across live and neutral.
A short time after, whilst doing a “Songs of Praise” from No1 Court (don’t ask) my sparks dropped a mole wrench into the power board whilst disconnecting the scanner (Wimbledon sparks had gone home and nobody knew how to turn off the supply). This took the lot out – including the pump which prevented the court from flooding. Next morning I’m hauled up in front of the AELTC Secretary whilst his team bale out the court, and although I boldly suggested we call it quits after the 3-phase debacle, we ended up having to pay about £1000 damages – we needed to keep the contract!
Alasdair Lawrance
I once had to help a LEB chap connect us to sub station bus bars via tails. His opening line was – "Now, this new colour coding, brown is earth, isn’t it? What’s phase, blue or the other one?"
Dave Buckley
Around 1975 the Television Training studio at Woodstock Grove was being colourised, and a P and ID technician was trying to get the TX/Reh signal lights to work. He was working in a junction box and commented that, according to his diagram the lights should work if he put a link across two terminals. He set his AVO to amps and put the probes across said terminals with the result that there was a very loud bang and the ends of the probes were nearly burnt off. The sparks had put two phases into the box and they had been shorted! The area was shut down for a time until the problem could be fixed.
Bill Jenkin
At school we had to do a lash up in the school hall whenever we had to do stage lighting, running feeds from near and far. What we probably weren’t aware of was that there were two different phases running into the school. The net result on one particular occasion was that when we tried to fade down the house lights for the first time we actually faded them up to 415 volts. Blew a few fuses but not much else I’m pleased to say.
Wonder how all this unsupervised activity would be viewed today, or even then come to think of it?
Alec Bray
When I was teaching (after my stint as a Tech Op and then time at Uni) we were doing the Christmas end-of-term show. We had lights wired back to a (cough) lighting panel and a “pop-group” with amplifiers fed from floor dip traps … at the climax of the show, what was supposed to happen was that the fairy lights on the staged-based Christmas tree were to go all aglow. Came the moment, threw the switch: total power fail. All in darkness, gloom descended.
Well, we checked the fuse in the Christmas tree lights – fine. Fuses in the power leads. All fine. Fuses in the (err) lighting panel – all fine. Fuses feeding the lighting panel – all fine.
What had happened was a main cartridge fuse in the boiler room had blown, and hurled itself across from one end of the boiler room to the other – just ‘cos we switched on the fairy lights!
Dave Buckley
About school lighting: in the 1950’s my old school had a Strand Sunray mechanical controlled lighting board installed and that had three phases into it. Around the stage, the outlets were marked with which phase they were on, and notes that no two lanterns on different phase were to be within six feet of each other. However, I’m pretty sure that the batten lights had each colour within the batten on a different phase. Overall, I’m surprised that having a three phase board was allowed in a school, even in that era!
The board lasted well into the 1970s.
David Denness, Dave Plowman
When I left BBC staff and became involved with independent and ITV companies and their equipment the common mains connector was Cannon EP4 (although the BBC also used it, for example, for the mains input to monitors, etc) . Two manufacturers had adopted this connector and it was virtually standard (apart from the lethal XLR mains).
However the two companies, Pye and Marconi had adopted different wiring configurations so 240 volt shocks were quite common when connecting a piece of kit wired one way with a cable wired the other way (240v and earth transposed). It could also be quite expensive.
There were a few years when the LNE was authorised as a mains connector to be used in kitchens in Switzerland!
Alasdair Lawrance, John Howell
I always thought the LNE was a rather elegant connector. Why is it not suitable for domestic use? It always said that on the sales blurb.
Elegant it may be but the only example John has is stamped "0.5A AC" and Canfords’ Neutric version is rated at 5 Amps. Hardly sufficient for a 3 KW (12 Amp) washing machine (…but fine for table lights, radios, etc.)
Mike Jordan
The BBC used to use Mains XLR LNE strictly the "wrong" way as the (shrouded) live connections were pins. TVI in Windmill Street (about the first outside facility house doing VT for the BBC and who we used to visit from Switching Centre to check out the GPO provided vision circuits) used them the other way with the socket bit being live. One had to be very careful if taking test equipment around there NOT to use a BBC mains lead in one of their XLR LNE distribution panels as the 13A plug could become live!
When larger currents were required and XLRs were the recommended thing and a bigger version (10A) was invented, there was a problem as the even shrouded live pin could be touched by a "British Standard baby’s finger" and so the connectors were reversed.
In OBs, of course we had a whole multitude of mains connectors going from variously rated Niphans (still in use in the Underground) which were condemned as the only connection between the earth pin and the metal shell was a tiny brass grub screw which could fall out.
We were forced into a new design (the AB connector) and tried out in Comms. It was glass fibre filled plastic and supposedly designed for military use. However, ours fell apart and we were told to water them (yes really) as the plastic got dry and brittle!
We won’t go into all the other varied connectors used but of course the best and most reliable was the EP4.
Barry Bonner
Not only the BBC……this on a bit of ex ITN kit:
(Click on the picture below to see larger version:
use your Browser’s BACK button to return to this page)
Dave Plowman
I know it’s a debate that could go on for ever – but the makers clearly intended the one with the exposed earth pin to be the male – since the bodies of the units conform to male and female on every other XLR type connector.
I think the confusion also arose when audio XLR connectors genders were reversed with the arrival of phantom power. You therefore got the nonsense of a source having a male connector. But not for 100v line! But whoever designed the original XLR (Cannon?) didn’t helped matters by having the body the reverse gender of the actual pins and sockets.
John Howell
We were doing proving trials in Studio C at Elstree in the run-up to the start of “EastEnders”.
One of the crew got a mild shock, more of a tingle, off one of the mic points so I borrowed an AVO from the genial John Humphries, one of our studio engineers, and sure enough there was 52 Volts on the earth pin of the XLR. I made it safe, labelled it as faulty, returned the AVO, logged the fault and carried on.
I subsequently discovered there had been a hell of a to-do between my management and that of studio engineering; "What was Howell doing using an AVO and, more importantly, dealing with voltages above 50?" I felt I had taken the right course of action, I’d been trained to use an AVO at Wood Norton, (EESIs chapter 3?), and, if there hadn’t been a fault the voltage would have been below 50, but how would I know?
Apparently my corner was defended robustly by one Gordon Mackie, (I’d like to have been there!) and no more was said.
The problem was to do with the earthing arrangements for the microphone’s phantom power distribution.
Patrick Heigham
I suffered a belt, when as a Gram Op, I leaned with one hand on each of two TR90s in the Sound Gallery of TC4. I remember picking myself off the floor as I had, luckily, been flung backwards, breaking the connection. Maintenance discovered that both earth conductors were dislodged inside the mains plugs. These were the ones with grooved earth pin? I believe that they were only pluggable into a stabilised power supply in the gallery.
The first aid dept were exemplary in checking my vital functions and for a while were refusing to let me drive myself home.
Hugh Sheppard
These shocking stories amount to quite a digest – and an indictment of health and safety rules and regs before there were any. Who else recalls the Open Golf when a mobile power unit wasn’t earthed properly so that while the related scanner worked OK, the potential difference between it and the ground was enormous?
Mike Giles
I also recall having to jump in and out of the Bristol scanner, MCR28, at the Exeter County Show ground, because it was floating ~ I fancy we all thought it was bit of fun at the time ~ all part of OB’s rich pattern of life!
When we did the World Cup in Mexico City in 1986, the US pattern three pin mains outlets around the building were mounted either way up, presumably depending on the whim of the guys installing them, but they were consistent in one thing, the line side was always on the right, regardless of which way up the socket was mounted! So, as the plugs would only go in the sockets one way, the chances were that your fuse would be in the neutral!
I rather fancy we discovered that as a result of someone receiving an unexpected tickle.
John Howell
I remember at the World Cup when a domestic fan was purchased to keep the bays cool. It wouldn’t run at less than hurricane speed so I wired a 40 Watt lamp in series with it, nice soft light for the bays, nice quiet fan but you can imagine the wiring liberties taken.
I didn’t think the mains was ever there long enough to render a shock to anyone. After a particularly long blackout Dennis our Californian technician proclaimed quietly: "What we have here is an ongoing off situation."
Geoff Fletcher
Nothing to do with the BBC I know, but the worst case of an electrical short I ever saw was at GEC in Birmingham just before I joined BBC Tech Ops. I was working in the R&D labs which were housed in a modern block away from the main factory site. I worked in the Mechanical Test Lab which was on the ground floor opposite a footpath with small grass verges and facing an eight foot brick wall, beyond which was the Transformer Test facility. Here, heavy current transformers were tested to twice their design parameters before being sent off to wherever. Our lab was lined with large glass windows and there was a general office at one end where we would retire to write up reports, drink tea, chat about the weekend footy etc. etc. My desk faced the window. One Monday morning the four of us were sitting drinking tea and bemoaning the dire performance of our various football teams on the Saturday when I saw a big and very black onion shaped cloud of smoke with bright red flames at its base suddenly erupt above the wall separating us from Transformer Test. I had time to saw "Wha …..!" and then the wall disintegrated and all the windows blew in. I found myself under my desk in a heap against the wall. as were my boss Geoff and colleague Tom. George, who was sitting at his desk in the corner under the window nearest Transformer Test was still in his seat holding his mug of tea as the blast had gone right over him! None of us were hurt, amazingly, although there were a few cuts and bruises in the upstairs Metallurgy and Electrical Test labs. A large oil filled transformer under test had failed and shorted over with spectacular results. After that, minor shocks and tingles at the BBC seemed pretty small beer.
Ian Hillson
Not a shocking story, this one:
I worked with someone who was asked to go and replace the hall light fitting in someone’s maisonette/flat as a favour. He came back with this amusing story:
Turned off power at fusebox downstairs – tried hall light switch, darkness. Thought for a moment – best to be sure – turned on fusebox – hall light glowing. Went upstairs to other flat – turned off fusebox – hall light went out!
The Victorian house had been converted into flats, and when they did this the hall light Live and Neutral had been fed from different fuseboxes.
