Background

Early in the 1960s, Vision Mixers – who had been part of the studio Tech Ops crews – were moved over into Production. So for a couple of decades, the studio crews were exclusively male.  Any ladies who crossed our path, especially those we poked cameras at or fumbled with microphones around, obviously caught our attention.

see akso:
Mogul – Troubleshooters
;From Avenger to Play School

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Geoff Fletcher

Who were the ladies who made  your day when they appeared on the drama cast list? I nominate the lovely Isobel Black for starters. 

John Nottage

Oh happy memories!  Sitting on the sofa next to Isobel Black at “The Troubleshooters” party.

Also the arrival of Anita Harris, dressed in tiny skating skirt (and ice skates) at The Round House to take part in “The Ice Show”(?) (1970s? John Livingstone as Sound Sup). A truly lovely lady in every sense of the word.

Steve Jellyman

Anita Harris was a memorable lovely lady. She appeared on TOTP in 1967 in Studio G , Lime Grove (when I was driving the Mole crane) and she entranced the whole crew!

     

Amazingly she appeared in the local theatre in Sidmouth in 2015 , and she still was very charming and still in ‘lovely condition’, nearly 50 years on!

     

Peter Cook

I remember the series of skating programmes at the Roundhouse. I was encouraged by Anita to break out my skates and join them on the ice after the recording. How could I refuse. Next week I was introduced as the skating cameraman. The director, Colin Charman,  was an LE guy who sadly died quite young – looked a bit like Charlie Drake.

I also met Angharad Rees in the palace of Westminster, a most unlikely venue, but definitely a lovely lady, off screen as well as on. It was whilst George Thomas (of Tonypandy) was speaker of the House of Commons (1976 to 1983). He was entertaining a gathering of notable Welsh artists (they call them celebrities these days) for a banquet. There were pre dinner and post prandial readings and song. I remember Owen Brannigan was there (I knew from “Peter Grimes”) and Shirley Bassey. The crew had to retire to the Westminster Arms whilst dinner was taken!  This was probably towards the end of his time. Very impressive pad!

My vote however would have to go to Isla Blair, who I met whilst working on a Rix Farce at Whitehall Theatre in 1964 or 1965. I was invited to visit her Earls Court flat on one day, only to find that she was laid low with flu. I remember making hot lemon drinks, but my Florence Nightingale impression could not have been much good, as I never saw her again except on screen. Mind you she met Julian Glover in 1966 and later married him.

Isla Blair:

     

     

Albert Barber

Susannah Yorke:

     

     

I saw Susannah York at the rehearsal room. I was getting my coffee and looked up and there she was. Almost spilt my drink so to speak. There are only a few special actresses that can do that. I was doing “Play Away”, I think, at the time and although Chloe was lovely, Susannah was special. I imagine she was doing “The Nanny” or something like it.

Patrick Heigham

Susannah York was cast in a part in “Puppet on a Chain” I worked on in Amsterdam. She had a dreadful cold, poor thing and her first scenes were not all that good, so sadly, her part was completely cut from the story. I think I may have fitted a radio mic at one point!

Tony Grant

I had a weakness for Susannah York. And although I never got the opportunity to fit a radio mic, I did spend a wonderful day with her in Studio D doing “Jackanory”. And in between recordings, I enjoyed chatting to her about all sorts of things, including cooking, yes she was incredibly easy to talk to, and had such a wonderfully sexy laugh. Fortunately I have a good repertoire of ‘jokes for every occasion’ –

I also agree about Anita Harris, a truly beautiful woman, and a joy to work with, what a wonderful smile, which shone on all and sundry, nothing was too much trouble for her to make your life easy.

Back to cooking, and Delia Smith made you look forward to days in Pres. But my all time favourite is Carol Chell, goodness, “Play School” could be the week’s highlight.

John Howell

I nominate Billie Whitelaw.  I first saw her in "The Lady of the Camellias"  TC4 24/25/26 November 1963 directed by Rudolph Cartier.

     

     

Pat Heigham

My BBC pin-ups were Carol Deene (singer) and Judy Mackenzie, one of the TV Toppers .

Carol was due to appear on Billy Cotton, with Harry Secombe one weekend – Yogi Stocks, knowing I was besotted, reckoned that her voice would not be strong enough against Harry, so a radio mic was scheduled: "And you can fit the mic, Pat!!" Unfortunately, she was unwell and could not appear, so I never got ‘my moment’.

     

     

Maurice Fleisher

I did so many of the Dicky Afton shows with the TV Toppers but I’ve forgotten their names other than the tallest one referred to as ‘Gorgeous Anne’.

It was around that time I had a red, strictly-two-seater convertible Sunbeam Alpine and recall one evening after the show in Riverside stacking three of the girls (that made four of us in total) off to a party with the hood down. Two were in the passenger seat and one sitting on the sloping top of the boot with her legs astride in the well of the car awfully close to the gear lever and my operating hand.

Couldn’t get away with that sort of thing these days…..but what fun!

Jim Kinally

I have to put in a mention for Felicity Kendall, it was a pleasure to work on “The Good Life”, one of those shows when you thought ‘Wow they are actually paying me to do this’ and she was delightful.

Alan Stokes

Oh yes!

We used to make sound only trails of TV shows for tx on radio and on one occasion Tony Barnfield gave me Felicity’s number and asked me to call her at home to arrange a chat down the line. It was the making of my week in the Spur studio.

Tony Nuttall

I remember well my special birthday kiss  from Toni Arthur whilst doing “Play Away” from  Manchester, Dicky Rd. Felt very flattered, a happy  day.

Philip Tyler

Fond memories of Cherry Gillespie when doing tracking foldback on the Shirley Bassey shows in TVT. Between takes she used to ‘rest’ on the tracking foldback speaker and we would chat .

     

She was in several dance troops and as I seemed to do a lot of shows with dancers in I used to see her a fair bit.

One of the downsides of moving ‘upstairs’ on grams. Although I was to meet her again during my tenure in The Music Studio.

Alan Machin

In the years when Suzi Perry presented MotoGP she rarely visited the studios, but I remember her appearing in TC5 one weekend. She was wearing a one-piece black leather outfit and there was no shortage of volunteers to fit her radio mic!

     

More lovely ladies …

	Nominee	Nominated By
	Hannah Gordon	Tony Miller
	Julie Stevens	Barry Bonner
	Judy Geeson	Alasdair Lawrance
	Carol Vorderman	Peter Goldring
	Bonnie Shaw	Graeme Wall
	Ann Beach	Patrick Heigham
	Angharad Rees	Graeme Wall
	Monique Messine	Barry Bonner
	Diane Keene	John Howell
	Edina Ronay	Dave Mundy
	Toni Arthur	Dick Blencowe
	Ann Beach	Patrick Heigham