Ian Dow

(This first appeared in the August Edition of “Lighting & Sound magazine” and is reproduced here with permission)

Before the days of dedicated sports channels, Saturday afternoons saw the BBC’s “Grandstand” and ITV’s “World of Sport” battling to attract the most viewers. Frank Bough linked “Grandstand” sitting in front of a bank of TV monitors, each showing pictures from one of the afternoon’s Outside Broadcasts to whet the appetite of sports lovers for delights yet to come – and keep them from switching channels.

This proved too much of a temptation for my OB crew at Ascot who were suffering from extreme boredom, and only stirring themselves every half hour to cover horses running in a circle. Ascot, like many racecourses, makes use of the vast amount of spare ground inside the track for local sports such as cricket and golf. So the next time “Grandstand” cut to the studio the monitor behind Frank labelled “Ascot” had multi-camera coverage of cricket. On Frank’s next appearance the monitor showed a golfer teeing off. We could hear on talkback the Studio Technical Manager arguing with the Studio Engineers and Switching Centre accusing them both of getting the incoming OB lines crossed. We should have kept a low profile and left it at that, but went too far half an hour later when the “Ascot” monitor showed a man fishing in the lake in the middle of the course!

It’s easy to get good pictures and sound as the horses come up the winning straight in front of the grandstand, but not so easy at the far side of the course. You can put big zoom lenses on the grandstand cameras, but risk losing the shot if it is misty, and it’s difficult to get a steady shot on a windy day. Sound have similar problems at that distance and carried several sound effect tapes of “horses hooves”. A good sound crew could choose the right tape, and fade it out as the horses took the jumps, then back in again as they landed. But they could get caught out if a lot of horses fell and the few left running then sounded like a war party of Apaches galloping across the plain!

Before the advent of lightweight radio cameras we would often have a small OB unit cabled in the middle of the course to cover the back straight. On one occasion after our cameraman had followed the horses round the back of the course, he panned back and reframed his camera ready for the next race, before climbing down from the scaffold tower for a cuppa. As he entered the scanner he glanced at the BBC-1 monitor and saw to his horror that the horses were coming round again – it was a two lap race. Back in the main scanner we were unaware of his mistake. We did notice the picture from his camera shaking as he desperately tried to climb the ladder in time. The horses ran into the shot, the Director cut to the centre camera – and the horses ran straight out of the other side of the picture and disappeared!

We could also get good distant coverage from the “Roving Eye”, a Citroen Safari with the cameraman sitting on a platform on the roof. The Citroen’s air suspension helped steady the shot, and the equipment rack just fitted in between the Citroen’s very low floor and the roof. The engineer sat backwards facing the monitor in the rack whilst adjusting the picture quality – but watching the picture from the camera looking forwards as the car bounced over the bumps and swung round corners needed a strong stomach.

The Roving Eye crew could sometimes fit in a pint between races (this was a long time ago….) and en route a mischievous cameraman might choose to keep zooming in as the driver stopped at a red light, causing the engineer to grip his seat and wait for the crash! This diversion went badly wrong once when the driver didn’t notice a height restriction across the entrance to the pub car park and broke the cameraman’s nose as his camera was knocked back…

Show jumping at Hickstead was another regular venue for OBs. When running on a generator the scanners were earthed by driving a spike into the ground. But there was a very strange ground composition at Hickstead and there could be up to 8 volts difference across the earth potential of the vehicles, which played havoc with the equipment as the interconnecting cables were plugged in.

Usually “Grandstand” ran to a timetable, and we were able to get away to lunch between our transmission slots. Sitting in the pub a cameraman glanced at the TV and remarked that he didn’t realise ITV were also covering show jumping today. “That’s Hickstead” cried a colleague. A mass exodus followed. Apparently the cricket had been suddenly rained off and the only venue with any sports action was Hickstead. Arriving on site we found two rigger drivers manning the cameras and the producer’s secretary directing and vision mixing.

The cameraman on the Simon Hoist jumped into the cage, pressed the UP button, and wondered why the hoist seemed to be struggling to rise – then saw he was picking up a Triumph Herald which had parked on his cable.

The VIP spectator boxes were three stories high, each with a balcony. One of our camera positions was on the middle balcony, but as we cut to the camera it suddenly tilted up and showed only sky. Another camera zoomed in to show us the problem – a large dog had fallen from the balcony above and was draped over the cameraman’s shoulders!

Whilst covering racing at Goodwood, the first day of the meeting was called off as the ground was too soft, which left the crew kicking their heels wondering what to do. Kite flying at the four furlong marker was quickly stopped by the Goodwood Stewards, a team of large men in brown coats and bowler hats driving Austin Allegros.

So the crew set off for the seaside, and myself and the vision engineers hired a Pedalo. All went well with the voyage until we came to a shuddering halt with weed wrapped round the propeller. Meanwhile, back on land, a sound man decided to phone the scanner to check all was well, and was told the whole meeting was now cancelled so we had to derig quickly and return to base. He had to explain to the Engineering Manager that this might be a problem as the engineers were shipwrecked half a mile off Bognor Pier. I can’t report his reply!

Graeme Wall

The piece about the cameraman not realising the horses went round twice happened to me at Ascot.  There is (was?) a camera position up the Windsor end of the course to cover the starts from there and the horses going round on the longer races.  It’s a scaffold tucked in the trees with two level, the upper one with a box lens for the starts and the lower level with a standard lens for the round course.  The races tend to alternate so you get into the habit of swapping the camera over between the two positions once the horses have gone past.  Got caught out when they carried on round a second and I was half-way between the two with the camera.  Just got it re-rigged in time but no remotes so I’m trying to operate with the big v/f turned sideways and my arms stretching out for the zoom demand and focus ring.

Mike Jordan

Just a similar one of mine to add to Ian’s is of an election programme at Fairfield Halls where, on return from supper, the whole scanner was “live” due to the sparks putting the earth spike down into a tree surround nearby without realising that the platform behind the hall we were parked on was floating on a waterproof (and insulating) plastic sheet so no real contact with the planet.

A better one was of us doing a live Home Service insert by radiolink from a ferry in Calais. It started well as my asking the engineer on board, “When are you leaving” so I could check the excellent radio signal as he left across the channel, he replied “We are already in Calais”. All was well, though, as early next morning, I stirred from my sleeping bag on the overnight “hotel” on the floor of the links truck, reached up to the phone to make good contact with BH Control Room and then went back to sleep for “lineup time”.

Pat Heigham

As a tech-ops sound guy working in LG ‘G’ Grandstand studio in the 1960s, I offer the following story of the studio end.  Watching the incoming OB monitor of racing at Epsom, I think it was, of the tower camera having a look around between races, and homing in on a couple ‘getting it together’ in the long grass!

Bryan Cowgill, the then director of “Grandstand”, had a habit of throwing his pencils at the monitor bank – this because there was a TV alongside, showing ITV’s coverage – if they got to transmit a result before BBC, he went apeshit!

Geoff Hawkes

Like others who worked on “Grandstand” at Lime Grove in the 1960s, I have memories of Bryan Cowgill (and of Bill?, his FM). Though I can’t remember ever being in the direct line of fire from him, I’m sure I would’ve been, or at least have been hit by the shrapnel. Years later, when eating lunch in the 3rd floor canteen at TC, I was occasionally joined by Len Martin, famed for reading the classified football results (“Len on the lip”) who was, in contrast, as nice a gentleman as one could ever hope to meet. Len knew Bryan well having worked on “Grandstand” since its inception and I can’t imagine his ever having put a foot wrong. He told me of an incident when there was racing from Ascot and the jockeys were having trouble getting their horses under starter’s orders. This simply wasn’t good enough for Bryan who proceeded to shout down talkback, “Get those donkeys in the gate!”, shortly followed by (to the TM) “Get me Ascot!” as if bawling down the phone at them would have helped. Len always chuckled with amusement when he told me that story as it was typical of him.

The last time I saw Bryan was after he’d left the BBC to become MD of Thames Television and he was among the guests in the audience at a big sports programme in TC1. I happened to glance over the audience and my eyes fixed on him for a moment before I realised who it was. He returned a smile as though he remembered me, which I thought unlikely but fondly imagined to be true. After his death in 2008, someone who knew him well acknowledged his foul temper but added that he was always very contrite when he’d calmed down afterwards. I would like to believe it, but easy to say if you’ve not been savaged by him and received no apology.

They say it’s better to be talked about than ignored and like many of the characters we were privileged to work with, no one could possibly have ignored him and he’s still talked about whenever stories of the old days in Sport are told,

John Barlow

I remember doing “Grandstand” with Crew 2 when Frank Wilkins was starting to be poorly. Frank put himself on Camera 5 (locked off captions Vidicon) and rehearsals started.

It didn’t take long for Bryan Cowgill to explode and his tirade was directed at Cam 5.

Frank quietly removed is headphones and went up to the gallery.

Over TB we heard Bryan greeting Frank in the warmest of ways. Frank said “I’m doing Cam 5” and returned to the studio.

Bryan became the nicest of men.

Jeff Baker

I am reminded of another Bryan Cowgill story, which is even more unlikely!!  It was on the last transmission of the Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh.  I was mixing the output in the main area at the Broadcast Centre, on shift with Chris Holcombe and Mike Johnstone, if my memory serves.  I was allocated the last stint, and it had been a long week.  The de-rigged CMCCR sound desk was well known to all OB mixers who worked on the golf and other sports events and has a slightly different layout to the norm.  In particular the tape remote start (which was used for firing up the closing music on a ¼” machine was identical and very close to the monitor L.S. Dim key.  Now I must have operated that key hundreds of times with no problem, but when Harry Carpenter finished his ‘Good Night’ on that occasion, -you’ve guessed it- I dimmed the loudspeaker instead of running the ¼” tape! 

Because the keys were adjacent, it took perhaps a full second to correct my mistake, but I still expected the Cowgill volcano to explode but I walked over to him and said “Sorry about that Bryan”.  His response was the totally unexpected “Eh Lad, don’t worry about it.  Think of all the things you’ve done right!” 

That evening when I arrived at the end-of-games party, was the only occasion that I ever received standing applause from the sound department!

Pat Heigham

That reminds me…….

Fellow Gram Ops will remember that on the full-track TR90s, the output fader knob was situated down on the front below the deck (unlike the two-track machines which had the two faders on a panel at the front – same level as the deck) BUT – there was a record interlock button right next to it, which had to be pressed at the same time as ‘Play’ to put the machine into record.

You guessed it – on rehearsal my hand went down to the fader, but found the record button! A few bars of a music link got wiped, but luckily there was a 7 1/2" back-up tape which was hurriedly copied up to 15 ips and spliced in!

Ian Hillson

On the Marconi Mk3 camera (which I only ever operated at Wood Norton!) the main on/off switch on the CCU was next to the iris control and of a similar size!  There was a mod made on this Marconi model of a time delay on the switch so it only shut down the channel after 30 seconds, for some reason …