John Nottage
I’ve just come across the paperwork that I didn’t know I had for an OB from 1971. The front page says "Restricted", but I assume it’s OK to publish now 45 years later!
There are a lot of names on the list that are no longer with us. I’ve a few photos I took on The Ark Royal at the time, as we broadcast live (mostly) from somewhere off Lyme Bay for a naval exercise.
We spent the whole week on the ship, living in the Petty Officers’ Mess – 6 to a room!
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Mike Jordan
Gosh, so many names from OB days. Many very famous in the business and sadly missed. Amazing how one remembers full names as well.
This reminds me of a show I did in an RAF base (can’t remember which one – might have been Abingdon) with Roy Carpenter and next morning we were woken with a man doing his rounds of the mess with huge pot of pre-sugared morning tea!
Also HMS Daedalus for the Spithead Review (I was in a Sea King for hours flying up and down the coast) where we were asked if our position in the BBC warranted the Officers’ or NCO’s mess. After midnight of the show day, Julian Parsons and I were in the workshop mending the link transmitters – much to the disbelief of their guys!
Note the nice lightweight camera in use!
Happy days!
Spithead Review – 1977
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Pat Heigham
I would hope that the Officers Mess’ would have been available, although one might have had much more fun with the NCOs!
Ian Dow
My memory of the Silver Jubilee Spithead Review was being on the Fleet Auxiliary "Gold Rover", commanded by Commodore "Black Sam", whose wife was a guest on board, and after a little too much wine began fondling our cameraman whilst he was on air doing a long zoom in with an 86:1 lens – not easy from a rocking ship! I had to prise her off him without incurring the wrath of her fierce husband!
We arrived with all our gear on a naval steam paddle tug, of some pre-war vintage. The navy refused to take responsibility for tying our heavy EMI 2001 to a rope to be hoisted up to Gold Rover’s deck, so I had to remember from my Sea Scout days how to do a barrel hitch .
There were several hundred ships from many navies anchored in the Solent (several of ours having been towed out as they didn’t work!). As with the present Channel 16 for initial calls on the marine band, there was a similar naval channel which every ship monitored, then changed channels to have a conversation. Now and then we would hear "ZZZ zzz ZZZZ zzzz" – someone singing the opening line of the Muppet Song. Another ship would answer "Dum dum de da dum". Eventually this became too much for the Admiral of the Fleet who came on the net from the Ark Royal and gave a severe dressing down to those concerned, and a reminder of strict naval radio discipline. There was silence for about a minute – then "ZZZ zzz ZZZ zzz". There was no way of knowing which ship had transmitted!
Pat Heigham
I worked, recording sound for a BBC doc, following the Mclaren F1 team around for a year. The day before the French GP, the mechanics had a huge problem with the cars – we camera crew went off to have some supper, but we re-appeared until midnight to film their struggle. They had not expected to see us back, so our cred improved a great deal.
Helicopters...
On "The Spy Who Loved Me" on location in Sardinia, there was a tropical storm, and the action Jet Ranger suffered a problem – could the soundman take a look? I went to investigate and discovered the whole dashboard flooded. The best I could do was to say that the power supply for the comms system was buggered.
Luckily there was a KingAir workshop at Olbia airport, so I went on a flip there taking the opportunity to record in-flight FX. They fixed it, but when the Second Unit Director saw me exiting the aircraft, exposulated that I was not insured.
My reply was that as we needed to travel in all action vehicles for FX capture, they had better sort it!
Another occasion – you will remember "Treasure Hunt" where Anneka Rice was dispatched in a chopper, directed by a contestant in the studio. The pilot was Keith Thompson from Castle Air – ex Naval. I had the ‘pleasure’ of flying with him around the Isle of Wight, for a film about the Power Boat race.
He positioned the helicopter just above the water, for a head-on shot of the boat barrelling towards us at 60-70mph, and then lifted up just so it passed underneath. Glad he got it right – imagine the insurance paperwork!
I am really saying that the work I did after leaving the cocoon of the Corporation, was absolutely helped and influenced by the training that I had received.
Dave Mundy
If we are now into such topics, my best ever Christmas was on board HMS Scylla, a frigate defending the huge oil tankers traversing the Straits of Hormuz into the Persian Gulf. Noel Edmonds decided that it would be nice to show the matelots their previously unseen infants at Christmas. A crew of four, 1 camera person, 1 sound person, 1 engineer, and 1 comms engineer were flown out to Dubai and thence overland to Fujirah to join the Navy. At 0600 we boarded a ‘lighter’ to ferry us, and several ‘yellow boxes’ of gear, out into the unknown Gulf to meet the frigate. We set up shop in the Lynx helicopter hanger and started work. There were three frigates on duty in the Gulf and each one had their ‘Christmas Day’ separately to maintain our coverage of the tankers. We had Christmas lunch in the officers mess and donated wine to help smooth the wheels etc. One night, we were invited to the bridge and offered the chance to take control! It’s the biggest vehicle I have ever steered in almost total darkness apart from the amazing phosphorescence coming from the bow wave of the tanker which lit up the bridge with an eerie green glow, much brighter than the dark red ‘night lights’! The shooting stars were amazing, with no light pollution they really were spectacular. Part 2 to follow! Cheers, Dave.
