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[Dave Mundy: OB stalwart (John Cox, DSS, Type 5 Unit 3) has recently joined the Tech Ops mailing list.]
John Cox
The picture was probably the first taken at the Palace Of Arts after the move from the Palace Of Industry at Wembley, which was used as a base for the 1948 Olympic Games.
On the left, the man standing out in front is Engineer In Charge of Tel OBs Mr Alan Bray, Mr Richardson was the first E I C, Mr T H Bridgwater was the second.
Behind Mr Bray, one of those men must be Harry Newman, second in command: the girl was probably Pat xxxxx. The other men might have been Les Wheeler and Jimmy Hartwright.
Next to the camera could be Bud Flanagan who was in a small alcove at Westminster Abbey for the Queen’s Coronation, he being the smallest cameraman. Above Bud is a 2 foot sound parabola with an STC 4035 microphone, next below is Duncan Anderson who made a film in P O Arts on the early Cameras that had viewfinders that were upside down.
Next, Arthur Reed who went to the Kings Theatre at Hammersmith to set up a commercial company with the producer of “Come Dancing”, Richard Afton, which did eventually fail. There is a photo of Arthur Reed with his head stuck in the viewfinder on The 1948 Olympics – TV Outside Broadcast History page (http://www.tvobhistory.co.uk/the-1948-olympics.html).
I didn’t know E R Barnes or the other person in the back row.
Zooming in on the person behind Arthur Reed with the black hair – I recognised him as Ray Carney who was a sound supervisor along with Reg Lewis. Ray built the first radio receiver for (SMs?) talk-back. He made two, I have still got one. Next to the coil was a minute socket with three holes. A loose bit of wire with three prongs with a short across two could be plugged into the sockets and reversed to change the frequency from normal sound transmissions or to the low power transmission from the MCR (scanner). The transmissions were on Band One 40m/cs to 67megacycles in those days, nowadays megahertz.
Ray Carney went with Vic Hawkeswood to Southern T V and then Ray went to Ashford when regional ITV started there. Ray used to come to Tel. OBs. Christmas parties at Wembley’
I don’t think the information about MCR 11 is correct, in the P O Arts in 1954 we had three Scanners 7, 8, 9. MCR 7and 8 used CPS Emitron Tubes, MCR 9 was a Marconi vehicle using 3 inch Image Orthicon Tubes. Also there was the Roving Eye with Jack Hayward as the first cameraman on it.
The other cameramen were Bill Wright who was the producer of “Mastermind”, Alan Mouncer who went to Australia and came back as a sports, particularly golf, producer, and Ken C Lane who operated the handheld Mini? Camera with Sammy Branter mainly at Horse Racing. Next is definitely Ron Chown who came from BBC Radio at Aldenham near Watford. The person next to Ron looks like senior cameraman Scottie, W Scott. Next to Scottie is Jack Belasco who became an E M in Bristol and was well known in Dartmouth, a small rock was named after him. To the right of Jack could be Mr Church who was head of Transport.
The vehicle behind the cameramen might be an early scanner MCR 4 or it could be the cable tender. In charge of cables was WAG Lee with assistant Tiger Webb. (Wag because he always brought his Dog to work) Inside the Palace Of Arts , scanners were parked on the left and further inside more to the left was the Chapel which was used as the technical stores run by Jack Marshall who had a sign displayed “God helps those who help themselves, but God help them I catch helping themselves”: later, Bert Ashenden was the supervisor.
On the far right was the vehicle maintenance workshops with an inspection pit.
In those early days we used large microphones made of bronze metal, 4017, with three terminals at the back, which came from BBC Radio, one was especially put into a wooden box for the Christmas Broadcast by King George The Fifth. We use to use these microphones for two way talkback back then in the 1950s.
I was based in the Palace Of Arts for eleven years from 1954 till the move to Kendal Avenue in 1966.
Graeme Wall
Ray Carney ended up running the Dover studio for Southern. I think he retired when TVS closed the studio and transferred operations to Maidstone.
Hugh Sheppard
A splendid picture to have resurrected along with identification. Can anyone perhaps pick up on this reference to Arthur Reed?
‘ Next, Arthur Reed who went to the Kings Theatre at Hammersmith to set up a commercial company with the producer of Come Dancing, Richard Afton, which did eventually fail. There is a photo of Arthur Reed with his head stuck in the viewfinder on The 1948 Olympics – TV Outside Broadcast History page.’
An Arthur Reed joined Tech. Ops Crew 6 as No.2 Cameraman circa 1963 – 4. Was this the same man, who was nicknamed ‘Ace’?
I can only recall that ‘Ace’ had come from North Region and was older than most of us, but to have been on the 1948 Olympics he would have been approaching 40 in “Z-Cars” days and I’m not sure he was that ‘ancient’. He was also quite self-effacing, which hardly befits his teaming up with Dickie Afton.
Any other supplementary memories out there? Methinks that must have been a plate-camera picture; the definition is well worth sending at over 3.3 MB.
Geoff Fletcher
According to my diary for 1965, Ian Stanley and I had a beer or two with Arthur after the “Benny Hill Show” on November 19th, so he was still at TC then.
Bill Jenkin
I remember Arthur at TC when I joined in 1965, I can’t remember which crew but he kept his own especially made up pan bar (panning handle as we called them then). It was ‘T’ shaped which he reckoned gave him more control of the camera, we are talking before colour so normally no zoom control to bother with. This was the same sort of idea that Jim espoused with the vertical pan bar.
I think Arthur died comparatively young from a brain haemorrhage but I might be wrong on that one.
Tony Grant
I was under the impression that Arthur became a TM2, and lived in Beaconsfield. Certainly, if the same Arthur Reed, a lovely, quiet, unassuming family man who I also think died before his retirement.
Alec Bray
There was definitely an Arthur Reed who was a senior cameraman on the crews around 1965-ish. (Sorry, I don’t remember which crew). The rumour definitely was that he had come from OBs.
For a while I was a regular tracker for (this) Arthur on the Vinten Heron. Other trackers did not like tracking for him, as, although as a person he was nice enough, he was for ever changing the position of the crane – a little bit this way, that way, forward and so on. It was very difficult to mark up a ladder and track to it: because as soon as you had got back on the crane, we would move sideways or re angle the line once again.
The cruel humour among the dolly ops was that Arthur had come from OBs, where he was parked in a fixed position and could only ever pan into a pile of mud next to him:, and that the freedom to move the camera to any position to get the correct or best shot possible was a bit of a novelty and he made full use of it.
Stan Appel
I think you mean Colin Reed. I do remember him!
Hugh Sheppard
Ah well: it seems we do have the self-same Arthur ‘Ace’ Reed, who came back to Tel. Studios in the early 1960s. His ‘forever changing position’ rings a bell that I avoided mentioning, in that his camera skills seemed sorely lacking when faced by the demands of live studios. Mind you the first of the Herons was a beast, as I knew from the back end, and wasn’t much fun at the front either. On a “Music for You”, poor Eric Robinson (he of the baton) first stood to one-side and then to the other, while I pirouetted the legendary Bill Millar around him; eventually, having been nudged sideways once too often, Eric called a halt because “… I’m not safe wherever I stand…”. My impression was that his orchestra felt much the same…
Peter Cook
With Arthur and others like him with “… in a bit – out a bit…” hand signals, it was often easiest to employ the trick of brake and throttle applied together. A jolt without any movement quite often was enough to ‘improve’ the frame.
Was it not Arthur who, standing up on the platform of a motorised Vinten, on shot during a live “Z-Cars”, over reached himself and fell off?
Could be a true or apocryphal story.
Geoff Fletcher
This is from the Tech Ops Studio Staff List dated 25 September 1965. See Crew 12 – Camera 2: A. F. Reed.
Tony Grant
It would appear this is the same Arthur who became TM2. I was on Pete Grainger’s crew, and we were doing a six parter entitled "Song of Songs". No idea now about any of the contents/characters, etc. but the director was of the limp-wrested variety (is that politically correct these days?) and had a habit of liberally splashing himself with cologne whilst directing. There was a fairly long recording break with agonised screaming when he managed to get some in his eye. He also managed some hefty overruns, especially on the last of the series.
However, the one thing I remember about this is the end of series party, which was held in his flat somewhere in West London. Arthur kindly offered to give me a lift, as I had no car, and to take me home afterwards. Thus I enjoyed the punch which the director (name escapes me, of course) concocted with the main ingredient being Cointreau, to which, as the evening progressed, was added more Cointreau. Well, I was over 21, and so the memory of the rest of the night has long since faded. But thanks for the lift, Arthur.
Alex Thomas
On my first crew I had as TM the redoubtable Otis Eddy. He called everybody by their surname without any deference to their seniority.
He was very alert to headroom and I remember his command to me on one of the first cameras that I operated on a MCU of Peter Dimmock who was fronting “Sportsview”.
“Thomas, pan up one line” he said over TM’s talkback.
On a CPS Emitron viewfinder it was impossible to judge one line so I froze.
I spoke to the senior cameraman, (was it Bob Warman?) and asked him what I should have done.
“ Oh, just ignore him. He thinks that we will all obey his instructions and even he can’t tell if we have panned up one line.”
Hugh Sheppard
Methinks you were on Crew 8, with the formidable pairing of Bob Warman on Camera 1 and Bob Baxter on 2. I joined them from AP after some 8 months at News, post what I believe was the first Tech. Ops (only) course at Evesham over the winter of 1958 – 9. Sadly, I failed to keep a course photo.
As a new boy to real studios, cable-bashing was my role and, after being on AP’s Pye Pesticons, I was awfully keen to do more. At last let loose on a ped-mounted studio camera, in D or E at Lime Grove, David Jacobs was in the frame on-air when I thought to widen the shot a smidgeon, against Bob 1’s mandate to stay rooted to the spot. The cable-guard jammed against my soft-soled suede shoes and I lost it. Totally. The camera went up and I went down, still tied to it by the headphones. Oh the ignominy. David Jacobs’ interview of Vanessa Redgrave was interrupted with his “…Mr. Cameraman, Mr. Cameraman – are you alright? …”, but this paled in comparison with Bob 1’s interviewing me. What a lesson to learn; Crew 8 was then perhaps the most prestigious; the 2 Bobs with Ron Peverill on 3, and the Oat in the gallery, set standards to aspire to – and Oh how I subsequently tried.
Sorry to go on, but it still lives with me, a mere 57 years later.
Geoff Fletcher
Talking of Otis Eddy, I well remember the mirth that ensued on Crew 4 when we were doing a drama with George Baker as the lead actor.
Otis Eddy was TM1 and was carrying on in his usual fashion, so we were all very amused when George delivered the wonderful line:-
"Otis? Otis? What sort of a bloody name’s Otis?"
I can still see Pete Ware’s delighted grin as he turned and looked up to the lighting gallery.
Graeme Wall
As an aside, by 1975 Heron 1 was at AP being used by the Open University. It was a pig to get in and out of the studio as tech stores was across a carpeted corridor and the Heron tended to lose traction at the most awkward of moments.
Pat Heigham
Talking of losing traction…..
That triggers a memory of a show, where a comedy act was throwing water around. The blue floor paint was, of course water based and turned into a very slippery surface. The Heron went into some wonderful four wheel skids, not helped by the fact that it could actually move sideways anyway!
Dave Mundy
As I recall the cable guards relied on the amazingly flat floor covering in TVC, accurate to very little over a long way! Any slight pimple would be shaved off, or worse! However, they were quite quiet apart from the gear change pedal sometimes. I loved driving them during my ‘Riverside Training Course’, the Mole, however, was a totally different kettle of fish!
Geoff Fletcher
I loved the Heron. You got to know the numbers of the duff ones that drifted because the drive chains were slack and rejected them. Tracking Dave Mutton on the Heron, I had to have an outrider standing on the front corner opposite the seat if Dave had it at right angles to the track as his weight would lift the driving wheel opposite in crab ( they drove on the diagonal wheels in crab mode).
Loads of stories of Heron tracking – Johnny Lintern on TOTP, Pete Ware at Riverside, Roger Fenner on “Doctor Who” at Lime Grove, Brian White on Cluff, awkward development shot around a sofa on “Vote Vote Vote For Nigel Barton” with Ken Major up front – wonderful days!
