Dave Mundy

Oh, the joy of “Gardener’s World” near Rutland Water!

The riggers had to clean all the cables before putting them back on the cable reels and as for Mr. Better Sound’s radio mic receivers, I got very dirty!

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John Howell

radio mic receivers:   A good earth plane ‘tho!

Dave Mundy

They worked very well that day! Range wasn’t a problem either, as you can see!

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Nick Ware

How far away was the truck? Was it worth getting the multiway muddy? 

Dave Mundy

Far enough! One thick cable was easier to clean than several thin ones.

Tony Crake

Was that the place Geoff Hamilton had …. I seem to recollect he didn’t last too long…. 

I went there a few times when I was on the LMCR…  years ago !

Dave Mundy

Yes it was. I only just managed to get there on time as my Ford Corsair was only running on three cylinders up the M1 as one of the rockers had slipped sideways (they had a ball-and-socket mounting!).

After the shoot I popped into a Ford garage, borrowed some tools and put it back in place!

John Nottage

I had a few days in Rutland at the end of August – Barnsdale Lodge Hotel. Very good. I had to visit Barnsdale Gardens again too, of course. Don’t think you’d recognise it: it’s very tidy these days – not much mud even when it rains. Bronze head of Geoff Hamilton on display as a reminder: it’s still in the family.

Tony Crake

… and if you follow the Barnsdale web site through to the Story…. There is a picture of the BBC crew at work including a Fernseh Camera and Riggers Tommy Richards and Cyril Tuplin no less…. not too much mud in that pic either !

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(http://barnsdalegardens.co.uk/gardens/barnsdale_story.html)

Dave LeBreton

The good thing about being in P&ID was that we were rarely allowed to go anywhere muddier than the OB base in Acton!

Nick Ware

Huh! You think that’s dirty? At least it’s clean dirt.

I once had the dubious pleasure of working on a “Police 5” where we filmed a crime scene where a high-class dwarf prostitute (I kid you not!) had been murdered in her squalid one-bed flat in Mayfair. She had been there decomposing for two weeks before being discovered. The stench was utterly unbelievable. The room was piled high with fag-ends, used Johnnys, beer cans, takeaway pizza boxes and God knows what. Claiming a possible asthma attack, I put a radio mic on Shaw Taylor and stayed outside as far away as I could! When we finished, we were instructed by the police to throw away any cables that might have touched the floor. That was all of them, including the camera to BVV5 umbilical.

The thing about “Police 5” was that Shaw Taylor always took us to the best restaurant he could find for lunch. We used to say that the whole schedule was planned around where he wanted to eat! Not that day though.

Glad I don’t do that stuff anymore.

Dave Plowman

I spent most of the week working on a land fill rubbish site in Mitcham some years ago. They may have done their best to keep smell etc down, but only partially succeeded. Having that sort of facility so close to residential property seemed very odd to me.

Pat Heigham

My “Police 5” story – luckily not as vile as the previous ones.

We had done a reconstruction of a rape, where the victim described a very distinctive ring worn by the perp.

After finishing, we went to a local pub, and the plain clothes lady detective suddenly said she was going off to make a phone call. She had spotted the ring on a customer standing next to us at the bar!

I imagine she had gone to call for back-up, but I’ve no idea of the outcome.

I enjoyed the reconstructions, and so did the off-duty Met guys who were drafted in to play the villains, often bashing their colleagues about!

Eating – oh, what was the name of the London producer for “Entertainment Tonight”, who always had to go and make a phone call when the lunch bill arrived?  Similarly, a certain presenter always made himself scarce on “Through the Keyhole”, when it was his turn to stand a round!

Nick Ware

Irv Margolis. Vaguely funny story about him:

Bob Jones and I drove a Redapple car down to Newport to do an “Entertainment Tonight” story about a young Page 3 model whose agent had told her she needed breast enhancements if she wanted her career to go any further. So, she had got them done by a rogue specialist in Harley Street at great expense, only to find that when the dressings came off they looked square! So she got no work, and through no fault of her own, was basically destitute as a result. 

Enter Irv. He got there very late under his own steam, and while we waited for him, the model made breakfast for Bob and me, and told us what the issue was, and invited us to have a look and a prod to see for ourselves. She was right, they looked and felt like square inserts with the corners pressing her out of shape. When Irv eventually arrived, he blushed visibly and said, "We can’t show bare breasts on American TV". But fortunately, she had some explicit still photos that had been taken for legal purposes, so we had to shoot them, not her! That was apparently OK for ET.

The happy outcome was that a wealthy ET viewer saw the "square breasts" story and paid for her to be flown to the US for corrective treatment there. 

The power of television.

Her Page 3 career got back on track after that, and I always rather hoped we’d go back for a follow-up peek and a prod, but we never did!

Geoff Fletcher

Shortly after I joined Anglia we did an OB of the  Queen opening a water pumping network hub in Suffolk. We were all told it was a suit job – even the riggers. They were not best pleased with the Unit Manager when they had to go down into a sump with six inches of oil in the bottom to rig the camera cables to the roof and indoor cameras! What a state they were in by the end of the day!

Nobby Noble (ex BBC Tech op) was senior Cameraman and did Camera 1 on a little rostrum inside a concrete catchment basin opposite the royal box where HRH would make a little speech and press the button starting the pumps and opening the sluices into the basin. Nobby was assured his rostrum was well clear of the incoming water and basin full line. Unfortunately, no one had taken account of the surge factor on opening the sluices and poor old Nobby found himself up to his thighs in water in front of HRH and the cheering onlookers and assembled dignitaries!

HRH permitted herself a little smile.

Pat Heigham

I recall watching the live broadcast of HRH launching the QE2.

Just before Her Majesty stepped up to the mike and press the button setting off the champagne bottle, an officious equerry blew into and tapped the mike. The OB sound mixer reacted quickly and killed the feed to the PA, but it was still live to network. Equerry didn’t hear himself coming back on the PA,
turned to the Queen, and uttered: " I’m sorry Your Majesty, the BBC do not appear to be ready, yet!"

Bernie Newnham

BBC4 has had a series about steam railways, and one episode included shots of an OB in 1957 from the Talyllyn Railway, with Huw Weldon and Wynford Vaughn Thomas. The two main cameras, seen here, not surprisingly produced much the same shots. And it probably made for great cable bashing.

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[[  See also  Talyllyn Railway OB Summer 1957]]