Dave Mundy

Jolting the Heron to fool the man on the front that you had actually moved, as ordered, was very similar to the sound version.

I spent a long time in the grid of a studio (which, being above the lights and in pocket-less overalls, was very hot!) keeping an incompetent Sound Supervisor happy when he wanted a slung mic. moved one foot this way, or that. As we all know, that wouldn’t make any difference whatsoever, so the technique was to shake the cable and peace reigned!  The most annoying thing was that after an overrun and de-rig we got to the club just after closing time and he hadn’t bought anybody a drink! Kim, eat your heart out!

 

Nick Ware

Remind me, Dave, Kim, that was DMT, right? Just back from Evesham to Crew 11, my Damascene moment involved Vic Goodrich, who I didn’t like at first. I thought him to be a bully, demanding everything to be done and redone until he thought it OK. Then one day in ‘G’ on an Eric Robinson show, he noticed that I’d been sent several times to move a slung C12, exactly as you say. Vic said “I’d better come and see what you’re doing wrong”, and when we got to the rope, he just kicked it gently a couple of times, saying “There, that’s how to do it!” And that’s all it took to turn a deepening hatred into huge respect!

Maybe I should add that I counted DMT as one of the people I was most sorry to leave behind when I left the Beeb. You only had to watch him listening to a piece of good music to know where he was coming from. And who knows, maybe the C12 did need a good kicking? And maybe also, he secretly knew that was all it was getting!

 

Dave Mundy

No Nick! Kim was N*!

I asked someone why he was known as Kim and they said it was because everybody said ‘F**KIM’!

DMT was famous by having a label on the AudioBaton eq. device called a ‘DMT Protector’ which was in fact a fuse. Apparently he once got a shock from the case due to a loose connection inside. He was also famous for having a big argument with Sound Manager ‘A’ because he wanted to do his own mix of the sig. tune for “War and Peace” which he was working on. As he was in sound group ‘B’ that was not allowed! I think he won in the end and it was a great mix.

 

Dave Plowman

Anorak on here.

On the back of the Audio Baton, there was a power output. A four pin socket with HT and heater volts. If I recall correctly,  the socket was actually a battery connector from the days of valve portable radios, and although a socket, the female connectors were crimped to the fibre plate, so you could touch them. And DMT did.  Being across the power supply, they were likely still ‘live’ for a short time after powering the unit down.  

It wasn’t faulty as such. Just badly designed by today’s standards.

 

Dave Newbitt.

Kim – there’s a name to stir a recollection or two. Back in the days when JAS had finally acquired his private pilot’s licence, Norman would allude to the fact that he too was a pilot. John was clearly sceptical to say the least, even though Norman wasn’t short of a anecdote or two regarding his experience.

Eventually an opportunity arose for the two of them to be on the airfield together and John offered him the opportunity to take the controls. Norman waffled and declined. Impossible to know what lay behind it but many thought that much of what Norman had to say about many things was fantasy land.

Sad to see though from Barry’s post how he succumbed to mesothelioma. I have lost two friends to the dreadful condition – one was an ex Navy man who had spent extensive time in an at risk environment, the other a University lecturer whose only exposure had been a brief period as a presence when asbestos was being stripped out and it was necessary for someone to be on campus (though not directly exposed in the work area).

 

Dave Mundy

[Kim] passed away a long time ago. I seem to remember that he had a muscular wasting disease and could hardly walk the last time I saw him. There are lots of stories about him! He was promoted twice without attending a board! ‘Considered in his absence’ was the phrase used! We all thought that he got ‘something’ on someone high up! His home was in Maidenhead, I believe where his wife had a clothes shop. However, he also had a flat by Ealing Broadway station which he shared with Ella Slack. She was an admin person in Kensington House and used to stand-in for The Queen during rehearsals for Royal events!

 

Bernie Newnham

Ella Slack used to be a drama floor manager, then was manager of sport. She used to call Derek Martin and I her "tweenies" on “Softly Softly”, which I think is a reference to her Brownie group.  Anyway, here she is now – https://youtu.be/jnNPDQWkCRI

Pat Heigham

Wonderful – I never knew her, but what a career!

 

Dave Mundy

She and ‘KiM’ were an ‘item’, and had a flat over Ealing Broadway station. Just thought you’d like to know!

 

David Beer

She was a regular visitor to my father’s shoe repair shop in W Norwood back in the 1970s. He would have been chuffed to know that the ‘Queen’ was one of his customers!

and back to Kim …

 

Dave Mundy

Kim certainly wasn’t short of money. He and a friend bought a plot of land near home and built two houses on it.

 

Nick Ware

Hmmm. Suspicious!

I’m not sure why, but Sir Arthur fforde, Chairman of the BBC at the time I joined, was an occasional visitor to our house (vicarage in a sleepy Surrey village), but that never did me any good! Maybe I should have tried blackmail – there must have been something…!

 

John Ade

Norman Greaves called him “Kim”. Because he was two faced and spineless.

 

Pat Heigham

I’ve no idea how Norman came by the nickname of ‘Kim’ I quite liked him as a person, but he must have upset someone along the way!

 

Dave Mundy

I asked the same question when I started work at Television Centre! Being promoted twice ‘in his absence'(!) we all reckoned that he had ‘something’ on someone high up.

 

Alan Taylor

I never knew Norman, but as soon as somebody said that his nickname was “Kim” and they didn’t know why, I would have hazarded a guess at the likely reason because  I’ve met somebody else who had an abrasive personality. but for no obvious reason was called Kim and when I asked somebody why he was called that, it was suggested that I tried prefacing his nickname with “fur”.