From Bill Jenkin

Bill says –

“I was going through some of the piles of junk that I have about the place when I came across this cutting from the Sunday Express of February 27th 1966.

My mother had kept it because that gormless figure lufking behind John Howard Davies is – me!

She has helpfully identified me ‘William’. Alas John Howard Davies, who went on to become head of Light Entertainment at the Beeb and then at Thames died in 2011.

I think we were in TC5, it’s an EMI 203 4½” Image Orthicon camera (AKA the ‘green EMI’). Younger viewers please note the Angenieux zoom. That box attached to the pan & tilt head is the zoom amplifier (woe betide you if you connected a ‘red spot’ amp to a ‘blue spot’ lens – it was supposed to be a ‘disciplinary offence’). I seem to remember that the picture was actually taken during a meal break. I wasn’t crewed on that day but was asked to go down to the studio floor as a bit of set dressing for the pic.”

Something completely different

This used to scare the young me, as we went on the air on Saturday afternoon. In those days BBC Sports department liked to be terribly macho, and shout endlessly at everyone. Looking back from my now advanced age it does seem awfully childish, but at the time was extremely intimidating.

So, old cameramen, play this video clip and remember scary old days…

Mike Cotton says –

“… I think Paul Fox was the noisiest in the Sports Gallery when he used to slam the phone down right next to the talkback mike, perhaps that’s why I’m deaf in one ear!

Give them their due, they always made sure that sound knew where to go next and any important words. This was very useful when the BBC in their wisdom, decided that they had 20 extra sound supervisors at no extra cost when they made SA1s mix certain programmes, one of which was “Grandstand”. Another was “Juke Box Jury”, which was difficult as I’d never experienced an audience show before and we only had the basic crew to rig and derig. Talk about getting thrown in at the deep end…”