More about Biddy Baxter and Blue Peter
Alan Stokes
A fuller version of a story already posted
It was 1983 and I was mixing “Blue Peter” and a guest was David Bellamy who had been in prison in Australia for blockading the Franklin River in protest at the construction of a dam. On the day of this “Blue Peter” he was to fly home to Britain and was to be intercepted at the airport and brought to the “Blue Peter” studio for an item about his time in OZ. What was actually planned was a ‘This Is Your Life’ lookalike and his children were secreted around the building to be sprung on him during the recording – in the morning.We (sound) were, for some reason, short of staff and I seem to recall that no Standby was available. Each of David’s children was to be fitted with a radio mic, including a very young lad who was hidden in the local Engineers/maintenance area. Once the recording was under way, a producer was to collect the family, ready for the surprise.Because we were short staffed, we weren’t quite ready with the mic on the child with the engineers. The VT clock was running and I had no alternative but to suggest stopping for a few seconds while we finished with the child. Being very young, probably chaperoned but I can’t remember, my crew were being very delicate and not pressuring the youngster.As I finished my sentence on the intercom, suggesting a stop, I could already hear footsteps heading for the sound gallery. The door burst open, banged against the end-stop and the very ‘forcible’ lady shouted, “Where’s the b****y radio mic?”To this day, I am not sure why, (I’m fairly calm, though my colleagues may disagree, but when I ‘go’ you don’t stand in the way!) I stood up to my full height and screamed, “Biddy, it’s no good coming in here shouting at me, it isn’t going to make any difference!” Said lady slunk back into the Production gallery and we went ahead after the requested stop. The recording went OK and everybody was ‘tired and emotional’ as the red light went out. Nothing more was said and, after lunch, we rehearsed the rest of the show and transmitted it, mostly, ‘live’. After the TX, I heard those footsteps heading our way again. This time the words were kinder, “Thank you, darling, that was wonderful.” And I was liberally coated with….., well let’s just say there were no tongues!!! Damn, I hadn’t got into the black book even then. The crew, probably led by Chris Maurice, were already saying, “Why didn’t you blame us? We’d have gone down with you.”A few years later I remember a sort of superstition that if you mixed the Christmas show, with the BBC Symphony Chorus and Salvation Army Band, you were not long for TVC, for whatever reason. And, sure enough, I mixed the Christmas show in the December of 2000 and in February I was out, with the redundancy package.As many have said, Biddy could be very intimidating but she cared passionately about the show and, after she’d gone, it was never quite the same again.
17June 2014
I was vaguely listening to what was the last of a series of “Paul Temple”, from yesteryear, on BBC Radio 4Extra, this morning. At the end, the original announcer, rather unusually for radio at the time, included a full list of the “technical presentation” team. I did a double-take for a moment as I thought the list ended “…and Biddy Baxter.” I have to admit that I listened to one of the repeats, later in the day. Yes, I did hear it correctly. I had visions of the Producer saying to her things like, “Can we have a dB more level on the background effects, darling!” Those of us who experienced her sitting, cross-legged on a wing of the sound desk for part of the rehearsal will know what I mean!
Angie Wilson
Having done only a handful of shows I got blacklisted, though to this day I don’t know why because I’d never committed any great howler or got into any ‘pistols at dawn’ situation with the lady.
Dave Hanks seemed unable to come up with any explanation, so when Pat Mordecai was on attachment to “Blue Peter” I asked her to find out why. She got her opportunity one day when Biddy was going through the approved VMs list with her, and she enquired why I wasn’t on because I really ought to be. Biddy’s reply? “Oh, she’s just not right for the programme dear”. I commented to Pat that it was actually quite annoying, because it was a great day’s duty as it meant a rare free evening. Pat said Biddy would have viewed that attitude as the perfect demonstration of not being right for the programme!
Albert Barber
Biddy was as others found her and I have done jobs where I didn’t get on with others. I think one has to put up with it but I know from my point of view it doesn’t make you feel any better. I worked on “Heartbeat” for Yorkshire and they didn’t like me or each other come to that. My conclusion was that I wasn’t right for them and they for me. I know a very good drama director who whilst award winning has had some bad times, even though it wasn’t his fault.
Mike Giles
I joined Biddy’s black list after failing to feature the wrong motor bike effects, which had been dubbed onto a bit of archive film, at the level she had wanted ~ it just felt wrong and we couldn’t find the right FX in the time available as we didn’t see the TK until a rather late final run.
Some time later, I applied for an attachment to Children’s dept as assistant producer on “Swap Shop” and Biddy was on the board. I didn’t get the attachment, Chris Tandy did, but from then on I came off the black list and couldn’t put a foot wrong, even when I begged to differ with the lady (in the nicest possible way. of course!)
Pat Heigham
“Not being right for the programme”
In the ’60’s when I was in Tech Ops (Sound)we were led to believe that the Corporation’s attitude was that all staff were equally competent.
In Sound, there were exponents who:
a: preferred drama or LE or current affairs.
b: were probably better at each of those.
I’m thinking of Len Shorey, Hugh Barker as examples as music mixers. Adrian Stocks (Yogi) for LE, DMT and John Staples for drama, etc (apologies to those I’ve not mentioned)
We had, in those days, a superb Sound Office secretary – Marion Gates, who managed to juggle in scheduling – those that producers/directors had asked for, with the people that liked to do the various shows in the various scenarios. I do feel that, at the age of 71, now, that the upper echelons of the Corporation had absolutely NO idea of how to handle staff.
A lot of brilliant 1960s TV stuff came from the efforts of both talent and technicians – this seems to have been cast out with the bathwater. How Stupid. BBC never used to compete with ITV for ratings, why now?
Tony Crake
In the 1960s my wife had a friend who worked in the “Blue Peter” Office. All the girls were absolutely terrified of “B”… !
Angie Wilson
I listened to Biddy’s ‘Desert Island Discs’. The lady claims she was unaware that colleagues found her ‘formidable’. Yeah right …
Roger Bunce
I liked Biddy. She had an amazing ability to get her own way – but it was always for the good of the programme, and, generally, what she wanted was right. I think she only resorted to bullying when charm failed. I reckon the Cast got most of the bullying, and often needed it, while the Crew got the charm. (Even if she’d sacked you the week before – Mr. Bonner tells me!)
There was an old Cabinet Minister on the radio, talking about Margaret Thatcher. One day, he said, she was humiliating him mercilessly in a Cabinet Meeting, then he was taken ill and she was sending him flowers and fussing over him like an affectionate mother hen. I thought – that’s not Mrs. T. you’re describing there – that’s Biddy!
David Thompson
I was ‘honoured’ to be scheduled with Blue Peter, ‘out of the blue’ as it were. In those days they came in weekly pairs.
I rehearsed the first one diligently, with both TK and VT inserts, and at the appointed hour off we went on the live transmission. The first insert in the show was on was film, with a presenter in an aircraft, and, as rehearsed, I mixed to the TK sound. The sound on the film was ‘in flight’ aircraft noise and an extended OOV voice – no lip sync in vision.
For some extraordinary reason, after about 20 seconds, the Vision Mixer interjected on TB and said ” Dave, you do know that we are on VT and not TK?”
I didn’t.
Bless her!
How could she have known?
I waited until the end of the sentence, still on the OOV sound off TK, and then swapped to the VT sound in the breath pause. Unfortunately, the two sources were not exactly in sync (why should they be, especially in those days) and the last word of the sentence from TK was repeated on the VT. At this point the insert had also cut to ‘in vision’ sound, so my ‘error’ would have been made much more obvious if I had lingered longer on the TK, with displaced sound.
All was now well, but I was totally mystified by the event. As the red lights flicked off Biddy burst into the SCR with a protest, vehemently expressed, about finger trouble in the Sound Department. I expressed the hope that perhaps not many viewers would have noticed, and hoped that the incident had not marred their enjoyment. Biddy was not much pacified.
At the short inquest after the show it was explained that, unknown to me, a tradition had been established whereby the VT channel copied the TK sound and vision during the final run through, so that on TX all the inserts came off VT. I have no clear idea why. The TK channel just played along as a backup. The production team had just forgotten to mention it.
A couple of days later I plucked up courage and went to the planning meeting for the second show of the week. I was greeted by Biddy, “We had some complaints about your mistake!”
“You must be pleased that your viewers concentrate so hard on the programme” I suggested.
The second show proceeded satisfactorily, and nothing more was ever said. The beaming smile was restored to me and I continued to be allowed to participate in the show from time to time.
