Bernie Newnham

Here are a couple of historic films. The first has it’s own intro that you can read. It tells the story of the building of BBC Television Centre in the late ’50s and early ’60s.

I first saw this on Louis Barfe’s blog, but Roger Bunce supplied me with a high quality version for the site. When I watched it I almost fell asleep after a very short time. It’s the slowest dullest piece of tv you can imagine, with slow dull music to go with it. What could they have been thinking?

Bernie continues:
” … So I must admit that I’ve committed a small sacriledge. Most of the piece as shown here is at double speed, apart from when people looked stupid, and I’ve put better contemporary music….”

Here’s some highlights for you …

Tony Nuttall

Tony sent this one which shows the other end of the story. This is the original BBC TV building in Manchester, a converted church in Dickenson Road. It had been built as a Wesleyan Chapel in 1862, and taken over as a film studio by Mancunian Films in 1947. It was sold to the BBC in 1954 and became the original home of “Top of the Pops”, from 1964 to 1966 .

Once again, a couple of highlights for you…

These pictures of its sad last days are from Tony’s conversion from his 8mm film.