Albert Barber

I remember whilst visiting the new Salford media disaster I was waiting at reception, which was next to the Coffee shop independently owned and nothing to do with the BBC, when a courier came in with a parcel. The commissionaire said that he couldn’t accept it unless someone came down to collect it, and it had to go via despatch round the corner. The courier said it was urgent. Still, he had to have someone to collect it then.

After a short while someone appeared on the other side of the barrier and said can I have the parcel. The commissionaire said that it had to go via despatch. Can’t I just hand it over said the courier. No said the Commissionaire. After some silence. The commissionaire said, “Look if you say you want it and the courier says it’s for you, you can”. The parcel was exchanged.

I said to the commissionaire that was odd. He said that he was told by his manager that all parcels had to go via despatch but he had had a similar case when he decided that he should go by his instinct and allow the parcel in to the building via reception. He added that he’d been in this business for over 29 years and had never seen so much bureaucracy.

So as we knew in the past things get lost, not always, but people are often better than the system. Does anyone remember the episode of “Red Dwarf” that was lost when a change over from large 1″ tape boxes were replaced by a big box with two cassettes in it and they had to re-record the episode? It was found months later in the bottom of the lift shaft.

Alan Taylor

After I left the Beeb, I did a single camera job where we were to interview a load of people in succession on a very tight schedule.  One of them was somebody in an office in Television Centre.

We arrived in plenty of time with all our gear on a trolly so that we could rapidly get in, but we hadn’t reckoned with reception / commissionaires. We provided the contact number and name, but were told there was no reply and were expected to wait.  After multiple promptings, they tried again and said there still was no reply.  I asked them to dial the numbers one either side of that extension number, as that would probably be somebody in the same office, who would know we were expected.  They refused to do that, saying that people can’t just turn up and guess contact numbers in the hope of getting through.

We were on the point of abandoning the shoot and doing the next one when somebody from the office was passing by and asked if we were their film crew.

I’ve done shoots in Buckingham Palace, ultra high-security military establishments, with Prime Ministers and presidents of multiple countries, and within companies developing commercially sensitive products, but never had to deal with such obstructive security as at TV centre.  It wasn’t just once, it happened any number of times and we always warned production companies to allow plenty of time in the schedule because of the jobsworths.

David Beer

The best commissionaire story I heard, which I really hope isn’t apocryphal, concerned Sebastian Coe at Lords cricket ground.

The doorman wouldn’t let him in at the members’ entrance when Seb Coe wanted to get to the Test Match special commentary position for a lunchtime interview with Johnners.

“Sorry sir, this entrance is for MCC members only: you’ll have to go round the corner to the public entrance.”

“Don’t you know who I am, Sebastian Coe the Olympic runner.”

“Then you’ll get round there all the faster won’t you!”

Alasdair Lawrance

Sebastian Coe – ‘Lord of the Rings’. 

I’ve always thought that was funny.