Alec Bray
I have put together a write-up of what I remember it being like to go on-air live with a weekly series such as “Softly, Softly”.
It centres around a fictional episode of “Softly”and has a fictional “crew 7” – there are so very few photographs around of our work in those days (as we were forbidden to take cameras into the studios) that few in the pictures can be identified – almost certainly they were not on that crew at that time – (Oh, OK, some of them are clear…)!
As a consequence, there are a number of “Artist’s Impressions”… hmmmm… some of those used up to 9 existing images to fashion the one picture. Well, TV is a visual medium, it needs pictures!!!
I should like to thank those intrepid volunteers who reviewed the first drafts: Barry Bonner, John Howell and Bernie Newnham. But above all I would like to thank Dudley Darby, who not only did a really thorough review, but who also helped me avoid some obvious pratfalls! Thank you! Any mistakes in the document are, of course, mine. If you find any errors, please let me know …
It was only when I started on this work that I realised that it was closer to the start of the BBC than it is to today – 44 years since the BBC began, 56 years from 1966 to today …
(I thought for a long time that I worked on three series of live “Softly, Softly”s – researching for this, I realised that the second series was split before and after Christmas 1966, and I had counted those “halves” as separate series… So, I worked on just the first _two_ series of “Softly, Softly, ” which were both live.)
Graeme Wall
That is certainly a tour-de-force, well done!
Alan Taylor
That’s a terrific account of a time which can claim to be BBC TV’s Golden Years. It would have been impressive merely to document in that sort of detail the technical and operational aspects of doing such a drama, but you also included massive amounts of information regarding what goes on behind the scenes. Everything from printing scripts through to catering, not forgetting the soft soled shoe allowance.
The Tech Ops archive is fortunate to be enriched by such a comprehensive account and my congratulations to Alec and those who helped to make it happen. I would like to think that if anybody was going to write a script for a programme which includes scenes in a 1960s TV studio, this account would be essential reading to provide a wealth of detail which might otherwise have been overlooked.
Hugh Sheppard
As a claimant to having cleared cables on the first Z-Cars and negotiated the thickets to Camera 3 on Crew 6 after working on 120 eps (before being demoted to a P.A. in TV Pres.) this epistle represents all my own yesterdays in Hi-Def Colour. Without any photographic proof of ‘I was there’ apart from the group photo
after Ep. 100 (attached), thank you for re-living those days in such detail.
Is there anyone else out there who was in the photo too? [I’m against the black background – 2 above ‘Barlow’].
David Brunt
Are you certain that photo’s from the 100th, because that’s Geoffrey Whitehead on the right with Leonard Lewis a couple to his left. They didn’t arrive until the following year.
Could it be the 150th episode in May 1965?
David Newbitt
Centre top of frame group of five – on the left Dave Denness, on the right Stu Lindley would be my first attempt. And maybe Mike Condor in the white shirt cam right of Dave Denness?
Dave Mundy
In May. 1965, the sound crew for Crew 6 was Bert Power, Mike Condor and Dave Denness, the Senior Cameraman was D.Thompson.
Hugh Sheppard
You’re so right David! I’m not sure of it being the 150th – although I was back from a Pres. attachment for a while around then, but my glossy ‘BBC Copyright’ hard copy of the 100th is certainly different. All these years I’d thought the digital ed’n I sent on and my glossy ed’n were one and the same.
Mike Minchin
A Pedant Writes :
Magnificent work on Going Live with “Softly Softly”, but I was brought up sharp with a picture, attributed to Roger Bunce. which purported to be “Crew dragging a cable out during the Rig”. For the point of your story, great, but it is actually of Peter Grainger and myself putting a cable AWAY after an episode of “Cousin Bette”, and was lifted from a film called “Behind the Scenes: Television Centre”, directed by Tim Byford in 1971. Elsewhere in your piece you have a shot of the floor being washed after that episode : same source. I also appear, steering a Mole into stores : you can’t see who is providing the motive power, but I am seen telling them that there is an obstruction! Also in that film you get a glimpse of Brian Parker (actually operating a camera!) and Peter Grainger manoeuvring his Ped around furniture after rehearsing that scene.
You repeatedly make the point that we weren’t allowed to take still cameras into the Studios – but I took a lot of pictures while working on The Forsyth Saga in 1966-7. My aim was to cover the people behind the cameras, but I also took some actors. The lady in charge of publicity was a bit miffed and I promised not to publish them. Despite this one actor was so impressed he used my portrait of him for years in Spotlight. I’m not sure where my prints are now … probably at the back of a dusty cupboard!
Peter Fox
Dave Thompson, senior cameraman, is clear to see up at the back presumably sat on a Mole crane.
Alec Bray
David Brunt has very kindly produced a complete breakdown of the Live and recorded episodes of the first two series of “Softly, Softly”, and so the document is now updated with that information. Interestingly, Crew 7 must have not worked on the complete series, but we certainly worked on a (large) number of the live ones: At the time, I thought I’d join some local clubs, to try to meet people other than those at the BBC. One club met on Sundays – and we immediately got a run of Sundays with “Not Only But Also” . Another club met on a Wednesday evening – and we got the run of “Softly Softly”s !
David also found a copy of a TC3 studio plan (for “Z-Cars”), so I have been able to fill in some of the blanks on my vector graphics drawn version – at least it dos not look quite so bare. It is not 100% correct but I hope that it will prove good enough.. Thank you, David, for your contributions!
http://www.tech-ops.co.uk/bray/Going_Live_with_Softly_Softly/Going_Live_with_Softly_Softly.pdf
(There is a link to the title film plus leader, which works in the PDF on the desktop but seems reluctant to work vis the web: sorry about that …)
