It must have been the early nineties and there was a power cut at Tv-Centre. I was on Doug Watson`s crew and sitting on the back of a Heron. Suddenly all the lights went out, including the back ups! The studio was plunged into total darkness and we had no way of finding the exit without bumping into something or falling over something-what were we to do? We soon noticed a small glow in the studio – the cavalry had arrived in the shape of Peter Fox with his mini-maglite. The sight of Peter with his tiny torch leading a line of people out of the studio was something to behold.

In 1974 I was a junior cameraman on Squire Hill`s crew 17.It was the height of the three day week with power cuts etc and we were making a money programme in Lime Grove studio D. The Director,who shall remain anonymous, was very young and inexperienced, and during the course of rehearsals was heard to say such things as ” I want you to zoom in through the tunnel to a wide shot”. We spent the afternoon recording some of the show, but the live bit of the programme was badly under-rehearsed. When transmission came he had artists in the wrong chairs at the wrong end of the studio, cameras were in the wrong positions etc. The programme ran live for 45minutes, however when it was repeated it only ran for 30 minutes – I wonder why?

Many years ago-1969 to be precise, when I was a very young camera assistant I worked on a BBC2 arts programme – I think it was Arena, but I am not sure as it was so long ago. Anyway there was I a fairly innocent young man who had not seen that many nude women, confronted by a studio full of nude ballet dancers .Although half of them were men, the other half were very attractive young women, and I can tell you it was pretty difficult concentrating on being part of the Nike crew! We were very jealous of Paul Kaye, who was on the front of the crane as he got to take some photos of the dancers for the photographers, as he had the best view of the whole ensemble. There was a humorous moment when one of the male dancers got a bit too excited and revealed the full glory of his manhood, at which moment all the girl dancers crowded round him and started to laugh! Boy was I glad I kept my trousers on that day!

And now for something completely different… There were lots of trainees in the late ’60’s, including me, and we all made screw-ups – I broke an antique pram on Adam Adamant – but I think the most accident prone and ineffectual was a chap I’ll call James (because that wasn’t his name). James first came to notice on an arts show in Studio D. On one side of the studio a modern jazz group played against a chromakey blue background, whilst on the other side were the things to be keyed in. James was tracking the Heron on the group, but kept losing interest and looking the other way – not surprising, as one of the keyed-in objects was a naked girl having gearwheels painted on her breasts. At lunch, the senior cameraman said “Look, you must concentrate – haven’t you seen a naked woman before?” James replied “Yes, I have – now” At the Golders Green Hippodrome, James managed to step backwards off the stage whilst cable-bashing. The stage was much higher than at TVT, but luckily for him, his belt caught on the Mole cable bollard and he hung there as the crew fell about laughing, and the floor manager rushed to help whilst looking daggers at the crew. James’s crowning glory was during a schools programme – finally allowed to operate a camera, he managed to zoom in on an object on a table – and miss. He left tech ops soon after, and persued a long career in another part of the BBC – he may still be there…