The Birth and Pioneering days of the Television Facilities Industry

Terry Heath

with sincere acknowledgements for their valuable contributions to

• Steve Beamish
• Roland Brown MMIEE FBKS
• Harry Storey
• Chris Patten (Aus)
• Iain Nowell (Aus) and
• John Duncum for some pics.

My thanks also to the many who were to follow the first dozen or so at InterTel’s infancy, for each one on a daily basis contributed to the following history.

Introduction by Terry Heath

As of writing this – 71years old (I would have been 72 but I was sick for a year). As of sending this to Tech Ops, I now have to add another 5 years – 77 and still failing.

I was under the impression I had an interesting twenty-three years of continuous employment prior to the following:

A quick CV in TV:

• InterTel TVR Services Ltd rigger/driver later to become a cameraman.
• Freelanced for most other broadcasters including Granville, Ewart, Thames, Granada – all companies from North of the Wash to Scottish TV round the Welsh West, never a dull day and
• Finally, into the very early days of – TVR as a No 3 eventually holding a position of No1 cameraman.

Morphed into TVI –

• Directed the first London Hotels early morning News and Info Service –
• Moved to South Africa in 1972 as Lecturer/ Instructor for SABC prior to its initiation –
• Later assisted Video RSA in their production set up and
• Formed ‘The Video Producers’ Producing/ Directing – with Ben Vlok of Video RSA – and even storyboarding some of the first Video Commercials to air in South Africa for agencies such as Grey Phillips, Bates Wells, J Walter Thompson and many others.

Having achieved the goal of establishing Video as a viable medium (as against film) for commercial production, a few years later I retired from the commercials scene and took up an opportunity offered by IBM to Produce a Formal Education Series for Soweto Children in Math, Science and Biology: this lasted some two years, during which time I was appointed to the Satbel Board.

I later left Satbel and Video RSA due to their quality control to form The Video Consultant and moving the R2million IBM Education contract to The Video Lab, Johannesburg, being their first production prior to officially opening their doors. On completion of IBM, I spent a short period at Trillion and then Chroma TV Facilities as a Consultant. Very soon I was invited to set up a new video studio in conjunction with Video Lab at Heyns Films, enabling Heyns to produce the first ever Black Education TV for SABC 2 and 3.

I conceptualised, wrote and then Produced and Directed close to two thousand episodes in a variety of innovative Edutainment series for the young and the youth, all hopefully assisting the change in South Africa: spanning the next eight to nine years it was certainly the most rewarding and enjoyable period of my working life prior to my eventual retirement at close to forty eight. I look back on the many firsts in the field that I was most fortunate to experience, I never knew my father, but he must have had Irish blood for the ‘Luck was with me’ – as was the Guiness!

The story of InterTel spanning approximately ten years, arguably beginning with one man, Mr. Trevor Wallace, who sired, became pregnant, and gave birth to a TV Facility Industry throughout England and Europe. The first TV Facility of its kind, initially in Black and White and then to be, again, a first – in Colour. It is an industry still growing today – employing tens of thousands.

This is a purely anecdotal and by nature very loose historical account of events and people from 1962 – 1972 written from my perspective only (and not necessarily in chronological order). All true and meant to illustrate the environment of the decade – with the purposeful omission of any extramarital affairs and base expletive language. It was going to be as thick as a bible but on leaving out the two aforementioned items, it has been drastically reduced in size. I have taken this stance on two grounds – first it would be wrong of me to start a string of divorces this late in people’s aged ‘happy’ years and secondly, I cannot at my age handle any more death threats than I already have.

Any errors are almost certainly down to brain damage due to alcohol abuse and a divorce during these incredible years, also the fact that I left school at fourteen knowing nothing about everything. Fortunately, my two daughters of this time still love me as does my last daughter of more recent years. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the all the others, whoever or wherever they may be.

I have been off booze for some 27 odd years and may have regained a few of my faculties, therefore found a smidgeon of very valuable and precious time left to me to write the following account relating some of the events during that decade.

If the English is not up to your standard, then let us reflect a little on this. Just a few years ago I had the good fortune to meet up with Mike Wilson (the ex-rigger of the early days and now a successful businessman some of note). One of nicest, fun guys you could wish to meet. He exclaimed on seeing me! “Great! Tel… You must meet the wife …” … and Mike called her across … “This is my mate Tel. We ‘aven’t seen each other for over thirty years, ‘e knew me when I couldn’t speak proper”. Such was the humour of yesteryear.

There may, of course, be spelling and punctuation errors which I have purposefully left in, mainly to avert boredom and keep you awake, thereby saving you from reading the same paragraph over and over again on wakening. There are others, of course, who have differing accounts and hundreds of stories to tell, some even have stories about me, which of course would be exaggerated and probably a complete fabrication of the truth, so should they put pen to paper about such events, take them with a pinch of salt.

My incredibly good friend Harry Storey has experienced far more than I throughout his long career – and should write his own prolonged, amazing historic life in the industry. But don’t hold your breath, just live in ‘The Hope’. Which coincidentally in the TVI days is what most of us did. None the less I will trust you can enjoy a smidgeon of my English TV escapade, for now I have set about writing the next ten-year period of my adventure which begat the very birth pains and delivery of The South African Television adventure.

Terry

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