Irregular Hours
Pat Heigham
There was a situation when I was pushing for a salary upgrade for Gram Ops, as we were actually doing far more work than was fondly believed by Management. In the mid/late sixties, Gram Ops were very much taking over some of the chores previously undertaken by the programme PA. Management thought that the Programme PA did all the work to select discs from the Gram Library and just tell the Grams Op what to do.
Well those of us at the time knew different. Instead of just playing the records, selected by the PAs, when told, and at what point etc. we Grams Ops were increasingly attending outside rehearsals, talking to directors as to what was required, then combing the gram library at TV Centre, and if the required recording was unavailable there, getting it from the main library at BH, or specially recording something ourselves.
This seemed a bit above our paygrade, so I started a campaign to have Gram Ops upgraded, as I was considered one of the top Operators at the time. As I was chief stirrer, I was shadowed by a bloke from personnel/management who was seconded to me to follow my work over a week. It happened to be quite good, as I was on “Dr. Who” so there were outside reheasals/script conferences there, sessions in Studio R – LG to record Dalek voices and assemble the FX tapes for the episode, and maybe a trip to the Radiophonics Workshop at Maida Vale, or a music recording session at Riverside and subsequent tape editing (was the Sound Supervisor supposed to do the latter?). So he dutifully shadowed me, from outside rehearsal, to the Gram Library and Studio R for the prep stuff, and was in the Sound Control, (I think a TVC studio, not LG) for the recording, at 19:30 on a Friday, when the whole thing came together onto Ampex as virtually a live show recording.
We had got through a final run, or stagger through, and at 17:30, I noticed that he was packing up his briefcase.
“Where you off to?” I enquired.
“Home” he said “I finish at half past five.”
“No, you don’t!” I said. “You have followed me and my job all the week in the prep stages, and now you are ducking out when all the effort climaxes right now with the actual work to be done with the episode recording! You therefore will have no idea what it all amounts to.”
Shamefaced, he called his superior, who agreed with me, and then rang his wife – to say he wouldn’t be home for supper!
Although I subsequently left to other pastures, I was delighted to learn that the Grams Ops were indeed upgraded. (C- to C was it?)
Due to my stand, I think!
Barry Bonner
When I was a gram op, myself, Chick Anthony and Jim Cadman went to ACAS in the late 1970s with the Gram Ops claim. I presented the case and won, mainly because they sent somebody from radio to challenge us and at one point because he’d been badly briefed he told a pack of lies about how we did the job!
We actually won! We ended up at OP4 (grade C). This was the era of the so-called ‘sound package’ when the BBC decided to level (they called it a review) all the sound grades of sound operators across the BBC – this involved 124 different sound jobs in TV, Film and Radio – then BBC claiming that there was no difference between those in radio and TV!
Basically the BBC wanted to put us all in the same basket and in many cases downgrade people. The union (then the ABS) was in favour of the package and Tony Hearn criticised me in their rag “ABStract” claiming I was endangering the majority of sound staff who would probably gain from the package, i.e. those in Radio, thus leaving us with nothing.
Of the 124 that cases went to ACAS only 7 were successful. At the ACAS tribunal the BBC chose the Assistant Chief Engineer Radio (or was it Regional?) Broadcasting to fight their case…BIG mistake! He was so misinformed about the TV Grams Operator’s job description that H.Tel. Sound who was present had to correct him several times at which point I knew we’d won!
Dave Plowman
It may interest you that in ITV, a gram op was graded at the same as a crew chief (SA1), which seemed sensible to me.
John Birt
John Birt was appointed Deputy Director-General of the BBC in 1987 for his current affairs expertise, following a successful career in commercial television, first at Granada Television and then at LWT.
During his tenure as Director-General, Birt restructured the BBC, in the face of much internal opposition.
[Wikipedia]
Click on John Birt v Stalin.jpg below for a larger picture.
Roger Bunce
The word ‘only’ seems to have been blanked out from number 7 in the image above. But what would I know?
I’ve only heard this from a friend of a friend, you understand, but the ’10 Differences’ were written by this bloke at TV Centre. I can’t be certain about his name or job title – but I seem to remember that his Staff Number was 119760p.
Apparently, this bloke occasionally drew cartoons or wrote scurrilous items for the Union Magazine. Sometimes he even wrote letters to Ariel. He wrote the ‘10 Differences’ piece, in response to Mark Tully’s criticism of John Birt, and sent it off to the Union Mag: signed under his own name, all open and honest. But they never published it, and he heard nothing from them. Fair enough. They probably thought it was too rude.
The bloke forgot all about it.
Months passed, and then this bloke was at an end-of-series party, talking to a Director.
“Have you seen that thing on the Internet?” asked the Director.
“No?”
The Internet was still a newfangled concept at the time, and this bloke was, then, even more computer illiterate than he is now. He had never seen anything on the Internet.
“It lists Ten Differences between John Birt and Stalin,” explained the Director.
This bloke swallowed his orange juice the wrong way, before asking, cautiously, “Does it start with ‘John Birt doesn’t have a moustache’?”
“Yes. How did you know?”
They hadn’t invented the phrase ‘Going Viral’ then.
A further year or more passed, and then the Evening Standard got hold of it. Serious-minded Standard journalists were keen to distance themselves, describing it as utterly childish and offensive, but this didn’t stop them quoting it verbatim. They even suggested that the phrase “Joseph Stalin never fiddled his taxes” was libellous! (Were they suggesting that Stalin DID fiddle his taxes? Anyway, ‘Avoidance’ and ‘Evasion’ may have specific legal meanings, but I don’t think that ‘Fiddled’ does!) Apparently John Birt was furious. He had sent his Thought Police out to scour the Corporation, and track down the culprit. Investigative Journalists for the Standard claimed that they had conclusively traced the source to Bush House, where the latest cuts were falling. Which tells you all you need to know about journalists.
I wonder if they ever found the scallywag?
Dave Mundy
Whatever happened to ‘smiler’?
And do you remember this missive? The natives were revolting! Alas, there are fewer natives now!
