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It's a sobering thought to realise that it's nearly fifteen years since I slammed the doors
of TVC behind me for the last time. What fun I'd had during the previous thirty-five! Although I arrived too late to experience the post-war revival of the television service, I was in good time for the many years of expansion, experiment and ground-breaking television that followed. Fortunate indeed! Fortunate also not to have applied any later, for by about 1960, four dodgy "O" levels would not have got me through the door! I had no idea what I was letting myself in for – my parents wouldn't have TV till 1965,and though my future father-in-law had the ubiquitous nine inch Pye model I was too much preoccupied with more interesting pastimes to pay it much heed! Moreover, the BBC meant Radio - TV at that time, even ten years after the war, was perceived as a bit of an upstart even by the BBC's own management. Nevertheless, in my application, I claimed – nay, lied – to be particularly interested in television, as father had said that I must try to appear to be forward thinking. Alas, the lie came to haunt me at the interview board. Having (I fondly hoped) impressed the board with my ability to draw a circuit diagram of a simple radio receiver, I was then asked if I could describe briefly how a television camera worked. As all I knew of television had been gleaned a few days previously from a pre-war encyclopaedia, in which John Logie Baird and Nipkow disks featured heavily (and EMI not at all!), I'm eternally grateful to the board members for managing to keep straight(ish) faces as I floundered on in an 'I've started so I'll finish' situation! Eternally grateful too that, in spite of the foregoing, a month or so later I received a letter inviting me to present myself in a couple of weeks time to the BBC's television studios at Lime Grove, Shepherds Bush. Accordingly, one Monday morning at the end of May 1955, I found myself, with others, ushered into the office of one Mr Pottinger on the seventh floor. Who those others were is lost in the mists of my memory though Ron Peverall told me some years later that he remembered me on his first day, so he must have been one. After the issue of the all important pair of cans and signing an agreement swearing that, in return for an annual allowance of £5, we would wear soft-soled shoes at all times henceforth, we were escorted on a brief tour of the studios, after which I was abandoned to the tender mercies of Crew four in Studio H. There, I rather naturally gravitated to the sound gallery – occupied by Graham Southcott, Hugh Barker and Peter 'Staggers' Wilson. I was impressed when I was told that the following two days were off-duty and still more impressed that the first internal memo I was to receive informed me that as a result of negotiations between the BBC and its Staff Association - some years were to elapse before it became, with no little controversy, a union – my salary would be increased from £400 p.a. to £465 p.a. And I hadn't done a stroke of work yet! Father, however,when I arrived home that evening, was not impressed! Two days off after one day's duty was beyond him. 'It all sounds well and good,but will you find yourself on £1000 a year before you retire?' That I could point out that I was nearly half way there already, mollified him somewhat, until he remembered how many years of his working life it had taken him to reach a £100, let alone £465. But then, as Einstein might have said, 'It's all relative!' One rather strange memory of those early days, before the actual launch of ITV, was being approached, in Studio H again, by a little man in a grubby mac – curb your imagination – and carrying a clip-board, who as asked in a conspiratorial whisper 'Pssst, want to join Granada?', offering half as much again as the BBC was paying. I never discovered whether he really was a Granada recruiting officer – he could have been a BBC personnel snooper sounding out staff loyalty, I suppose! How many remember the hordes of snotty-nosed urchins who lurked outside at all hours, just beyond ear-cuffing distance of the BBC doorman, accosting all and sundry as they left the building and, thrusting dog-eared notebooks forward, yelling 'Hey, mister! Are you someone famous?' And the little huddles they went into after one had signed muttering 'MikeWeaver? 'Oo the 'ell's Mike Weaver?' as I sauntered jauntily towards Goldhawk Road tube station. I've said that I rather naturally gravitated towards sound. This really was by inclination and nothing more. It was some years later, when Josephine Douglas (remember her?) directing, I think 6.5 Special (remember that?) refused to believe that the long, lean streak of misery leaning languidly across the arm of the boom went by the name of Mike Weaver, that I realised that I'd fallen into that rather odd category of job-holders whose name betrays their occupation. Shortly afterwards I changed the spelling to Mic. Well, if you've got, flaunt it! There were some, no doubt well meaning, attempts to broaden my horizons by suggesting that I might like to try my hand at tracking a camera and I remember,with a shudder, once being told that I was to steer the rear wheels of a 'Transatlantic' in Studio G, on, I think, an early opera. I leave to your imagination the gyrations that monstrous piece of equipment went through as I vainly attempted to co-ordinate my pair of wheels with those at the front. In despair I was re-assigned to cable-bashing for the rest of the production and subsequently allowed to drift quietly back to sound. Similarly, my one foray into the trogloditic world of racks – as vision control was then – proved that my eye for a picture left a lot to be desired. Deputed to Studio D's racks to assist Jimmy Green who, because of unexpected sicknesses was on his own, I, and he, soon realised that, to me, brightness, contrast and iris were indistinguishable in their effect. In despair he begged me to leave well alone, but that if I saw a camera start to peel I was to press that button there and tell the cameraman to watch the lights! (The cameras in D at that time were of the CPS variety and didn't like over-exposure – if you want more, look out your own Evesham notes, I've lost mine!) This task I achieved with some applomb, but Jimmy was as glad as I was when the day came to an end. All this is not to say that everything always went well for me on Sound. One mortifying moment was in the King's Theatre, Hammersmith (long gone). This had the unique feature of a mic which, at the push of a button on a control box to the left, in front of the stage apron, would rise majestically through its little trap-door in the floor to meet, hopefully, the approaching artiste. It did have an occasional nasty habit: if one were unlucky, it would spiral from its lair, thereby presenting its rear to the arriving artiste. This, at the very least, reduced the speech to a quiet mumble or, at worst, if the sound supervisor hauled on the fader in an attempt to extract some intelligence from the mumble, rendered the subsequent PA howl both instantaneous and rather loud.This however was not to be the problem on this occasion. It had worked impeccably all day – things always do, don't they? - until the time came for it to do its stuff for real. Vera Lynn - for she it was – started her walk downstage, I pressed the liittle button on the control unit – and nothing happened. I pressed again and, increasingly desperate, again. But the little trap door remained obstinately closed and the microphone sulked in its lair. Vera, dressed in an elegant ankle-length evening gown, strode on, the applause died, and she started to speak. At this moment, unbeknownst to me, with devilish timing, the little trap-door sprang open and the microphone commenced upward. And why was it unbeknownst to me? Because Vera, not having it as a guide, was standing just half a pace downstage of the microphone, which was rising inexorably upwards taking the hem of her gown with it. Need I go on??? I am only grateful that when I realised what was happening and stabbed the down button it was obeyed instantly. Vera's husband was all for a lynching, now, or preferably sooner, but was restrained. Jeff White, the sound supervisor, told me to forget the derig and get off home – fast. I spent a miserable couple of days off woondering whether to resign now, or wait to be sacked! But I lived to tell the tale, thanks I'm sure to Jeff's diplomatic skills! As far as I know the rising mic was never used again and plans to include one under the stage of the Shepherds Bush Empire when it reopened after refurbishment were quietly dropped. Best wishes to anyone kind enough to remember me, Mic Weaver. |
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