[Tech1] Help in identifying a photograph - poss another female camerawomanM
SUSAN MALDEN
sue.malden at btinternet.com
Sat Jul 24 05:24:38 CDT 2021
Many thanks Simon
Cheers Sue
------ Original Message ------
From: "Simon Vaughan via Tech1" <tech1 at tech-ops.co.uk>
To: "SUSAN MALDEN" <sue.malden at btinternet.com>
Cc: Tech1 at tech-ops.co.uk; mikedick at blueyonder.co.uk
Sent: Saturday, 24 Jul, 21 At 11:17
Subject: Re: [Tech1] Help in identifying a photograph - poss another
female camerawomanM
Hi Sue,
I’ll send you a direct email with Jeannine Baker’s contact details once
I’m at home later.
Best wishes
Si
Simon Vaughan
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tel: +44 (0)1332 729358
Mob: +44 (0)7791 780882
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sent from my iPad
On 23 Jul 2021, at 22:08, SUSAN MALDEN via Tech1 <tech1 at tech-ops.co.uk>
wrote:
This is an amazing string of emails with such important broadcasting
historical information. As Albert has suggested - I would love the
opportunity to bring all these threads together in an article for the
BBCPA
Also I would like to explore the relevance of the BEHP interview with
Bimbi Harris
https://historyproject.org.uk/interview/barbara-bimbi-harris to these
recollections from Molly.
Does any one have contact details for Dr Jeannine Baker who has
recorded a long interview with Molly.It would be so important to hear
this interview and make sure that it is saved for future
Regards Sue
------ Original Message ------
From: "Mike via Tech1" <tech1 at tech-ops.co.uk>
To: tech1 at tech-ops.co.uk; mike.jdg.minchin at gmail.com
Sent: Friday, 23 Jul, 21 At 21:51
Subject: Re: [Tech1] Help in identifying a photograph - poss another
female camerawoman
I have been intrigued by this thread. When I joined Tech.Ops in
1960 the understanding was that the group of Lady Vision mixers
"of a certain age" had been recruited in around 1946 as Camera
operators while the men were still in the army. Molly's
reminiscences sort of support this story (though she was with the
BBC earlier than 1946). What I now find interesting was her
mention of a colleague called Rachel. Could that be the legendary
Rachel Blaney, famed for the double clunk as she kept the next
camera on the Preview Monitor? It ties in with the way that Molly
had to "mix".
Mike Minchin
On 23/07/2021 12:40, Alexandra Palace Television Society via Tech1
wrote:
My apologies for not replying sooner to this thread, but I
have been waiting for an email from Australia where I have
tracked down the lady featured in the photograph I shared a
couple of weeks ago.
The lady in question is Molly Brownless, (nee Heritage, then
Frood), and she was operating the camera in the original
photograph! She was at AP before from April 1946 and was
operating an Emitron on the re-opening day! I’ve been
corresponding with Eileen, Molly’s daughter, who was with
her the day she received my email – Molly remembers working
on the ballet and has a great recall of her days working at
AP. Molly is now 101, loving life and is constantly busy.
After emigrating to Australia in 1951 she was a pioneer with
Australian television when it was established and went on to
have an important career within the industry.
Dr Jeannine Baker (who I give total credit for identifying
Molly) has recorded a long interview with her, over three
consecutive days. Jeannine has recently given a talk to an
Australian conference on Molly career and it will be
featured on a new website for the National Film and Sound
Archive of Australia. She is also working on a book about
women and technology in television covering the UK and
Australia.
So, it would appear the first female camera operator was
Molly Brownless – she was at AP on re-opening day in June
1946 and was on her camera during the afternoon
transmission.
I have attached some photographs of Molly when at AP in
1946, as well of some celebrating her 101st birthday.
Here are Molly’s memories of being at Alexandra Palace:
It was the beginning of April when we went to Alexandra
Palace. From them on we spent all our time trying to pick
up whatever we could from people who were around, who were
far too frantic to be doing much about our training. And
the girls were looked at somewhat aghast by those who were
supposed to be giving what information they could. I
suppose we more or less gravitated towards the things that
seemed to interest us mostly. Audrey and Joan were happy
enough on GRAMS, Isobel hung around Studio B watching
whatever was going on in, as well us on the upstairs desk
to see what she could pick up there. Rachel was, as far
as I remember, from the beginning in Studio A.
Before we actually reopened Alexandra Palace, in June
1946, there were seven girls on each shift. First of all,
when we started off, everyone was on days, and I didn’t
really get to know the people then. Everyone was working,
or not working (as the case may be), hanging around the
place trying to pick up what information they could. I
knew them by name, and you obviously got to know them
properly later on when the shifts were changed around and
so forth, but all the time I was there, there were just
two shifts and we worked alternate days and even when one
arranged a shift-swap, one didn’t see the person one
swapped with because, well, they weren’t there when you
were there - even though you could do that arranging.
The thing I seem to remember that made our life rather
tedious at times was operating the switchboard. It was up
a little wooden ladder, going out of Maintenance at the
back of A RACKS. I think they put us up there to get us
out from under their feet. This little switchboard had
very little capability - just two lines and Studio A,
Studio B, RACKS, and I’ve forgotten who else was on that
switchboard, but only a few. If more than two people
wanted to be connected at a time, it was not possible.
Anyway, we all had to cover it and I seemed to be on it
whenever I wasn’t on the camera in the early days. We
also covered CCR at times and writing up the Log Book with
timings. I think I only did GRAMS about two or three
times in all the years I was there. I wasn’t very good at
it; I somehow didn’t have the feel for it that some of the
girls who came from recording did. I’d been used to
dealing with big pieces of equipment at Droitwich.
Somehow, I don’t know, those small pieces of equipment
didn’t come easily to me. I was fascinated by the cameras
right from the beginning.
I remember a chap called George Rose who had been a
pre-war vision mixer - when it was all blokes. He was the
only one who told any of us anything about vision mixing,
as such. Otherwise, we just picked it up by watching
whatever went on. When more of the girls came (and I
can’t remember how long it was after the service
reopened), but it was probably getting on for a year
afterwards - we had somebody allocated to telecine. You
had to clean all those mirrors on the Mechau projectors -
thirty-two, if I remember rightly – (but I am not
absolutely certain about that). Occasionally, I remember
having to operate the projector in the film unit
downstairs. This was where the new telecine was installed
when it came, which Gordon Waters took over – that was not
long before I left. I occasionally did Sound Floor, you
know, shoving in a microphone either above or below on a
stand - above or below the camera – but, mostly, I did
camerawork to begin with and, of course, that was my
delight.
I started on cameras right from the first day – the first
day we put out a programme which was the day before the
Victory Parade, which was a Friday, and it was the
afternoon session in Studio B. I was on Camera 3 (I was
mostly on three whichever studio I was in) and so I
didn’t, at that time, know very much about Ted Langley who
was senior cameraman in Studio A, as Frank Cresswell was
the senior camera man in Studio B. The “iron man” was not
really moveable except when your camera was not “on air”.
You could move the camera around obviously, but it was
fairly heavy to move whilst you were actually on air. You
could push it with one foot as long as you kept your
balance with the other one. But the distance was only a
matter of how far your legs would stretch and still keep
your balance and keep control.
I was on that “iron man” the day the service reopened. I
didn’t realise (in my naïve way), that I was actually
going to do the transmission. I’d being doing the
rehearsal, but I hadn’t sort of twigged that having done
the rehearsal, I would necessarily do the transmission. I
thought that all these chaps that were dashing around
being very, very, important were going to take over the
camera and do it on the transmission and I was absolutely
vapped when I found that I was doing it! The next day it
was the Outside Broadcast of the Victory Parade, while I
was in the studio working on “The Squadronnaires”
(featuring Harry Lewis, Dame Vera Lynn’s husband). That
was a great time.
Now, lining up cameras – that was a daily chore. Each
camera operator took it in turns to line-up their camera,
starting with camera 1. I was usually on either camera 3
or 4, so usually it was after morning tea before I got to
line up my camera. We pointed the camera at a chart, and
it went on from there. RACKS guided you as to what they
saw on their screen, and you marked on your glass screen
exactly where the picture limits were for that particular
camera. You went slightly beyond this limit, so you could
see the boom microphone coming in from the top or
something coming in from the sides before it got in shot.
We also had to watch out for getting a beam from one of
the studio lights light in picture - it used to kill the
camera. There used to be a burning smell and the camera
had to have a new tube.
We used to see a direct picture in the viewfinder. The
camera had two lenses, a lens which went straight to the
camera and a lens to the side of it which gave the camera
operator the same picture but, being a lens, it inverted
it – it was upside down and back to front. You quickly
learned to look at the picture and quickly balance it and
go with the movement in the opposite direction to where
you would expect to be going looking at the picture!
There was something else we had to worry about too and
that was the power lags on the two lenses. The one that
went through to the camera was dead straight on, but the
one on the side, of course, to keep on the same picture,
had to come at a slight angle from the other one so your
picture composition might not be exactly the same as the
main camera. So, you had to do a little bit of adjustment
on that one too.
At the end of transmission, we had to wheel our cameras to
the side of the studio and coil up the cables so that the
floor of the studio was left clear, ready to build the
sets for the next day’s programme. It was a matter of
honour that you didn’t leave the place looking a mess.
Ted Langley and Ben Blooman were very keen on this, so we
had to watch ourselves and make sure everything was just
so.
Now it was after Bimbi Harris came and I’d being doing
camerawork for quite some time, and she wanted to do that
- I’m not surprised, I thoroughly enjoyed it and didn’t
see why she wouldn’t want too! One day a reporter came
from a television magazine and found out about there being
a “cameraman” who was female or maybe he found out about
two, I’m not quite sure. Henry Whiting told me that they
wanted to do a publicity picture of me on a camera and I
was rather tickled at the idea, as you can imagine. I was
actually in Studio A the day the reporter arrived –
working on a show. At the end of the programme, I tried
to find this photographer only to discover that Bimbi had
already been photographed on Camera 2, which was the Crab!
I can understand why he would have taken her because she
would certainly have taken a better picture than I would
have done. But, because she was photographed on a
tracking camera and because she wasn’t the first female
operator, the blokes were a bit peeved. Bimbi hadn’t been
at the Palace very long and I had been there for a few
years at that point, they didn’t think she should have
appeared on the tracking camera which, of course, is not
one she would have operated, and they thought it should
have been me.
Now the next thing that happened which was why I and Bimbi
came off cameras was due to the fact that the camera men
wanted to get themselves a higher grade and they were
trying to upgrade their pay in relation to the other
operators around – it was a very specialised job! All the
cameramen, as far as I know, including me, belonged to the
Association of Senior Technicians, and they were expecting
this Association to back their claim. The Association
didn’t like me being one of the camera crew because if I
could do it then, obviously, it wasn’t such a very skilled
job after all. Henry, to avoid any splitting up of the
blokes in the studio I presume, told me that I wouldn’t be
able to do camerawork anymore.
I think everybody was a TA1 when went to Alexandra Palace,
but I can’t remember it being stated as a requisite.
However, when we had been there some time a lot of chaps
came out of the Forces, they had not necessarily been in
the BBC before the War. The BBC insisted those who were
TA1’s would be B Grade. Up until that time, the
difference between operators and engineers had been an
exam to get the status of B Grade, but they shifted it up
a peg to C, so the exam was between D Grade and C, and
that was the start of what became qualified “Engineers” as
opposed to us “Operators”. We were all still in the
Engineering Division, but on different grades. It meant
an increase in salary, but not, if I remember correctly
very much, and certainly not backdated so it wasn’t quite
so startling.
I remember that somebody on the other shift was actually
working quite hard to take the exam. Bertie Baker, stated
quite categorically that no female, even if they passed
the exam, would be given a C Grade job, so we could pass
the exam if we wanted too but we would still be B Grade.
And so, somewhat to my relief and certainly to the disgust
of a number of people, who felt they should have had the
same opportunity as the rest did, simmer down. I stayed on
B Grade until I left. Well, as you can imagine, I was
pretty peeved about that, not just peeved, I was downright
sick about the whole thing. I don’t know who told Bimbi,
it might have been Henry – but, like me, she just wasn’t
rostered on cameras again. Anyway, that was my end of
women operating cameras. Henry decided that because I had
been so disappointed about coming off cameras - he thought
well, okay she can do some vision mixing and I went
virtually from the floor on cameras to vision mixing most
of the time.
When I got round to Vision Mixing we weren’t able to cut,
we were only able to fade up and fade out. A mix was
achieved by bringing the fader up onto the first stop,
waiting, and then turning it full up whenever we wanted
it. Because of the delay on the picture coming up, we
couldn’t just bring one in and take one out as quickly as
that without a bit of wind-up to begin with! They were
beautiful knobs, you know, you grasped them, and they
filled your hand – you knew you’d got hold of them.
Underneath each fader was a little pushbutton which queued
up the next picture that RACKS was supposed to put on the
preview channel for us in the Gallery. In those days
there were only two screens in the studio galleries - one
was the transmitted picture and the one that RACKS put up
on preview whichever that happened to be. When you had a
quick sequence, you had to yell down to RACKS to be able
to bring the preview channel up quickly for you,
otherwise, you’d be fading up channels without actually
having seen them first!
For gardening programmes when we used to run a cable from
Studio A, out over the balcony, down the front of the
building and through a channel underneath the road to the
garden on the other side of the road where Fred Streeter
would do his programme. We were always wondering if there
was something he was going to hold that would have to be
bought back in the studio. This was always left until the
last minute, someone would start taking it back, only to
find it was needed back with Fred, and they had to bring it
back quickly. I didn’t do the camera work on the gardening
programmes, but I did a lot of cable hauling. On those days
they used to stop the buses using anywhere in the park. We
had to have our badges to get through Alexandra Park and
everybody else was kept out except for the buses - but the
buses weren’t allowed to stop on their way through.
I remember we were bored a lot of the time, but somehow or
other the whole thing seemed to be absolutely joyous. We
were all enthusiastic, we were all keen on doing the thing
we were doing – we didn’t care what we did particularly,
as long as we were involved, and involved we certainly got
ourselves!
The “Dive” used to be absolutely beautiful in Spring when
all the cherry blossom trees were in bloom. With hindsight
it was really and truly rather a dive! It’s just that it
was there, it was convenient and you could go over there
just before the evening transmission and, ahh well . . . .
it was a place to relax!
I hope the above has been of interest.
Many thanks
Simon
Simon Vaughan
Archivist
for and on behalf of
Alexandra Palace Television Society
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tel: +44 (0) 1332 729358
Mob: +44 (0) 7791 780882
E-mail: apts at apts.org.uk
Web: www.apts.org.uk
www.youtube.com/aptsarchive
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Alexandra Palace Television Society is a
not-for-profit organisation, dedicated to preserving for
present and future generations, the oral and written
history of the pioneers who inaugurated the world's first
regular public high-definition television service from
Alexandra Palace, north London, in 1936.
This e-mail and any files transmitted with it are
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From: Alec Bray <alec.bray.2 at gmail.com>
<mailto:alec.bray.2 at gmail.com>
Date: Wednesday, 7 July 2021 at 10:00
To: Simon Vaughan
<simonvaughan.apts at gmail.com> <mailto:simonvaughan.apts at gmail.com>
Cc: APTS Archivist <apts at apts.org.uk>
<mailto:apts at apts.org.uk> , Tech Ops
<tech1 at tech-ops.co.uk> <mailto:tech1 at tech-ops.co.uk>
Subject: Re: [Tech1] Help in identifying a
photograph - poss another female camerawoman?
Hi Simon,
Thank you very much for the photos of the Emitron Cameras!
Thanks, too, for the explanation of the horizontal "bar". As I
mentioned, I had not seen any photos of the original Emitrons
with lens hoods - that front-on view is an interesting photo
in its own right. And I certainly did not release how many
different "design iterations" there were for those early
Emitrons and I can see why you thought that she might be
operating the camera!!
I have had another go at photo-manipulation. The vertical
cable seems to come from the bottom of the camera (viewfinder)
and not from the lady's hand.
<image001.png>
The lady is wearing a bangle or a bangle which incorporates a
wristwatch - it is clearer in some manipulations as to how the
light is reflected.
<image002.png>
<image003.png>
Do we see the face of the watch in the photo where the lady is
barely seen?
<image004.png>
Anyway, it seems that the lady in question is doing
"something" with something near to or attached to the camera:
it seems to be a smallish knob.or cylindrical object, perhaps
mounted on a rectangular plinth sticking out from the side of
the camera - tricky to see in the shadows.
<image005.png>
I hope that this is of interest! I have reached the limit of
what I can do to separate out the grey scale at this area.
A very intriguing picture, Simon - and with your photos of
original Emitrons in various configurations you may be able to
say what the lady is doing! -- =======
Alec Bray alec.bray.2 at gmail.com
<mailto:alec.bray.2 at gmail.com> Mob: 07789 561 346 Tel:
0118 981 7502
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