Photos – Page 267 – What Was Pebble Mill?

Mystery photo – by Willoughby Gullachsen

Photo by Willoughby Gullachsen, no reproduction without permission.

I don’t know who the people in the photo are – please add a comment if you can identify them.

‘Good Morning’ titles shoot – photo from Clive Wagner

Good Morning titles shoot

This photo is from the title shoot of ‘Good Morning with Anne Nick’ in 1992. Clive Wagner (on the left with the bald head) was the director on the shoot. He was a director on ‘The Clothes Show’, and very well thought of. The cameraman is almost certainly Tim Johnson, and the assistant, Sue Cane. The titles were shot on 35mm film, which was a real luxury.

‘Good Morning with Anne and Nick’ began on 12 Oct 1992, and was on air until 1996. Their first guest on the sofa was Joan Collins. The popular morning magazine show was presented by Anne Diamond and Nick Owen. Anne’s husband, Mike Hollingsworth, was the series editor.

‘Good Morning’ was set in Studio C, the Pebble Mill foyer, where ‘Pebble Mill at One’ was set, but the instantly recognisable windows and view out on to Pebble Mill road were blocked out by the living room type set.

BBC Club Staff 1987 – photo from Gail Herbert

BBC Club Staff 1987

This photo shows the BBC Club Staff at Pebble Mill in 1987.

Included from left to right are Pauline Rice, Lesley Moore, Gail Herbert (Club Chairman), Jim Simmonds, Kim Giles, Theresa Gordon, Mac and H, Linda Parsonage, Hilary Paton, and Mavis Silver.

The BBC Club was based in separate single storey building across the brook from the rest of Pebble Mill. It is the only building still standing on the site.

BBC staff spent many a happy lunchtime over at the Club! It was an excellent place for networking and catching up on the gossip.

Thanks to Gail for making the photo available.

Good Food Show – photo from Gail Herbert

Photo by Gail Herbert, no reproduction without permission.

The ‘Good Food Show’ was a magazine show about food, produced at Pebble Mill by Mary Clyne. The series went out in 1995. Ben Warwick was the series director, Juliet Morris and Will Hanrahan the presenters.

The photo shows a wild boar location shoot. The director (with the flowing locks) is Derek Hallsworth, the crew is probably Noel Paley on camera and John Parker on sound. Gail Herbert was the production assistant.

Sunday Home and Garden – Vanessa Jackson

Photos by Vanessa Jackson, no reproduction without permission.

‘Sunday Home and Garden’ was a 90 minute compilation programme presented by Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen made at Pebble Mill. The series was transmitted in the early 2000’s, probably around 2003, and went out on Sunday mornings before ‘Countryfile’. I was the series producer. We used to chose clips from other BBC programmes about homes or gardens e.g. ‘Home Front’, ‘Real Rooms’ etc. We would group programmes around themes e.g. ‘Georgian’, ‘Gustavianism’, ‘Arts and Crafts’, and then choose clips that fitted with the theme. Laurence would link the clips together and add some new content e.g. making something himself or demonstrating how to dress a room in a particular style. I used to really enjoy writing Laurence’s scripts. I found it easy to hear his voice in my head when I wrote them – especially when being sardonic or ironic!

We’d record two scripts a day, so finding locations which would fit two different programmes could be a challenge. We did go to some great locations, some in London, but we also recorded two shows in Cornwall near a holiday home Laurence has there.

I remember on one shoot Laurence had insisted on wearing his rather large sunglasses all day. When we’d edited the show our exec producer objected to the sunglasses, because you couldn’t see his eyes properly, and made us re-shoot the whole thing! None of us were best pleased, but Laurence never insisted on wearing his sunglasses again!

Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen