Copyright Jerry Clegg, no reproduction without permission.
Jerry Clegg wrote the following articles for the BBC pensioners magazine, Prospero, about the restoration of the OB scanner CMCR 9. This scanner was Pebble Mill’s original CM 1. It went on to become North 3, out of Manchester.
Thanks to Jerry Clegg for agreeing for his articles to be published here.
Photo by Tim Savage, no reproduction without permission.
This photograph is of the Pebble Mill Canteen on the 7th floor of the office block. Tim took the photo in autumn 2004 when Pebble Mill had been emptied, prior to the building being demolished in 2005.
The Canteen was at the heart of Pebble Mill, sadly it looks so clean and lifeless in this photo. It had a excellent line in cheese scones, mid morning, and delicious cakes for afternoon tea. You never knew who you’d meet in the Canteen, you’d frequently bump in to actors in full costume and make-up taking a break from recording a drama in Studio A.
The following comments were posted on the Pebble Mill Facebook Group:
Becky Land: ‘I remember that if you timed it right you could get a warm banana and chocolate scone for elevenses. Welcoming when on an early news reading shift. Loved sitting amongst the Archers cast and listening to the well known voices.. and the brilliant view on a clear sunny day. ‘
Gordon Astley:..’I loved the canteen/restaurants from Gosta Green/ Broad st/ Pebble Mill. Only problem I had was with the whingers who complained daily…bearing in mind it was good, honest food, served by nice people…and it was all subsidised by some old lady lady’s licence fee.’
Stuart Gandy: ‘Oh! Pebble Mill Puddings – legendary’
Brian Johnson: ‘Canteens at Broad St and Carpenter Road were great too!’
Susan Astle: ‘Cheese scones……made it easier to cope with a hangover!’
Donald Steel: ‘And Sunday roasts! I knew staff who would come in specially !’
Pete Simpkin: ‘Well said Susan, you had to be in the queue at the prompt time of 1030!’
Neil Wilson: ‘Carl’s kingdom for many years. So much missed.’
Eurwyn Jones: ‘Who can remember some of the women who worked there ?
I remember Lil, Edna, Miss Rose and a blonde Scottish girl………’
Gordon Astley: ‘Donald…..after my WM Sunday show I would often had 4 Sundays plated up..took 2 round to Mum and Dad..and 2 for us. Had to smuggle the green plates and the covers back in on Monday !!!’
Pete Simpkin: ‘Eurwyn there was an Irish lady on the canteen staff called Mary, my wife who is Irish taught me some Irish phrases to try out on her, I think I was set up by some of these! Great and friendly staff in the canteen…sorry restaurant!’
Eurwyn Jones: ‘I well remember Lil that worked there took pity on me during the bread strike and she used to smuggle various loaves to me….. Bless her.’
Gordon Astley:. ‘talking of strikes (BTW I was the first person in the BBC in Birmingham to go on strike !) There was a strike on behalf of the canteen staff who were then berated by the pickets because they went into work. They told me “It’s ok for those journos etc…they earn a lot…we can’t afford to strike !”‘
Lynn Cullimore: ‘I remember Edna’s singing in the canteen. The cheese scones were to die for…nowhere else can you get a cheese scone the same! Many memories of christmas lunches there…served by management!’
Gordon Astley: ‘.Lynn..sometimes it was only time in the year you found out who was management !! Anyone got the scones recipe ?’
Pete Simpkin: ‘Re management I recall the times there were lift failures and those of us who could manage it would think nothing of stepping it out up the whole flight of stairs and then it became clear who were the management…..they were the ones appearing to be nonchalantly taking in the view on each landing trying hard to disguise their lack of breath!!
Gordon Astley:’..just out of interest re: the 1st ABS strike I remember walking out on a Saturday morning with Barry Lankester. The press was waiting. It was the 1st BBC strike. Barry said we had been set up. Most members weren’t working that day, took the day off, there was a trip to London, (and my dad was very upset with me)..I had only just joined the Beeb. My boss (Eddie Deighton?) told me to go..and see him on Monday. I did and he said that I should not worry….but it was a shame that no other union members turned up to back us in Broad Street. It still leaves a nasty taste in my mouth. Does anyone else have memories of that day…and what was the strike about…methinks it was Broadcasting in the ’70s. ?’
Photo by Ian Collins, no reproduction without permission.
VT editor Ian Collins took a number of photographs of outdated kit when BBC Pebble Mill was cleared, prior to being demolished in 2005.
This is the keyboard of a Sony BVE 9100 edit controller, used in linear tape editing.
It would have been used in one of the VT suites.
Ray Lee adds the following information about what the edit controller did:
‘The edit controller allows you to select ‘in’ and ‘out’ points during a VT edit, controls the ‘play in’ and ‘record’ machines, executes the edit and stores the edit points for if you need to go back again. It is a lot more involved than that, (like most things) but a more detailed explanation would probably be confusing. The edit controller could control several players at once, as well as audio sources, digital video effects machines, and the recorder, so it was possible to do quite complex edits including fades from one source to another, as a single pass, once you had identified the timecode points at which you wanted these things to happen.
Ampex VR2000 Quad machine in VTB, photo by John Burkill (1976)
(Photo copyright John Burkill, no reproduction without permission – the photo must have been taken after lunch – well during VT’s standard liquid lunch!)
The Videotape area adjoined Telecine, so I got to know the VT staff, and something of the operation even before I had chance to actually work in the area. In 1974 there were just 2 VT machines, Ampex VR2000 2 inch. These were known as Quad machines as the recordings were made using 4 rotary heads across the width of the tape, quadruplex recording. VTA was optimised as a play in machine, and VTB as an edit machine. Both were capable of being used as stand alone recorders or players with the studios, and could be used for simple assemble editing, but more usually one was used as a master recorder and the other as a backup at that time, as there was no way of knowing until playing back, that the recording had been successful. There was no off tape monitoring, and a head-clog at the start could render the whole recording useless.
At that time John Lannin, and Tony Rayner were the senior editors, with Ian Collins, John Burkill, and Steve Critchlow making up the remaining VT team. What many people working in TV today fail to realise is that VT machines then needed careful alignment for every tape, and that they required a ten second run up in order to lock up fully synchronously. (Occasionally even 10 seconds was not long enough!). Although cut editing of tapes had been occasionally done in Black and White days, it was not accurate enough (normally) for colour recordings.
There were exceptions. I believe there was a unique recording that had somehow had tape damage that caused the tape to snap, (the transverse rotary heads were not unlike a circular saw if there was a nick in the tape) and John Burkill performed a cut edit to join the tape back together. This involved applying Edivue, a suspension of fine iron particles in solvent, to the tape to develop the tracks and the edit pulse, on each side of the damaged area. Then using a travelling microscope to locate the correct point and place it precisely in the edit block, cut the tape either side of the damage, and finally splice together using splicing tape. Normally a cut edit like this would not play without some glitching, but on this occasion it played almost as well as a standard electronic edit. Subsequently some months later I also had to repair a tape in this manner, and achieved a similar result!
VT was a noisy area. The rotary heads ran at 15,000RPM, and there being 4 heads on the drum a new head entered the tape past the edge 1000 times a second. Added to that the rotary heads were run on air bearings, which was supplied with compressed air, and created a vacuum for the vacuum guide to hold the 2 inch wide tape in a circular arc. The machines did have their own air compressor which could be used (adding even more noise), but generally used compressed air from a central compressor housed away from the area. The same compressor fed airlines to the Telecine cubicles to allow for blowing dust out of the film Gate. So what with whirring heads, hissing air and other general mechanical noise, the monitor loudspeaker was generally quite loud in order to hear the sound.
The VT machines needed careful looking after to get the best out of them, and tended to drift as they warmed up. So the normal course of action for the switch on man was to switch on the machines, check that the basic systems were working, then go and have a coffee while the machines warmed up. There was always a 1/2 hour line-up period scheduled before each booking, to allow time to make the fine adjustments required for the tape. In an edit session using several different source tapes, line up could take up quite a lot of the time. If the tapes came from the same recording session, a quick 2 to 5 minute adjustment may be all that was required, but where there were tapes from several different source machines, (often the case for Pebble Mill at One), 10 – 15 minutes or longer could be required if there was a particularly awkward tape.
Finding the required place on the tape could take a while also, as there were no pictures in shuttle. Tapes were logged on a card that was kept with the tape. The machines had a counter which was calibrated in minutes and seconds, and was surprisingly accurate considering it was a friction drive. On loading the tape, one had to remember to zero the counter, otherwise the times would not correspond to what was written on the card, or worse you could end up logging the incorrect times on the card for a new recording. Tapes were re-used quite a lot, as the tape was expensive, and in order to ensure a clean tape they were put into a bulk eraser (nicknamed the fish fryer on account of its height shape and the perforated roll lid.) It took about 20seconds to erase the tape, so you had to be certain that you had the right tape, and that it really was ok to wipe it, before pushing the button.
Some compilation tapes were reused without first erasing them, which could sometimes cause confusion when remnants of a previous recording were left in between two logged items.
Ray Lee
This collection of ‘Children in Need’ mugs has been put together by Marie Phillips. Marie was the ‘Children in Need’ co-ordinator for a number of years in the 1990s. Each year the ‘Children in Need’ fund raising campaign put out a new mug featuring Pudsey bear for collectors.
