Television – Page 209 – What Was Pebble Mill?

Asian Programme Unit – photos by Peter Poole

Lisa Sommerville

Karen Hewson

Lisa Sommerville and Karen Hewson. Photos by Peter Poole, no reproduction without permission.

Lisa and Karen were production assistants working in The Asian Unit. This department produced TV and radio programmes for the Asian community. I remember working on the radio programme which was in Urdu. The producer and presenter was Waseem. I had to rely on hand signals for playing the discs and tapes. I then did the edit under Waseem’s guidance. I always enjoyed working with Asian Unit. They were a great team and very nice people.

Peter Poole

Here are a couple of comments from the Facebook page:

Tariq Azis: I remember Lisa and Karen well..they would tolerate me and my sister when we were loitering around the office, I was probably around 10 at the time…they’re exactly as I remember them in these photos!

Jayne Savage: Karen now runs the very successful Westbury Park Guest House in Bristol.

Kinsey series 2 – photo from John Greening

The photos is from the second ‘Kinsey’ series. It features John Greening (1^st AD) and Anthony Garner (director). It would have been taken from either the third or fourth episodes in the series – ‘Heads and Tails’ or ‘Drop Shot’, as the other episodes were directed by Richard Standeven.

The series was transmitted from 1992/11/03 – 1992/12/08 on BBC 1. It followed the maverick solicitor Neil Kinsey, played by Leigh Lawson. Barry Hanson was the executive producer, Carol Parks the producer, with Peter Gibbs writing the script.

Outside broadcast, ‘Vanity Fair’ – photos by Ian Collins

Photos by Ian Collins, no reproduction without permission.

These photos are from a Pebble Mill outside broadcast from May 1987. They feature VT engineer Paul Scholes, OB engineer Rod Bach, vision engineer John Bradley and PA Janet Redencowitz (sp?).

The outside broadcast was for the drama series: ‘Vanity Fair’, for which lighting director Dave Bushell was nominated for a BAFTA. The location was Heydon Hall or Thetford, both in Norfolk. The series was hosted at Pebble Mill, out of London.

Golden Oldie Picture Show -‘Come Outside’ – photo by Gail Herbert

Photo by Gail Herbert, no reproduction without permission.

This photo is of the location shoot for ‘The Golden Oldie Picture Show’ music video of the hit song, ‘Come Outside’. The song was a number one hit in 1962 for Mike Sarne, with vocals by actress Wendy Richard. There was a cover version by Judge Dread in 1975. I’m not sure which version G.O.P.S. used. The location for the shoot was at the Midlands Arts Centre, in Cannon Hill Park, Edgbaston.

‘The Golden Oldie Picture Show’ was an entertainment show consisting of specially shot music videos for hits which pre-dated the music video era. It was linked by Radio 1 DJ, Dave Lee Travis, and was produced at Pebble Mill by John King’s department. Gail Herbert was the production assistant on the series which ran from 1985-8.

Drama Production in the 1970s & 80s – Janice Rider

Specially shot video interview with costume designer, Janice Rider. No reproduction without permission.

In this interview Janice talks about television drama production in the 1970s and 80s, and compares the timescales to contemporary productions.

Here are a couple of comments from the Facebook page:

Paul Taylor: ‘Ahhh….. that mythical term in modern TV… Production Values. Unless the value is in ££s, the accountants don’t care!’

Kevin Lakin: ‘Agreed, very much so Paul, creative people were moved out of management, and replaced with penny pinching accountants.’