Radio Birmingham at Gurdwara

Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission

“Here is a picture of the late Stuart Miller  (Engineer at Radio Birmingham/WM) with me rigging for the first live broadcast of worship from the Graham St Gurdwara in Birmingham in April 1975. Together we did the first…and… as far as l know…..only complete broadcasts for Radio Birmingham/WM of Sikh, Hindu, Muslim and Jewish worship on any radio station in the country. It involved complex rigging and audio balances and observation of the customs and traditions of the various communities.”

Pete Simpkin

Radio WM’s Stuart Miller at the Birmingham Superprix

Photo by Rod Fawcett, no reproduction without permission

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Radio WM engineer, Stuart Miller, at the controls for the coverage of the first Birmingham Superprix road race in 1986.

Thanks to Rod Fawcett for sharing the photo.

The following comments were left on the Pebble Mill Facebook page:

Andy Walters: ‘Would it surprise you to know we still have that mixer and DK monitoring unit at WM?’

Rod Fawcett: ‘Wow yes a little surprised!! But it was well built and I think flight cased to protect the gear…’

Iain Betson: ‘All standard BBC LR issue OB kit. MX6/2, DK2/21, ASC mod’ed PR99. It just worked. I know, I used it a lot!’

Andy Walters: ‘I must admit it gets little use but does still work. Must be thanks to the flightcase as my OB kit was stored in the garden shed on the car park at Pebble Mill for years.’

Malcolm Hickman: ‘Stuart was a great guy. I first met him when I was attached to P&ID building the Comms Centre in 1971. Radio Birmingham were in the building before it opened. There was no restaurant, but we had a kitchen and the lads came in to use the kettle.’

Keith Conlon: ‘Stuart was a great man when I was working for BBC Radio Birmingham then BBC Radio WM as a freelance Station Assistant. Very helpful offering advice with my live music sound mixing.’

Colin Pierpoint: ‘I worked with Stuart many times when he was in Radio OBs and I was in Radio 4 Midland continuity (previously the Midland Home Service). Afterwards when he was Radio Birmingham Engineer (later Radio WM) we cooperated one evening when there was a fault on air on Radio WM. He was at home and asked me to go into an unstaffed Radio WM Ops room, he then talked me round the equipment to make the necessary adjustments. That was in the days when the phone I was using to hear Stuart had a wire attached!’

Pete Simpkin: ‘Stuart was a real pioneer. Together we did the first…and… as far as l know…..only complete broadcasts for Radio Birmingham/WM of Sikh, Hindu, Muslim and Jewish worship on any radio station in the country….one of them live. It involved complex rigging and audio balances and observation of the customs and traditions of the various communities.’

Election night 2001 Studio C gallery

Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stuart Gandy and Keith Knowles on Election night in 2001, in Studio C gallery, in the early hours waiting for the results to come in. In the first photo you can see the names of the locations of the various OBs on the monitors.

These photos were originally posted on Pebble Mill Engineers Facebook group.

The following comments were left on the Pebble Mill Facebook page:

Stuart Gandy: ‘I remember the night well. The console in front of us with all the switches on was a special bit of kit (known as Robespierre – and I can’t remember why) that was only fetched out on election nights, that provided extra comms between the regions. It had to be connected back to comms centre with a lot of cabling a few days prior, which took quite a bit of planning and effort, but Pebble Mill was a regional election hub, so needed to communicate with a lot of places.’

Pete Simpkin: ‘I presented two General Election results Radio programmes on WM along with some local council ones and really enjoyed the through the night experience….. total exhaustion afterwards! Ten pm till 6 am the next morning was some ‘on air’ stint!!’

Andy Walters: ‘I was at the ICC that night Engineering for Radio WM. I remember it being a very late (or early morning) finish.’

Birmingham Superprix, Gina Campbell interview

Copyright Rod Fawcett, no reproduction without permission

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This photograph shows Gina Campbell being interviewed by John Taynton, for Radio WM, during the Birmingham Superprix, circa 1987. Gina comes has a long racing pedigree, her father was Donald Campbell CBE, and her grandfather, Sir Malcolm Campbell. Gina won the UK Off-shore Boating Champion in 1984, as well as holding the Women’s World Water Speed Record, in 1984 and again in 1990. She was obviously affiliated to the Renault team at the Birmingham Superprix.

Thanks to Radio WM engineer, Rod Fawcett, for sharing his photograph.

The following comment was left on the Pebble Mill Facebook page:

Pete Simpkin: ‘John Taynton was a great interviewer and human being and is greatly missed.’

Chris Phipps and Look Hear event from Kaleidoscope, 2nd Sept 2017

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a retrospective of Chris Phipps’s television career to be held on Sat 2nd September, at Birmingham City University, Curzon Street, Birmingham. The event is organised by the archive organisation, Kaleidoscope. Here is the link for tickets (which are free): https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/k-2917-tickets-36551717170 . The whole event lasts from 10-18.00, with an episode of Look! Hear! showing at 11.20, followed by an interview with Chris, who was one of the show’s presenters, at 12.00.

Below are details of the event:

“11.20 Look! Hear! – BBC Pebble Mill, tx: 6.1.1978

Black Sabbath, The Coventry Mummers, John Holmes and Chris Phipps in a local magazine programme unseen nationally.

11.50 Intermission

12.00 Our first guest of the day: Chris Phipps.

Chris Phipps has ramped up a 35 year long career in the music industry – primarily based in the UK, he has worked in the USA, Japan, Africa, Israel, Holland and Europe. His passion and enthusiasm for popular music remains today as ebullient and full on as it did in the mid 1970’s, when as a college disc jockey he began promoting local bands. He has worked with the biggest and the best – from Bob Marley, to Sting, to Pet Shop Boys, to Dire Straits, to Eric Clapton – and as television producer and interviewer has put many more bands and musicians on the world’s screens – Joan Armatrading, Ozzy Osbourne, UB 40, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Steel Pulse and Fine Young Cannibals.

Born and raised in Northfield, schooled at King Edwards Camp Hill, followed by Teacher Training at West Midlands College of Education, the teen aged Chris Phipps was already steeped in vinyl and music, booking local bands such as Carl Wayne and the Vikings (later The Move), The Idle Race with Jeff Lynn (later to form ELO), Jon Lord (later to form Deep Purple). As he recollects of this era : “Sixth form was great. Steve Winwood playing in local jazz bands before the dawn of Spencer Davis, Robert Plant getting up to sing with Alexis Corner at MAC , Gene Vincent at St Francis Hall, Bournville !!! The Four Tops at the Odeon. At College I booked Robert Plant’s Band of Joy; got sacked from the Ents Committee for booking Cream for £360. and then reinstated myself by getting The Scaffold to perform in the Common Room….booked Paul Simon for £6 for the Christian Club….booked Black Sabbath, the original Fleetwood Mac, Joe Cocker, Jethro Tull…”

At BBC Pebble Mill Chris Phipps produced reggae and rock shows for BBC Radio Birmingham, now Radio WM, and for a time was their roving interviewer, chewing the musical fat with all the major singers and bands visiting the region in that period – Joe Cocker, Rush, Whitesnake, Uriah Heap, Sting (for the BBC Drama ‘Artemis 81’), Iggy Pop, Captain Beefheart (who threw Chris off the tour bus), the Sex Pistols, reggae giants Gregory Isaacs, John Holt, Bob Marley and The Wailers. And scooping the occasional exclusive, as when he interviewed for television Dexys Midnight Runners front man, Kevin Rowlands, when the frequently verbose singer had refused to speak to any press at all.

From presenting and interviewing on radio, it was a small step to doing the same on television, and the opportunity arose when BBC producer Roger Casstles assembled the team to front the BBC Midlands pop show, ‘Look ! Hear !’, produced at BBC Pebble Mill. The pairing of Chris Phipps with Toyah Willcox is self effacingly described by Chris. ‘We were played off against each other as a punk versus a Keith Chegwin !’ Toyah, the Birmingham actress and singer, was hot foot from her infamous appearance in the Derek Jarman movie, JUBILEE (1978), which luxuriated in an ensemble of punk performers – Wayne County, Jordan, Adam Ant, Gene October, Siouxsie Sioux. ‘Look ! Hear !’ showcased the region’s emerging post punk and Two Tone scene – Duran Duran, The Specials, Selector, Dexys Midnight Runners – making the studios at BBC Pebble Mill a key location in the promotion of the city’s burgeoning musical pedigree.

The experience on ‘Look ! Hear !’ , and the contacts it brought, propelled the so far Birmingham based Chris Phipps into national and international broadcasting focussed on music and entertainment.

He was recruited to join as assistant producer a music show which in its five year span became to the 1980’s what READY STEADY GO !’ had been to the 1960’s. That ground breaking show was THE TUBE and, as with the ’60’s Cathy McGowan fronted programme, THE TUBE was definitely where the week end started.

Chris’s time on THE TUBE, the Newcastle based iconic 1980’s music show, saw him working alongside anarchic presenters Paula Yates and Jools Holland. Lasting five years from 1982 – 1987, Channel Four’s flagship pop programme was of its own time, much loved, and missed, and completely peerless in its finger on the pulse presentation of pop music. As Assistant Producer, Chris Phipps worked at an increasingly international level – ‘”THE TUBE gave you carte blanche to fight your corner and work with every idiom of music, from unsigned bands to superstars. I found myself all over the world : Culture Club in Japan; Dire Straits in Israel; Malcolm McLaren in Los Angeles; Sly and Robbie in Jamaica. The Tube was more of an attitude than a programme.’ “

His proudest moments on THE TUBE are, intriguingly, closer to home, involving two Birmingham bands. Chris booked Fine Young Cannibals and Hollywood Beyond for their first ever television appearances – “shooting on two freezing days in Birmingham at Zella Studios and at the Grand Hotel !.”

His career in music and entertainment since his days on The Tube includes many hours of television for ITV, via Tyne Tees, and for independent film and television companies, taking in African music; the music of Bob Marley; Chris Rea; the culture of the north east, where since THE TUBE he has lived; Birmingham pop music from the 1960’s to 1990’s (MOTOR CITY MUSIC YEARS, made in 1992 for Channel 4 and Central Tv, was a 3 part series documenting popular music from the city from the 1960’s to the 1990’s. This is when I worked with Chris Phipps. The series benefited enormously from Chris’s contacts, enabling us to film previously inaccessible interviewees such as Muff Winwood, Joan Armatrading, Ozzie Osbourne, UB 40, Duran Duran.).

Chris Phipps will be in Birmingham to talk about his long career with us and his latest project: Black Sabbath – The End. Kaleidoscope will be playing an exclusive trailer for this new cinematic venture.”

The following comment was left on the Pebble Mill Facebook page:

Pete Simpkin: ‘Great tribute to a talented man. He was also for a while Radio Birmingham/WM’s man in Wolverhampton where he brought great improvement to the station’s identity in the Black Country.

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