Steve Saunderson – Page 4 – What Was Pebble Mill?

Look! Hear! Concert – School Sports

This audio is from a concert for the regional arts show, Look! Hear! recorded in Cannon Hill Park in Edgbaston, Birmingham. The band is called “School Sports”, who were popular on the pub rock scene at the time.

Look! Hear! was presented by Toyah Willcox, Chris Phipps and John Holmes. The producer was Roger Casstles, who went on to create The Clothes Show.

Thanks to Peter Poole for making the audio available.

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

Stuart Gandy: ‘Good memories of this programme, one of the first I ever worked on in TV ops.’

Alastair Yates: ‘I have nervous memories of being responsible for putting this opt on air from the Pres. Studio.’

Gary Jordan: ‘After doing a bit of digging the concert was known as “Lark In The Park” Produced by BRMB’s Robin Valk on 25th-29th August 1979 and featured bands like, Slender Loris, Rainmaker, Little Acre, Ruby Turner, City Boy, Fashion. The Specials and School sports who had changed their name from Hooker, who then changed it again to Mean Street Dealers.’

Steve Saunderson: ‘I was on one of the cameras ( Film ). I think I’ve still got a badge somewhere in a draw with my old ID Cards that show this cool cameraman with lots of hair and a beard. Who was that bearded man?’

Rosie Critchlow: ‘I had a Look! Hear! badge, brought home from work by my Dad.’

Antonia Bird (1951-2013)

Director, Antonia Bird sadly died last week. She directed the BBC 1, 1988 5 part series, Thin Air from Pebble Mill, a London Hosted production; it stared a young girl called Kate Hardie who is Bill Oddie’s daughter. The drama told the story of Rachel Hamilton, a radio reporter who investigates corruption in the community. It starred James Aubrey, Cristina Avery and Brian Bovell. It was written by Peter Busby and Sarah Dunant, produced by Caroline Oulton, with Steve Saunderson as the lighting cameraman, Amanda Atkinson the designer, and Simon Passmore the script editor.

Antonia Bird was 62 years old, and died of thyroid cancer. She began as a theatre director at the Royal Court and went on to direct Spooks, Cracker and The Village, as well as films: Priest, Face, and Ravenous, all starring Robert Carlyle. She won a TV Bafta for the 1993 single drama Safe, and Care, which was broadcast in 2000.

Below is the transmission card. Thanks to Maggie Humphries for sharing it.

Fair Game TX Card

Thanks to costume designer Janice Rider for making this TX card available.

‘Fair Game’ was a 1994 BBC 1 screenplay written by Stephen Bill, directed and co-produced by Alan Dosser along with Carol Parks. Michael Wearing was the executive producer. Rob Hinds was the designer, the film editor was John Stothart, and Steve Saunderson the camera man.

Here is the synopsis from the BFI database:

‘It is 1970, there is World Cup and General Election fever. Marco, a wealthy Italian has come to England to discover his true identity. Carl, a student is torn between canvassing for the Labour party, watching the World Cup or going on a walking holiday with his girlfriend Ellie. Their paths cross in Preston library and the three take an epic journey across the Pennines.’

http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/495778?view=synopsis

The drama starred: Lena Headey as Ellie, Julian Kerridge as Carl, Massimo Bellinzoni as Marco, Prunella Scales as Marjorie.

Juliet Deane Recording Session – Peter Poole

Recording copyright resides with Peter Poole, no reproduction without permission.

This recording session was in Studio 3 probably in the late 1970s. This was a drama studio but it was often empty in the evenings. And back then the BBC made it available free of charge for this private recording. At that time I was working for Film Unit as an assistant film recordist. So Roger Seward from Audio Unit booked the studio and supervised the session. Roger is a bit of a legend in the Audio Unit and and great character! He was great teacher and gave me a quick “driving lesson” of the studio. He then left the recording and mixing to me.

Juliet worked in the film unit office and welcomed the chance to record a few songs. We soon got a few other members of Film Unit to back her. They were Eurwyn Jones, piano, Andrew Godsall, drums and Steve Saunderson, guitar. The folk songs were recorded with Steve playing guitar with Juliet’s live vocal. Eurwyn and Andrew recorded the backing tracks for the other songs. On another session Juliet added her vocal to produce the final mix.

This was my first experience of music recording in a professional studio. We all had a very enjoyable time and I learnt a lot about music recording.

Peter Poole

Top Sailing – photos by Peter Poole

Photos by Peter Poole, no reproduction without permission.

Peter Poole was the sound recordist on this location film shoot for the network series ‘Top Sailing’, broadcast between 1980-83, and produced at Pebble Mill. The photos include cameraman Steve Saunderson, with the beard, with the other person probably being producer Jeremy Pallant. These photos were taken about 1983 in Lymington. Peter developed the photos himself in the Pebble Mill processing lab.

‘Top Sailing’ was a factual series about various aspects of yachting, looking at stories like ‘The Admiral’s Cup’. Different episodes were presented by different sailing enthusiasts including: Martin Muncaster, Clive Gardener, Donny Macleod, Iain Cuthbertson, Anthony Churchill, Bob Fisher, Patrick Mower, Suzanne Danielle.