December 2011 – Page 3 – What Was Pebble Mill?

Casualty Saved My Life – interview with Janice Rider

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

This interview with costume designer, Janice Rider, is about the 2004 documentary ‘Casualty Saved My Life’. The programme told the stories of viewers who used information they’d learnt from the medical drama ‘Casualty’, and put it into practice, saving the life of themselves or others. The documentary used first hand testimony, reconstructions, clips and behind the scenes footage from ‘Casualty’.

Janice worked on the reconstruction of a motorcycle crash, which resulted in the rider losing his leg.

The directors on the documentary were Mark Scott and Paul Vanezis, the researchers Sophia Wollschlager and Caroline Ossowaskia. Sarah Costigan and Jo Gray were the production assistants, and I was the producer.

Vanessa Jackson

Jim Hiscox

This photo was taken at Pebble Mill in April 1972.

It’s of Jim Hiscox, and was probably taken in the workshop at the rear of the original TAR (Television Apparatus Room).

Thanks to Dave Bushell and Jim Hiscox for identifying the photo.

Stuart Gandy adds the following information: ‘This was the original TAR location at the side of Studio A vision gallery. When the studio refurbishment in the mid 1980s took place TAR moved to the area above the foyer and the new ‘electronic’ graphics department occupied the original space.’

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.