Photo from Maggy Whitehouse, no reproduction without permission.
Actress and queen of cakes, Jane Asher, created this calorific extravaganza for Pebble Mill at One. The cake contains a mere 7,923 calories – slimmers beware!
Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission.
Thanks to Pete Simpkin for making this cutting from the BBC in-house newspaper, Ariel, available.
The article from 1985 is about how the BBC Micro computer has been helping the editing and transmission of News stories shot on portable single camera, instead of on other formats, like reversal film.
The following information was added by the members of the Pebble Mill Facebook Group:
Stuart Gandy: ‘I remember it well. The BBC Micro was put to good use here and was a software control system that was in use at Pebble Mill well before many of the later systems that have become the norm over the years. The system was designed and built mostly by John Macavoy and Ian Sykes and the other engineers who were based in G41, who at that time mostly concentrated on the Post Prod systems. (I’m not sure if we even called it post prod then?)’
Keith Brook: ‘John Macavoy told me that when the ‘boffins’ at SP&ID talked to him about interfacing his system with the 1″ machines, all they could come up with was a system controlled by relays!! They were decades behind John. Brilliant man!!’ SP&ID stood for ‘Special Projects and something Department. It was a bunch of technicians who designed equipment in-house for the BBC. They made vision mixers, edit suites and stuff like that before the era of buying gear off the shelf. Eventually, I suppose the regime of the awful John Birt closed them down because they couldn’t afford to pay an accountant. They designed the original vision mixing desks in both studios. They also designed the successor to the ‘Studio A’ type desk that was installed at TC and Oxford Road. It was a disaster and kept cutting to black. Not good for live ‘Brass Tacks’.’
Ray Lee: ‘I think a confusion of 2 names for the department have been made. Originally when colour started there were insufficient engineers to equip all the studios. A specialist department was set up called P&ID which was for Planning and Installation Department (known by some as Panic and Indecision Department) . All the first generation colour equipment was made in house by the BBC’s own manufacturing unit, which was part of the Research and Development unit. Later I think after the Phillips report in the late 70’s some re-organisation was done and the P&ID was renamed SCPD. (Studio Capital Projects Department). By this time the BBC was buying in some commercially produced equipment, and quite a lot of BBC designs were licenced out to third party companies.’
Stuart Gandy: ‘As well as SCPD, which was mostly concerned with TV there was also a section called RCPD, which was Radio Capitol Projects. At Pebble Mill, a projects department was set up in the mid 80s and run by John Macavoy and Ian Sykes, together with other engineers who rotated through. They were responsible for many of the bigger home done projects as well as becoming very adept at making the scoring systems for most of the game and quiz shows we did. I can remember working on a few of these quiz systems which usually consisted of a computer, often the BBC micro connected to big buttons for the contestants to press and lamps to show the scores.’
In the basement of BBC Pebble Mill there was, apparently, a fully functional rifle range. Journalist, Maurice Blisson used to shoot there most nights after Midlands Today went off air around 7pm. Peter Gower remembers using the range in the mid 1980s, along with fellow film editor, Roger Mulliner. Nigel Mercer remembers competing, as part of a Central TV team, against some Pebble Mill Staff, at pistol shooting, at the Police Range, in about 1983. It was a fairly informal occasion. Steve Dellow remembers going down in the basement to see the room with the ‘echo plates’. And Stuart Gandy also remembers seeing the door to the rifle range, but never went in. He thinks it was near the photographic dark room.
Thanks to everyone who posted their memories of the rifle range on the Pebble Mill Facebook Group.
Ann Gumbley-Williams added the following comment on the Pebble Mill Facebook group: I was a member and used to shoot at the rifle range on the basement. When I was there it was run by Pip Allkins who was the son of Maisie Allkins who worked on the old telephone system where you had to plug the phones in to connect! Maisie, her husband John and Pip also helped on the BBC pantomimes that used top take place every year. They were put on in the theatre at Cadburys.
I was lucky enough to view this Philip Donnellan documentary at BBC Birmingham this week. Here is what I made of the film:
This black and white documentary explores what it was like to be a teenage in 1960’s England. It was transmitted on 7 April 1964.
Like several other of Philip Donnellan’s documentaries, the music/voice montages were adapted by Charles Parker. This time from a Radio Ballad called ‘On the Edge’ by Ewan McColl and Peggy Seeger, who sing the songs in the film.
The documentary was made at BBC Birmingham at the Carpenter Road headquarters in Edgbaston. It would have been shot on 16mm film, with sepmag audio. The camera crew were Peter Bartlett and Brian Tufano, sound by Bob Roberts. The sound mixer for the montage sections was Pat Whittaker, and Edward le Lorrain was the film editor. The production assistant was Richard Marquand.
As in much of Donnellan’s work there is no voice over. The contributors tell their own story accompanied by observational camerawork of actuality sequences. Some of the scenes seem rather staged, and less truly observational than desired. This is particularly true of the hitch hiking sequences.
Much of the synch sound comes from close ups of talking heads, which are frequently intercut, to present different perspectives on a subject. The voice montages are re-versioned from the Radio Ballads, with appropriate new visual overlay. The montages provide structural breaks in the film, and punctuate the developing narrative scenes. They also provide an energy, with a myriad of quickly cut sound bites. They are disruptive to the narrative flow. There are several new contributors, and viewpoints besides those from the radio audio montages.
Music accompanies much of the film, and the lyrics from the folk songs that were part of the original Radio Ballad, are perfectly in tune with the subject matter and treatment, although they seem slightly old fashioned in contrast to the pop music performed in different scenes of the documentary.
The film is quite melancholic and downbeat. The representation of teenagerhood is certainly not one of unbridled joy and feelings of liberation. Subjects like drug use and sex before marriage are talked about, but the emphasis is on the difficulty teenagers face in making sense of the world and finding their place within it. Loneliness is another key theme, as is breaking away from parents and their expectations, and living for the moment. The selfishness of being young is also talked about: that you only care about yourself.
The key contributor is a 16 year old girl who has left home, has no money, and gets around by hitching. She is trying to find answers. Along the way she is joined by another similar girl, and the two have some quite philosophical discussions about their perception of life, religion and of nature. They walk in the countryside, and overlook the city, mentioning how beautiful the smoke from the power station looks, and how a tree planted in a streetscape seems so different from a tree in its natural, rural setting. They seem apart from the real world: they are observers from outside, struggling to get a sense of scale. They talk about how when you’re in the city, you unwittingly become part of it, whereas from the top of the hills looking down you can observe and be free. They walk through a hillside graveyard, observed by a handheld camera, and read from some of the gravestones – again pondering meanings of life, and death, and deciding that you’ve got to make the best of the time you’ve got.
We dip in and out of the girls’ story; they provide the narrative thread to the film. When we meet them next they are entering a church, with the vicar mid-sermon. He preaches about young people. Amidst overlay shots of slum clearance, and the high-rise flats that are replacing them. One of the girls talks about wanting to construct something, to make a positive contribution, but that sometimes you need to destroy what is already there, in order to move on.
The last time we meet the 16-year-old girl is at the end of the film. Again she is hitching, this time going south. She says she has a long way to go, and muses nihilistically about the importance of life: that when you die, you become a memory, just a name written in the front of a school book, or clothes that must be discarded from your home. This depressing perspective is in tune with earlier philosophical themes running through the film, and is certainly not the depiction of youth that we expect from the supposedly liberating and hedonistic sixties. It is the girl’s Long Journey we have been following, both her physical journey, and more importantly her metaphorical journey into adulthood.
This film would be most unlikely to be commissioned today. Its treatment would not be appreciated by modern commissioners; there are too many voices, and not enough of a compelling narrative. Although there is a narrative flow to the piece, it is a subtle one, woven by Donnellan, and not inherent in the actual story of the 16-year-old girl. However, the documentary gives us a powerful social commentary on what it could actually feel like to be a teenager in the 1960s, away from more stereotypical images. The film has depth, and a philosophical outlook that makes it withstand the test of time.
Vanessa Jackson
Gordon Astley who worked with Donnellan and Parker added the following comment on the Pebble Mill Facebook Group:
‘I knew Parker and Donnellan in my first week after leaving Wood Norton. I cannot believe now that as young broadcaster I was allowed to wield a razor blade on the “Radio Ballads”. Also remember all the people I worked with slagging them off for being time wasters on arty farty stuff.’
Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission.
The photo is of Cliff Richard with Marie Phillips, the ‘Children in Need’ co-ordinator for the Midlands Region, who was retiring. Cliff was a regular supporter of ‘Children in Need’ charities, and often took time out of his schedule to do charity work for Marie, whenever he was up in Birmingham for shows like ‘Pebble Mill’.
Marie adds the following information:
‘Cliff was recording ‘Call my Bluff’ and my friends including Royston Horsley, made sure I was in the audience, which I was thrilled about of course. At the end of the recording lovely Royston made sure I stayed in my seat and Cliff came into the audience holding a single red rose and a signed card saying, “Someone is retiring” I squeaked “It’s Me !” He handed me the rose and card – AND a Kiss, took my hand and led me onto the Studio Floor for lots of photos to be taken of me and him. There you are – fifteen years ago and I remember every detail. I still have the rose and card.’