July 2013 – Page 3 – What Was Pebble Mill?

Studio Operations (part 4) – Ray Lee

Studio A EMI 2001 line up. Photo by John Kimberley, no reproduction without permission.

The Cameras

Both Studio A and B were equipped with EMI 2001 cameras, which were unique in using four 1.25 inch camera tubes. Unlike most of the other colour cameras which used just 3 tubes, the EMI’s had a 4 way light splitter block (the ice block) which allowed a full spectrum image to the Luminance tube, and then split to red, green and blue for the colour images. The reason for this was that it meant only the luminance channel needed to be a full bandwidth channel, as this was the one channel to define the image sharpness and detail. The colour channels could get away with a lower bandwidth, and thereby were less critical. The downside was lack of sensitivity, as the luminance split effectively halved the sensitivity for the same amount of light. This meant Studios had to be lit very brightly, with a lot of lighting power.

Other manufacturers used only a 3 way colour split and had the green channel as the full bandwidth channel, to provide the detail information. This maintained sensitivity, but because the image was the filtered green image, this did not always work as well as a full spectrum image.

One of the problems of the early colour cameras was the lack of sensitivity to the red end of the spectrum, and this was particularly so with the EMI’s. It most noticeably showed up with purples and magentas which were invariably seen as blue by the cameras. Later cameras used extended red response tubes, and generally seemed to produce rather more saturated colours than the EMI’s could, but few seemed able to match the image sharpness and crispness which seemed so characteristic of the EMI’s

Prior to every studio booking the cameras needed alignment. This was because the electronics of that era tended to drift with temperature, and the camera tubes themselves drifted being thermionic devices. Also the length of cable between the camera and CCU had a big effect on the camera signal, and had to be compensated for by the electronics. The cameras were all set up looking at a grey scale chart, and adjustments were made on the CCU to ensure that all the colour channels were giving the same signal level, in order that the combined output was neutral grey, at the different brightness levels of the chart. The light on the chart was adjusted to give a colour temperature of 2950 and a light level of 1600lux using a special light meter called a Collux.

The cameras were also aligned on a registration chart. This was a grid of lines which enabled adjustments to be made so that the images from each tube exactly over-laid each other. If these adjustments were wrong coloured fringes would appear at the edges of objects.

One of the first jobs I did after starting to work in studio ops. was to write up a set of alignment instructions for the cameras. It helped me to effectively learn more about the cameras and how they worked, and also gave a set of standardised methodical adjustments to aim to get the best out of the cameras, that all the engineers could use. I am grateful to Peter Hodges for pushing me to do this in the early days, as it really helped ground me in the basics. Whether other engineers actually found it helpful I don’t know, or whether they even referred to them, but at least they were available where before there was nothing written down.

Ray Lee

You and Pete Simpkin – Radio Birmingham Jingle

Pete Simpkin Studio 3 1979

This is one of the second wave of jingles made in Birmingham, which was the first co-ordinated set, tailor-made for Radio Birmingham since the original ones made by the Midland Radio Orchestra. The later Dallas set which were the best we had in my day, were made by Pam’s in Dallas…heaven knows how they financed it, but the result certainly helped promote the station’s new image in the 80s, with the new name (Radio WM), stereo and local opt-out services on the two Medium Wave transmitters.

Pete Simpkin

Harry Greene (1923-2013)

Pattie Coldwell, Harry Greene, Gilly Love, Rick Ball

Steph Silk & Andy Meikle – On The House

The On The House publicity shot includes Harry Greene on the left, Pattie Coldwell above with the wallpaper, Rick Ball with the tape measure and Gilly Love with the drill.

Harry Greene died in March 2013 after collapsing at home. He was in his ninetieth year.

Harry Greene is best known as one of the presenters of On The House, the popular late 1980s DIY television series. Harry made DIY popular and accessible. He began with a career in theatre and television as an actor, and was married to actress, Marjie, with whom he had three children. He wasn’t in fact called ‘Harry Greene’, until he changed his name by deed poll in 1950, from Henry Howard Greenhouse.

Harry was always keen on DIY, but became the first TV DIY presenter in the 1980s when he made a series for Greg Dyke at TV-AM, about the renovation of a neglected house. TV-AM bought the house for the series, and filmed the whole conversion. The completed house was given away in a competition.

Presenting on Pebble Mill’s On The House, was a natural extension for Harry. On The House was the brainchild of Andy Meikle, with Stephanie Silk the programme editor given the task of turning the idea into a successful returning series on BBC 2. The On The House, house was a timber framed building situated in the back garden of BBC Pebble Mill. The house operated as a TV studio, and demonstration area for the series, and you had to remember that there was no plumbing in the house!

For more information about Harry Greene see his son in law, Mike Smith’s blog: http://mikesmithinlondon.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/harry-greene.html?spref=tw. Mike is married to Harry’s daughter, TV presenter Sarah Greene, who presented Pebble Mill’s Good Morning Summer, although she’s probably best known as a Blue Peter presenter.

I worked as a researcher on the last series of On The House in 1989, and enjoyed working with Harry. I remember he kept changing his mind about the size of screws he wanted, and as I’d bought what he’d originally asked for, we didn’t have the right size on location!

Vanessa

The following comment was posted on the Pebble Mill Facebook group:

Julian Hitchcock: ‘What a nice man. The screw size anecdote rings true.
I worked on the first series in, I think, 1986. I’d proposed a DIY series to David Waine, on the basis of the then explosion in DIY shares following the Thatcher reforms and boom in home ownership. David told me that Andy Meikle wanted to do the same thing and that a budget had been scraped together. Stephanie Silk joined to keep order and give the programme glossy lifestyle values etc. Andy was, however, very much the engine of invention. I just gave it its name (prize: one bottle of champagne) and directed gripping items on the installation of damp courses, latest trend in door mats and hammers (leading to the slogan, “On the House, the only programme with hammer glamour).

My recollection is that Andy revered Harry Greene because of an ancient connection with the previous icon of television DIY, Barry Bucknell. Incredibly, Bucknell’s heyday was in the 1950s. There had been nothing in between at all, so we had the satisfaction of breaking new ground, but I think Andy wanted to show the baton being passed on. Our first programme, as I recollect, looked back to Barry Bucknell. We found old footage of Barry boxing in a beautiful spindle staircase (planing off the rounded edges the better to support his streamlined hardboard) and various others acts of vandalism. I’m not sure that Harry quite got the joke (surely Barry had done a good, professional job?) but he was a lovely chap. I also credit Andy, Steph and BBC Birmingham in giving the job to someone of Harry’s age and, frankly, inexperience. He had great warmth, which viewers plainly appreciated.’

Radio Birmingham Jingle

Radio Brum badge from Pete Simpkin

Thanks to Peter Poole for sharing this compilation of BBC Radio Birmingham jingles.

Pete Simpkin a Radio Birmingham presenter/producer added the following information on the Pebble Mill Facebook group:

‘The first two sections are part of the original Radio Birmingham jingle package from the early seventies. The original jingles were recorded at Pebble Mill by the Midland Radio Orchestra and there is just a snatch of one of these after the pips. (The voice over incidentally is that of Barry Lankester, the original presenter of Midlands Today who came over in the first wave of staff from the old Midland Region).

The Second part, the ‘News jingle’ was a later example of how the staff started to create versions of the originals and use new samples from non commercial disks. The ‘West Midlands air’ piece is a classic example of homemade items in the mid 70s, but that one was not often used. Later in the 70s and with the name change came major new sets, one locally recorded by a Birmingham Commercial studio and the final great collection used for many years into the 80s was recorded by the famous Dallas Texas Theme Tune Company!!’

Torvill and Dean at the 1984 Olympics

This article is from Pebble Mill News, March 1984. It tells how a Pebble Mill single camera crew comprising of Eric Wise, Roger Guest, Bill Youel and John Allinson, brought Torvill and Dean’s, Bolero performance to 17.5 million viewers of the Winter Olympics, when the six Yugoslav rink-side cameras gave disappointing coverage!

The second article is about Nigel Pargeter’s drinking habits in The Archers.

Thanks to Robin Sunderland, for sharing this newsletter, and keeping it safe in his loft for many years!

Here is a link to a clip on YouTube of Torvill and Dean’s gold medal winning performance. Notice that consists of just one shot! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcCj0xfO3H8

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

Stuart Gandy: ‘Wow, how amazing that Robin has still got this after all these years. Funny thing is memories come flooding back, I can remember myself and my engineering collogues standing in TAR reading that very article back in 1984 and thinking what a coup it was that a Pebble Mill team got this coverage. Good stuff.’