November 2013 – Page 4 – What Was Pebble Mill?

Rules of Justice

Rules of Justice 1981 JR

Rules of Justice was a television play transmitted in 1981. It was based on the true story of the fight for justice around the case of Colin Lattimore, imprisoned for the murder of a transvestite prostitute.

The director was Colin Tucker; the producer, Ruth Caleb; the script was by William Humble; and Peter Goodchild was the executive producer; with Myles Lang the production designer.

The play featured Tony London as Colin Lattimore, with June Brown and Percy Herbert playing his parents.

Thanks to costume designer, Janice Rider for making the photo available.

Walk on the Wildside

This titles grab is from a factual wildlife programme made at Pebble Mill, and presented by Simon King. It probably dates from the 1990s.

Thanks to Ian Collins for making the grab available.

Adam Trotman added the following comment about Walk on the Wildside: ‘I was the assistant editor on it, Jonathan Birkett was the editor and Simon King was director, John King the Exec. It was BBC 2 I think, transmitted around tea time….I loved it as I got to do some editing as Jonathan had to dash as his wife had their first baby. By the way, Annie Jenkins did amazing graphics and animation for it well before CGI!’

Pebble Mill Sectional Elevations

Negative, Sectional Elevations, 1971. This digital resource is available under a Creative Commons CC-BY-SA 3.0 license, with kind permission of the Birmingham & Five Counties Architectural Association Trust, thanks to the Architectus project (part of the Jisc Content Programme 2011-13).

This is a cross-sectional plan of the Pebble Mill building, including the main office block, Radio Studios and TV Studio A. Also shown is the pedestrian bridge to the original foyer entrance, which later became the Pebble Mill at One foyer studio, and the link to the outside broadcast base. This drawing from 1971 came from the architect, John Madin’s offices.

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

Peter Poole: ‘Pebble Mill was great PR for the BBC. Press office often showed various groups round. I was always happy to explain the technical side of broadcasting. The general comments from the groups were very positive. Most of them left very happy to pay the TV licence. The public seems to think commercial TV is free. Every time they go shopping an extra cost is added to the goods to cover advertising. Where is BBC Four TV, radio 3 and radio 4 etc. in commercial broadcasting?’

Pickwick Papers – Nick Stevens

(Last photo: Phil Daniels and Nick Stevens)

(Second photo: Dee Hall and Nick Stevens, Dee was the second wife of Terry Hall of Lenny the lion fame )

I worked a lot for the BBC as a support artist on many dramas in the 1980s and on one occasion did in fact get some photos, this was on the production of Pickwick Papers in 1985. We spent two days in London for rehearsals then back to Pebble Mill for the production. Phil Daniels was a pleasure to work with and so was the late Nigel Stock. There was a scene when the lady with a baby was meant to fall down in the Fleet prison this she did with her real baby, to the shock of the crew. The baby was substituted for a dummy, then cut back to the real baby after she fell. Also I nearly got knocked out by the camera crane! I was walking down a passage in the Fleet prison and the camera mounted on a crane was supposed to come up and follow me. The camera was at a high point as it came up behind me and was dropping to a lower position, but the brakeman on the camera dolly did not judge it correctly and the front of the dolly platform under the camera hit me on the back of the head and shoulders sending me sprawling up the set! It looked funny, but not for me. At the end of each day I travelled back to Burton upon Trent still, with makeup on and looking like a vagrant, if I had been stopped the police would not have believed me as to where I had been!

Nick Stevens

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

Stuart Gandy: ‘I remember this from 1985, one of the many period dramas that Pebble Mill was well known for.’

Andrew Godsall in Dubbing Theatre Record Room

Photos by Peter Poole, no reproduction without permission.

There are a couple of photos of Andrew Godsall in Pebble Mill, Dubbing Theatre record room in the 1970s. You can see some sep-mag film on the right-handside of the photo. Andrew was an Assistant Recordist at the time, making transfers of location recordings on to 16mm mag for the film editors and assistants to match up with the 16mm film. Andrew can even remember that the telephone extension number was 2048!