December 2015 – Page 2 – What Was Pebble Mill?

Heads of Pebble Mill

There were six heads of Pebble Mill during the building’s lifetime, although some were Heads of Network TV, rather than Head of Building. Their tenure seems to get progressively shorter. This information was taken from the BBC Written Archives in Caversham. They were:

Phil Sidey – 1972-82 Head of Building

David Waine – 1983-1992 Head of Building

Rod Natkiel – 1992-1998 Head of Network Television

Kate Marsh – 1998-2001

Paresh Solanki – 2001-2002

Tessa Finch – 2002- end of Pebble Mill

Phil Sidey (right). Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission

David Waine. Copyright resides with the original holder no reproduction without permission

Rod Natkiel. Copyright resides with the original holder

Paresh Solanki. Copyright resides with the original holder

Kate Marsh. Copyright resides with the original holder

Tessa Finch. Copyright resides with the original holder

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

Lynne Cullimore: “My favourite is – Phil Sidey who put Pebble Mill on the map! and I liked David Waine who was a very nice man.”

Jane Upston: “I was there during David Waine’s tenure and part of Rod Natkiel’s. I worked in HR (was Jane Morgan then). The people I remember most though were Colin Adams and Jock Gallagher.”

Chris Marshall: “Agreed, David Waine was great to work for. Is that really Rod Natkiel? As for Kate Marsh…”

Carolyn Davies: “David Waine was one of the best ‘heads of’ anything I have ever met. Once you’d met him he always remembered your name and what you did and made a big effort to see those on the shop floor…..”

Dharmesh Rajput: “Wow – I thought there would be more… I started working in TV just end of 1998 whilst still working in radio and having done some work experience in Press & Publicity with Donald Steel’s team – so I remember Rod Natkiel from having to take press cuttings to his office. And then I was in TV and Online till the move to The Mailbox.”

Jane Ward: “Agree with Carolyn… David Waine was a great People Person…”

Viv Ellis: “I agree David Waine rocked. Lovely boss”

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Radio Studio 3 Till

Old till. Photo by Martin Fenton, no reproduction without permission

The photo is of the Radio Studio 3 till. This was the old one, which decided to go open circuit during a recording and threw me across the studio floor, only narrowly missing an actor. It could no longer be plugged in, but it still made a noise.

Martin Fenton

Below is the replacement till, without the electrical fault! Radio Studio 3 was the studio used by The Archers, amongst other network radio dramas.

New till. Photo by Martin Fenton, no reproduction without permission

Front Room

This title grab is taken from the interactive educational series Front Room. The show was described in the Radio Times as the: interactive show presented by Jason Bradbury in which viewers exchange views and ideas using webcams, video diaries, online chat and e-mail http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/search/0/20?q=Front+Room#search.

It was aired from June 1999, and finished in 2000, going out on the newly formed BBC Knowledge channel. Which was one of the BBC’s first digital channels, whose remit was to produce educational programming in a fun and interactive fashion. See this link of Wikipedia for more information about the channel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Knowledge.

BBC Knowledge was short-lived as a channel, closing in March 2002, to make way for BBC Four.

Caroline Jones was a producer on the show, and Tony Steyger certainly worked on it, possibly as editor, and Bob Davies was the show’s studio director. The show was quite innovative, and Tony was ideal to work on it, with his background of working for Maverick TV, on self-shot shows like Trade Secrets.

Thanks to Ian Collins for making the grab available.

Milton Hainsworth, Graham Winter and Mike Brown in TK

Photo by Jim Gregory, no reproduction without permission.

The photo includes: Milton Hainsworth, Graham Winter and Mike Brown. It was taken by Jim Gregory in June 1973.
“Milton Hainsworth was a News film editor, Graham was TK supervisor, although technically the post had been re-titled Senior Recording Engineer. Mike was the original film projectionist for Film Unit and the Dubbing Suite, he defected to Central and is now a Video Editor at BBC Nottingham.
In the background is a Westrex Sepmag machine. The photograph was taken by Jim from the Telecine Quality Check Room, which only lasted for a few more years as fairly big alterations were made to that end of the Telecine VT area later.”

Jim Gregory

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

Ray Lee: ‘I remember all 3 as I joined Telecine in 1974, Graham soon moved to Wood Norton, but Milton was still around when News editing had gone to Betacam tapes. Don’t remember where Mike moved to, but our paths didn’t cross often.’

Christopher Hall: ‘I remember Graham Winter from Wood Norton. Sadly he died a couple of years ago.’

Peter Woolley: ‘I remember Milton! I think he refused to go to his own leaving party!’

Lynn Cullimore: ‘Well I certainly remember Milton. Yes, I think he did not go to his leaving party bless him.’

Mike Dhonau: ‘I spent 7 weeks with Graham running training in Oman – in 1993. Great times. He was a little plumper then…’

Max Mulgrew: ‘Peter Woolley is correct. Milton was not at his leaving do, on floor two at Pebble Mill, and later refused to accept his leaving present. I think Sue Beardsmore was among those at the gathering.’

Peter Greenhalgh: ‘Mike Brown is still around. Just showed him the pic as he’s not on FB. He does all the tech op jobs here, and was a freelance camera op before joining us.’