May 2016 – Page 2 – What Was Pebble Mill?

The Permissive Society

Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission

Here is a grab from The Permissive Society, one of Mike Leigh’s first television dramas. It was broadcast on 10th April 1975, on BBC 2, at 10.40 pm. Here is the Radio Times entry, courtesy of the BBC Genome project:
“A season of new plays from Birmingham
The Permissive Society
Les’s sister is going out and his parents won’t be back for a while. What will happen when he’s finally left alone with his girl friend?”
Designer MARGARET PEACOCK ProducerTARA PREM
Devised and directed by MIKE LEIGH (Birmingham)
Contributors
Designer: Margaret Peacock
Producer: Tara Prem
Directed By: Mike Leigh
Les: Bob Mason
Yvonne: Rachel Davies
Carol: Veronica Roberts

http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/aaa18560d30d484191e683327e5b477f

The drama was part of the Second City Firsts series of half hour plays. It was shown at the Flatpack Film Festival in April 2016, at the Midlands Arts Centre, where Mike Leigh carried out some of his early improvisatory work with actors.

Pebble Mill opening delayed – tales from the archive

A letter held in the BBC Written Archives shows that Princess Anne was asked in January 1971 if she would open the new broadcasting centre in Birmingham in the autumn of that year. Her Lady in Waiting, replied that unfortunately The Princess would be on holiday in Scotland during the period specified, but that if the opening ceremony could be delayed until November, then she would find it easier to fit the engagement into her programme. It was pointed out that Her Royal Highness would understand if someone else was asked to open the building in her stead.

It was decided to move the occasion to November, rather than ask anyone else to perform the ceremony, and Princess Anne duly opened BBC Pebble Mill on 10th November 1971.

Colin Pierpoint blog – part 4, Cardiff

I really enjoyed my time working in a regional centre. I spent a lot of time working in the Control Room, where the Technical Operations staff also did recording and tape editing as part of their duties. Of course, my training in the London XP unit helped here, and I had a good working relationship with many radio producers. I also did Continuity work on the Welsh Home Service, opting out of the BBC Home Service from London. This was my favourite duty, alongside announcers, and with some announcements and programmes in Welsh. (They didn’t separate to Radio Cymru until years later.)

One event which nearly brought an end to my career more certainly than the incident in the lift was my ability to oversleep. I woke up one morning at two minutes to seven a.m. I should have been on duty at 6-30 in Continuity, and the first programme was “Programme Parade” at 0710 am, which was on tape. There would be no other operator in the Control Room. I was the only person to start the tape, and I knew that if I didn’t, I was in serious trouble, or even dismissal. At the time I was in bed and breakfast at 100 Colum Road Cardiff; below is a map showing the distance to the BBC studios at Park Place. We normally had a taxi for early morning duty, but he had long since given up and gone. So I had to get the 878 yards to Continuity on my own in a little less that 15 minutes! Half a mile. I threw on a pair of shorts, a casual shirt and a pair of sandals, and just ran.

Well. I made it. I don’t know how I did it; at school, on sports day I was always hopeless at running. The Commissionaire was holding the front door open as I came round the corner of the building. Continuity was upstairs! As I entered, the London announcer was saying “That is the end of the News, the time is ten past seven” which was the Opt out cue. I had to jump up onto the back of the vertical mixing desk in order to fade out of London. I then walked round the desk and started the TR90 tape machine (fortunately, the tape is normally set up by the evening shift the night before). I then collapsed into a chair, gasping for breath.

On the above figure is the distance measured on the blue line, from my Bed and Breakfast place to the BBC studios

Because of the clothes I was wearing, with no chance to change, everyone I met that day kept asking “Did you enjoy your holiday”!

As in London (and later in Birmingham) Control Room staff also did recording and editing. For some of the time I worked in the studios, because I remember recording Programme Parade while I was doing the panel (operating the mixing desk). In the middle of complete chaos (which there often was) the PBX phone rang and a female voice spoke in Welsh. Due to the panic going on, and without thinking, I said “For heavens sake speak English”. I was told later that the Head of Presentation who had rung the studio from the Presentation Office, was seen to be taken aback!

That session was always a mess because it used tape inserts which had been sent to the regions that afternoon on the SB network. When I later went to Birmingham I found the same Programme Parade was recorded using tape inserts (of London Programmes trails) which had been edited and put onto separate reels. For some reason I never discovered, Cardiff used to record the whole session on one big reel of tape, including all the London Studio Manager’s cues to record each item, so in the Programme Parade recording session with a live announcer in the studio, the operator had to find the right insert on this big reel of tape. Anyway, after many restarts from the beginning, I realised that the TR90 tape machine could be dropped into record part way through, so after a cock-up we didn’t have to do it all again. The tape machine was in another room off the Control Room, so I went there played back the last bit of the recording and asked them to start speaking on a pre-arranged cue, when I would press the record button. [For technical readers; I later used the same technique at Wood Norton for television with a VR1200 or 2000 video recorder, using the buzz back to cue the studio].

Move to the Mailbox

The article from the Birmingham Post circa 2002, explains how the move from Pebble Mill to the Mailbox was going to be a positive one, enabling technology and the studios to be improved. The move from the ‘leafy suburb’ of Edgbaston would apparently make BBC Birmingham more in touch with its audience!

Unfortunately these aims were not realised, and the move proved to be symptomatic of the decline of BBC Birmingham.

Thanks to Stuart Gandy to sharing this cutting.

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

Andy Marriott: ‘Unfortunately pretty much every move is a downsizing event, and it’s not just the BBC. I’ve been helping a friend out with a project at the old Granada site in Manchester and it’s depressing to see the facilities that existed there that they simply don’t have at their new site.’

Jean Palmer: ‘I’m sure that those who worked there could have told them it wouldn’t work. Shame we lost Pebble Mill’

Carolyn Davies: ‘All very sad….BBC Wales about to relocate….hope the same doesn’t happen…..’

Sue Farr: ‘I always suspected that London was jealous of Brimingham’s success and that was what was behind the decisions that were made. None of us believed any of it was going to benefit the Midlands, did we?’

Andrew Langstone: ‘Seems The Mailbox is the BBC’S dumping ground for things it doesn’t know where to put them.’

North 3 Outside Broadcast – press release

Photo by Steve Harris, no reproduction without permission

(Here is a press release about the reconstruction of a recording by the OB truck North 3, which was Pebble Mill’s original CM1)

“NORTH 3” TEAM TO TAKE TELEVISION BACK IN TIME

A team of television historians will travel back in time as they bring a vintage BBC outside broadcast truck back to life in North Wales.

Working with Flintshire-based broadcasting history enthusiast Steve Harris, the team from Royal Holloway University of London will reunite veteran cameramen, directors and engineers with North 3, a restored colour mobile control room.

North 3 travelled the length and breadth of the country during the 1970s, relaying live footage of Royal Ascot, The Open from St Andrews and the Royal Variety Performance from the London Palladium.

It ended its life with the BBC in the early 1980s, and spent several decades decaying at an airfield in Devon, before being rescued and restored by Hawarden-based television historian Steve Harris.

Now researchers from Royal Holloway are about to embark on a hugely ambitious “hands on” history event during which a full outside broadcast crew will be re-united with the restored vehicle to recreate a 1970s sports television production.

The experiment, which will take place next week (May 17, 18, 19) will be the first time that anyone has attempted to see the restored North 3 operational and staffed by its original crew. The vehicle, an analogue ancestor of today’s digital satellite outside broadcast trucks, is the only survivor of its type in working order.

Working with Steve Harris, the team from Royal Holloway have located a full team of former outside broadcast camera operators and engineers. For first time in several decades, they will be reunited with North 3 and re-live the experiences of their earlier careers.

Using restored 1970s television technology, the team will record a darts match and conduct interviews with former television production personnel. The exercise will help the Royal Holloway team, led by Prof John Ellis of the college’s Media Arts department, to learn more about how television was made in the 1970s and 1980s.

Prof Ellis said: “Television has seen vast technological changes since the 1960s, and some of the greatest changes have taken place in outside broadcasts. Our work with North 3 will help to document technologies and ways of working from the heroic age of television, which are now at risk of being forgotten.”

Digital producer Amanda Murphy, who is organising and directing the event, said: “When we met with Steve Harris last November and decided to take on the challenge of getting North 3 operational with as full a crew as possible, neither of us could have quite imagined quite the enormity of the task. The phone rings daily with old technicians asking: ‘Are we serious? Are we mad?’”

The complexity of the event means that it will not be open to the public, but footage and interviews from the event will be uploaded to YouTube during the week.

Prof John Ellis

Here is the link to a blog about the project, from producer Amanda Murphy: http://www.adapttvhistory.org.uk/north-3-outside-broadcast/

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

Nigel Sizer: ‘One interesting fact about OB trucks of this vintage is that many carried a steel tray about 4ft square on runners at the rear. Once parked up, the tray was slid out and put underneath the engine..to catch any oil drips! …’

Malcolm Elliott: ‘It would be nice to get my hands on a PC80 again after so many years… sadly am the other side of the world so would need a very long panning handle! Good luck with the event and would be interested to see who’s on the camera crew.’