Film Unit – BBC Midland Region

These photos date from the 1960s, when the BBC Midland Region Film Unit was based at Broadcasting House, 52 Carpenter Road.

Copyright remains with the original holder, no reproduction without permission


The following information was added on the Pebble Mill Facebook page:

Steve Saunderson: The camera looks like an Arriflex 2b 35mm. With a 400ft magazine ( 5 mins run time at 25fps ). The motor was underneath the camera body and fitted into a special tripod head such as a Ronford-Baker Fluid 15. Fitted with a clip-on bellows matte-box with filter tray. There was a smaller version, the Arri 16ST 16mm which could take a 100 ft ( 2mins 30secs ) daylight loading spool inside the camera body or have a 400 ft ( 10 mins run time ) magazine on top like the camera pictured.

The Land Rover emblem doesn’t specify “Midlands Film Unit” so it may have been sent up from BBC Ealing Studios.

 

Saturday Night at the Mill – Bhasker Solanki

Photos by Bhasker Solanki, no reproduction without permission

Bob Langley presenting

Donny MacLeod presenting

Photos by camera operator, Bhasker Solanki, of Saturday Night at the Mill (1976-81), the late night entertainment show, which was a spin off from Pebble Mill at One.

Gangsters Series, Episode 3, 1976

Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission

This photo is from episode 3 of Gangsters series 1. It features Maurice Colbourne as John Kline and Saeed Jaffrey as Rafiq. Gangsters series 1 was a 6 part crime serial set in the Midlands underworld. It was shown on BBC1 on Thursday Sept 23 1976.

Here is the entry from the Radio Times:

“A series of six programmes by PHILIP MARTIN with Ahmed Khalil , Elizabeth Cassidy, Paul Antrim, Paul Barber, Alibe Parsons, Saeed Jaffrey and Maurice Colbourne as John Kline. Incident 3 –
A missing consignment of heroin, an abandoned railway station. Surveying the scene are Rafiq, the sophisticated gangster, and Khan, the double agent. How will Kline escape the factions ranged against him at the Battle of Snow Hill?
Music composed and directed by DAVE GREENSLADE
Script editor PETER ANSORGE Designer IAN ASHURST Producer DAVID ROSE
Director ALASTAIR REID. BBC Birmingham”

Roger Slater was a boom operator on the series, with John Gilbert the recordist. Murray Laidla was part of the audio crew in Studio A when the barge was built in the studio.

Joyce Hawkins was the costume designer.

The Rum Runner nightclub was taken over by Gangsters and turned into a strip club.

Carpenter Road

Photo by Roger Davis, no reproduction without permission

This photograph by cameraman Roger Davis is of the BBC’s Carpenter Road premises in Edgbaston, Birmingham circa 1960s. Carpenter Road housed the administration and production staff who were involved in programmes other than news, before Pebble Mill opened in the early 1970s. The outside broadcast staff were also based here. There was also an early television studio here, before the studio at Gosta Green opened. The building was demolished later on, and there is now a block of flats on the site.

Camera crew in the Club

Photos by cameraman Bhasker Solanki of the camera team relaxing in the BBC Club after a recording. The photos were taken on 17th August 1984. The event was Bhas Solanki’s leaving do. He was going to work in London.

Photos by Bhasker Solanki, no reproduction without permission

Jim and Julia Gray, John Moorcroft, Simon Bennett

Keith Schofield, Jane Weir, Philip Thickett, Bhasker Solanki