Blog – Page 311 – What Was Pebble Mill?

Save BBC Birmingham Campaign

Staff of BBC Birmingham were protesting this lunchtime on the steps of the Mailbox against the closure of factual television and radio network production. Flagship series like ‘Gardeners’ World’, ‘Coast’ and ‘Countryfile’, are scheduled to move from BBC Birmingham to Bristol from August 2012. Production staff face redundancy or relocation, whilst post production staff look likely to be made redundant, as BBC Bristol does not have its own post production facilities.

The number of staff and programmes made at BBC Birmingham has been being run down since the move from BBC Pebble Mill in 2005, and the commissioning guarantee from London has been quietly forgotten, eroding the production base.

When Pebble Mill was at its height there were around 1,500 staff. The number now at BBC Birmingham is only a couple of hundred.

Pebble Mill – TK

The photo shows Jim Gregory and Dave Schoolden in Pebble Mill’s TK area in 1976.

TK was also known as Telecine, and was the technical area where film was transferred to video.

Memories of working at the BBC – Dave Kirkwood

Dave Kirkwood

I joined the BBC in 1965 and trained as a ‘technical operator’. In the
regions, TOs were expected to work in both TV and Radio. Normal jobs for a
TO were operating cameras and sound equipment in TV studios and sound
recording suites for radio as well as the sound control room. Radio Studios
were the province of a different breed called ‘studio managers’. These were,
in the main, graduates whereas the majority of the TOs were recruited from
schools after A Levels.
I spent most of my time working on camera crews in Gosta Green and Broad
Street. As a trainee I was only allowed to operate a camera in Broad Street
and for simpler programmes at Gosta Green, but I often drove the ‘Heron’
camera crane used on most of the dramas at Gosta Green. By 1968 it was becoming clear
that the TO role was a bit of a ‘dead end’ and that those senior to me were
not much older, so I was encouraged to look for other opportunities. I was
keen to explore production and broadcasting rather than engineering (TOs
were very much ‘engineers’ in the eyes of personnel). Local radio was just
starting, so I managed to transfer into that as a station assistant and
(after just two years) was promoted to producer. I stayed in local radio
until I left the BBC in 1996 from the post of ‘Senior Broadcast Journalist’.
Along the way I had spells as a Continuity Announcer at TV Centre and as a
trainer at the Local Radio Training Unit.

Dave Kirkwood

Pebble Mill at One – Verona trip – Photos by Ian Collins

Photos by Ian Collins, no reproduction without permission.

The photos show a ‘Pebble Mill at One’ location trip to Verona, in Italy, in 1985. Presenters Marian Foster and Bob Langley are featured, along with director, Tony Rayner, producer, Clare Stride, and production assistant, Jane Mclean. Also pictured are Vision Supervisor, Ian Dewar, Engineering Manager, Gordon White, Cameraman, Dave Ballantyne, and Electrician, Phil Vaughan. Ian Collins was on VT, Roger Ecclestone was producer, although he isn’t pictured in the photos.

The trip included shoots in Milan, Lake Garda, Lake Como, and Verona.

Jane Mclean remembers the trip: ‘This was the famous trip where we interviewed Armani who lived in an all-white apartment and whose spotless white wall was left with a biro mark along it thanks to yours truly… Oh my how we laughed!’

Thanks to Roger Slater, Jane Mclean, Dave Bushell and Stuart Gandy for adding additional information.

‘Nice Work’ – photo from John Greening

The photo includes, left to right: John Greening, two factory owners (location), Bill Hartley.

‘Nice Work’ starred Warren Clarke, and Haydn Gwynne. The series went out in 1989, and was produced at Pebble Mill by Chris Parr, and directed by Chris Menaul. The four part series was based on David Lodge’s novel of the same name, Lodge also wrote the screenplay.

The drama revolves around a university/industry exchange, which involves lecturer Robin Penrose teaming up with business man, Vic Wilcox.

Save