Category: Blog

Points of View – photo from Gail Herbert

‘Points of View’ was produced at Pebble Mill for many years.  The programme gave viewers the right to reply about what they loved or hated about BBC programmes.

It tended to be recorded on location at a hotel near presenter Terry Wogan’s home a couple of days before transmission, and then edited either in London, or at Pebble Mill.

Viewers wrote letters or emails in with their complaints or congratulations.  The ones chosen by the production team were usually voiced by BBC members of staff.  Clips of the programme they were talking about also had to be sourced and edited in to the 15 minute show, which usually went out on a Sunday afternoon.

The photo was taken during the recording of the Points of ViewChristmas edition in the mid 2000s.

The photo features (left to right), Ian Thomas (director), can’t see next two properly, Belinda Essex (researcher), Kate Hillman (A.P.), Sue Watson (producer), Helen Wogan (Terry’s wife), then Bina Mistry (researcher), with Gail Herbert (P.A.) behind, then Terry, and Nick Patten (Exec producer) seated, the camera crew is behind him.

‘Points of View’ is still produced by BBC Birmingham, although Terry Wogan handed over the presentation of the show to Jeremy Vine in April 2008.

Thanks to Nick Patten and Gail Herbert for additional information.

 

 

1974 Pebble Mill Christmas Card – Roger Guest

1974 Christmas Card from Head of Building: Phil Sidey

I was a sound supervisor at Pebble Mill through the “Good Times” and I kept a Christmas card sent to all staff in the building by Phil Sidey in 1974.

What a good way to say thank you to your staff, it made us all feel like one big team!

Roger Guest

Free Screening Event – Sat 5 March

Archive Event Flier

Screening Schedule

 

Film info


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Saturday 5 March, Birmingham City University are holding a free screening event at the School of Art in Margaret Street, very near the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.  The event is open to the public, and it would be great to see as many people there as possible, so please come along if you can.

We’ll be screening three BBC Pebble Mill dramas: Fellow Traveller, (the only TV film made at Pebble Mill) TX 1991, which will be introduced by Exec Producer Michael Wearing and writer Michael Eaton; A Box of Swan , starring Adrian Dunbar and Pete Postlethwaite, TX 1990; and A Touch of Eastern Promise, TX 1973, which will be introduced by writer Tara Prem and script editor Peter Ansorge.

There will also be the opportunity to see excerpts from a Philip Donnellan documentary made in Birmingham before the building of Pebble Mill: Joe the Chainsmith.

 

 

 

The schedule for the screenings is as follows:

11am-12pm and 2pm-3pm: ‘A Touch of Eastern Promise’ (1973) & ‘A Box of Swan’ (1990)

12pm-1pm: ‘Joe the Chainsmith’ (1958) & ‘A Story of Cradley Heath’ (2010)

1pm-2pm: ‘Made in Birmingham’ (2010).

3pm-4.30pm:            ‘Fellow Traveller’ (1991 )

 

I hope to see you at the event on Sat 5 March. For more information see this link: http://homeidentityandcitizenship.posterous.com/

Vanessa

‘Eat Your Words’ – photos by Lynda Kettle

Photos by Lynda Kettle, no reproduction without permission.  Lynda Kettle was a Production Designer at BBC Pebble Mill, working on factual, entertainment and drama shows in studio and on location.  The photos were taken as records of the Sets.

Eat Your Words was a studio quiz show on the subject of food, presented by Lloyd Grossman, with team captains Valentina Harris and Robert Carrier.  The series went out in June 1996 and was made for BBC 1 Daytime, and recorded in Studio A.  There were 10 episodes and each team had a cooking and a non cooking guest. The guests were: Michael Barry, Helen Atkinson-Wood, Derek Nimmo, Anthony Worrall-Thompson, A.A.Gill, Gloria Hunniford, Thane Prince, Carmen Silvera, Juliet Harbutt, Craig Charles, Oz Clarke,John Mcririck, Rosemary Moon, Colin Baker, Denis Quilley, Eve Pollard, Frank Bough, Steven Saunders, Cheryl Baker, Ian McCaskill, Richard Shepherd and Lesley Water.

The production team included series producer Mary Clyne, producer Celia Marks, researchers Vicky Jepson and Nick Harris, PA Marilyn Ward.  Nicola Silk helped develop the series and came up with the title.

Production Designer, Lynda Kettle also worked as a theatre designer and an artist, and now runs courses from her art studio http://www.lynda-kettle.com.  She is a member of the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists, Birmingham Water Colour Society. Midland Pastel Society and Birmingham Art Circle . She exhibits her paintings several times a year at selected galleries.

Thanks to Veronica Butt, Nicola Silk, Vicky Jepson and Melissa Feather  for adding information about the show.

Eat Your Words studio set

That’s a Wrap! – Andy Meikle’s farewell

Order of Service - Andy's funeral

Andy Meikle’s funeral today was a bitter sweet occasion.  It was sad to be saying goodbye to a man who was loved and appreciated by so many people – for his humour, his positive attitude on life and his ability to get stuck in and complete the task in hand, whether that task was a television programme, a DIY job, or some other project.

A lone piper led the cortege into the Crematorium and to the Chapel.  There was standing room only inside, and the service is one he would have approved of – a celebration of Andy’s life, rather than all sadness and tears.  The coffin was banded with tape – the lower layer advised ‘handle with care’, whilst the upper one said ‘this way up’.  Andy would certainly have appreciated the thought – and that health and safety was important to the end!

The service consisted of some well chosen readings, including a verse read by Jon Meikle (Andy’s eldest son), and a beautifully written poem by one of Andy’s grandchildren, Holly, as well as moving memories about Andy’s life at the BBC and beyond by John Williams, and about his childhood and youth by his brother, David.  David Hogg (Nicola Silk’s partner) spoke eloquently about his memories of Andy.  There were smiles as well as tears – and the service was a certainly a celebration of life rather than a commemoration of death.

It was fitting to see so many former BBC colleagues, and old friends, at Andy’s send off – and lovely to share thoughts of him with them.

There was also a silver lining for me, in meeting up with some of the people who’ve contributed to this website – but that I hadn’t known before!

Our thoughts are with Steph and family, and with Andy’s sons and family at this sad time.

Vanessa