Memories – Page 19 – What Was Pebble Mill?

Tail-less Top Geat cats – Chris Bates

copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission

Here is an article by Senior Press Officer, Chris Bates, published in the February 2016 edition of the BBC retirees magazine Prospero: http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/mypension/en/prospero_feb_2016.pdf. He tells of the efforts he made to get Top Gear into the papers in the 1990s.

The two men on the right of the camera, who aren’t named in the cutting are Jim Knights, a Magpie cameraman (right next to the camera), and director Ian Thomas, in the foreground.

New generation of Royals ‘appropriate’ to open Pebble Mill

Princess Anne opening Pebble Mill. Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission.

Princess Anne opening Pebble Mill. Copyright Sue Sweet, no reproduction without permission.

As a follow up to the recent blog about who should officially open the new Pebble Mill building: http://www.pebblemill.org/blog/who-should-open-pebble-mill/ the next memo of interest in the BBC’s Written Archives at Caversham dates from 16th January 1970. It is from the BBC Director of Public Affairs, Kenneth Lamb, to the Director General, Charles Curran, and suggests that either the Prince of Wales, or Princess Anne should be asked to open the new broadcast centre in 1971. Lamb adds that he thinks that one of the ‘new generation of Royals’ would be ‘appropriate’ for the occasion, and both Prince Charles and Princess Anne are ‘one up the scale’ from the Royals who had opened the ITV centres. Princess Alexandra had recently opened the ATV centre in Birmingham!

Princess Anne was subsequently approached to open Pebble Mill.

The BBC obviously did not want to be upstaged by the calibre of Royal that ITV were able to attract!

Voice of the Listener and Viewer visit 1992

Photo copyright Robin Vanags, 1992. No reproduction without permission.

Here are Robin Vanags recollections of visiting Pebble Mill in 1992, around the time that the 21st anniversary of the building was being celebrated:

‘Those of us visiting BBC Pebble Mill from ‘Voice of the Listener & Viewer’ in November 1992 were guided by a gentleman who had worked for the BBC in Birmingham from before the centre was built & who recalled masses of cabling, visible in large apertures in the floors, before the studios opened in 1971.

In addition to the network & local radio facilities, we visited a very smart BBC Midlands Today set, in television studio B, and, after a live broadcast of Pebble Mill (no longer ‘at One’) from television studio A (where the new Sony cameras were in action), we toured studio A’s 3 control rooms (production, lighting & sound) which appeared to me, as sophisticated & impressive as those I’d seen at BBC Television Centre in London. Good Morning with Anne and Nick occupied the foyer – previously home to Pebble Mill At One.’

Robin Vanags

Letterhead circa 1980s

Thanks to Steve Dellow for keeping this A5 notepaper safe, and for sharing it.

Steve found the slightly crumpled letterhead in 1984, in the Communications Centre drawer! The sheet dates from the 1980s, and was designed by graphic designer Lesley Hope-Stone. It’s interesting that telegrams could still be sent to the phone line – I don’t know when that stopped being possible.

This version of the BBC logo was used between 1971 and 1988, the corners of the blocks are rounded in this iteration, whereas the previous version had sharp edged blocks. The line drawing logo of the Pebble Mill building was used soon after it opened in 1971.

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

Dave Harte: ‘Pebble Mill logo is awesome. That should be on a t-shirt.’

Ian Wood: ‘I did work experience at Pebble Mill during my BA Graphic Design course, working alongside graphic designer Lesley Hope-Stone in early 1984. Towards the end of my time she was working on a corporate identity for BBC Pebble Mill to be used across stationery with a view to extending it to the screen – possibly on regional news bulletins and for the copyright line on end credits.

It didn’t quite happen, which was a shame in my view – I loved Lesley’s design. It was superseded by the “flying plughole” logo used for BBC in the Midlands in 1986. It would have been in circulation from (roughly) summer 1984 to summer 1986. I think it was then felt that a logo was needed to represent the whole of the BBC’s activities in the Midlands rather than to symbolise Pebble Mill alone. Hence the flying plughole after the relatively short two years that Lesley’s stripes ruled.’

Here is the ‘flying plughole’ logo which Ian is referring to:

Asa Briggs, historian of the BBC dies

Asa Briggs who wrote a history of the first fifty year of the BBC, as well as an extensive history of broadcasting in Britain, died on March 15, 2016.

Here is his obituary from the Times Higher Education: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/university-sussex-founding-father-asa-briggs-dies

“Asa Briggs, one of the most prominent university leaders of his generation, has died aged 94.

Lord Briggs was one of the most respected and influential figures in post-war British academic life.

An acclaimed writer on the recent social and cultural history of Britain and the history of broadcasting, he was also a “founding father” of the University of Sussex who went on to become its second vice-chancellor (1967–76).

………………..

Lord Briggs, who died on 15 March, was born in Yorkshire in 1921 and served in the intelligence corps at Bletchley Park during the war before he began his rise though the academic ranks.

He worked at Oxford, the Institute for Advanced Studies in the US and the University of Leeds before joining Sussex as pro-vice-chancellor in 1961.

His publications included the celebrated trilogy Victorian People, Victorian Cities and Victorian Things; A Social History of England; and a five-volume History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom.”