Photos by Steve Johnson, no reproduction without permission
‘Clearing out the News VT Library at BBC Pebble Mill sixteen years ago. Preparing for the move to the Mailbox. My previous manager Garry Campbell looking on wistfully.
I was by this time working in the newsroom on BBC Birmingham Online but still daily visited my old offices next to the newsroom, sad to see them being emptied. Harvinder plugging a beta tape into a machine in the newsroom in the second photo.’
Steve Johnson
I have received news that Ray Sperry, one of Pebble Mill’s vision crew, has died. Ray started working for the BBC in Birmingham back in the Gosta Green / Broad Street days and during the Pebble Mill period; working both on O.B.s and in the studios. He rose to become Vision Supervisor on CM1 and CM2, and like everyone else in OBs, lost his job when Outside Broadcasts in the Midlands closed down, in 1992.
A much loved member of the crew, Ray was always convivial, professional and knowledgeable.
The following comments were left on the Pebble Mill Facebook page:
Robin Sunderland: ‘Ray was a lovely man’
Andy Frizzell: ‘I Remember Ray, as Robin says, lovely man, always a pleasant and knowledgable man. People like him are a breed that’s getting thinner on the ground in the TV industry and we’ll be all the poorer for it. ‘
Malcolm Hickman: ‘As Andy says, Ray was a great bloke. Very helpful when you were trying to put a rig in on OBs. Another good bloke gone.’
Refurbished Studio A Gallery. Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission.
Hard to believe but this month (March 2018) it is 20 years since Studio A came back into use after it’s digital widescreen refurbishment. The strip out had started just before Christmas 97, and then the rebuild continued early 98. Sadly as we all know the new studio had a very short life. I could be wrong (corrections please) , but I think the first programme in the new studio was Can’t Cook Won’t Cook. The picture is of the new production gallery.
Stuart Gandy
Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission
Invitation from Phil Sidey, Head of Broadcasting, to Pebble Mill’s 10th Night Out, to celebrate the building’s 10th birthday, which would have been in 1981. £2 seems very good value for a four course dinner and a night of entertainment. Apparently the comedian had a very funny Rod Stewart impression!
Thanks to Roy Thompson for sharing the invitation, and keeping it safe all these years.
Photographs from Stuart Gandy, no reproduction without permission
Pres studio at Pebble Mill. This was probably taken around 2004, when the studio was being decommissioned with the move from Pebble Mill to the Mailbox.
Thanks to Stuart Gandy for sharing the photographs, which were originally posted on the Pebble Mill Engineers’ Facebook group.
The following comments were left on the Pebble Mill Facebook page:
Jason Dean: ‘The pres studio was largely left unused between it being the home of nightly weekday regional continuity during the late 1970s (all evening between Midlands Today and closedown in the early hours) and being used for Breakfast bulletins from Jan 1983. It looks like the photo might have been taken during this fallow period judging by the state of it?!’
Diane Kemp: ‘I did loads of bulletins from the little self opt studio, including the memorable time the Midlands was snowbound and we were interrupting network – all from there.
Can’t see it clearly enough to see the desk, the backdrop or the seat adjacent where SAs sat.’
Jane Green: ‘It looks like it’s being built or dismantled here….we SAs sat to the right of the presenter. It was a squash. The second photo shows what looks like a control desk that the presenter operated. Later on we had a proper backing with logo. Which once fell off on air as Jonathan Dick reminded me…National inserts were done from Pres too, if you had a guest for news or Newsnight. I sat there with Michael Heseltine one evening for what seemed an age. If it’s not Pres, I can’t think where it might be. The cameras would only be in Studio B or A otherwise?
Diane Kemp: ‘It’d be great to see a photo of it as it was. I’d say ‘in all its glory’, but to be fair it was never a beautiful space. Rivalled only by the fab studio in Nottingham above the probation service offices where you could hear the women’s toilets flush on-air.’