Category: Radio

TA Training Book 1980 – from Stuart Gandy

This Pebble Mill blue training book was issued to TA (technical assistant) Stuart Gandy in 1980. It was full of tasks for a new trainee to do. It also contained floor plans of PM as well as system drawings for TV, radio and comms, and some organisational charts which are what is shown in these photos.

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.

WCR Inside Tracks – Tom Coyle

The archive ‘Inside Tracks’ featuring Tom Coyne is being broadcast on Wolverhampton Community Radio (WCR) Sunday evening (9th Oct 2022) at 5pm.
The archive ‘Inside Tracks’ at 5pm remembers the legendary broadcaster Tom Coyne, who died in 2015. Pete Whitehouse met Tom and recorded his ‘Inside Tracks’ programme in 2010 at a time when he was living in retirement in Tettenhall, Wolverhampton.
Tom was originally from the North East of England, having been born in South Shields and was the first new reader on Tyne Tees television in Newcastle. In the programme, Tom talked through his life, and we play music from some of the people he’d met during his long career in radio and television.
Tom was on the first edition of ‘Nationwide’ and also presented many other shows including: ‘Songs of Praise’, ‘Dance Dates’, ‘Come Dancing’ and ‘Top Gear’ plus hundreds of programmes as the Geordie gamekeeper Gordon Armstrong in ‘The Archers’ on radio.
For more about Tom and a video of him in his heyday at ‘Midlands Today’ follow this link: https://www.pebblemill.org/blog/tom-coyne-rip/“

Paul Brighton 1959-2021

We had a mini BBC Radio WM 80s/90s reunion today (10 Jan 2022).

Sadly we were together for the funeral of our friend and colleague Paul Brighton at Tettenhall, but it was lovely to see Carole, Kasel, Louise and Claire after so many years.

I never knew that Paul had once reached the Semi-Finals of Mastermind.

Lots of laughs and good memories, just as it should be. RIP Paul.

Tim Beech

Paul Brighton

Radio WM Presenter, Paul Brighton

(The following obituary was written by Paul Brighton’s friend and colleague, Tim Beech. Paul sadly died in 23 Nov 2021).
I am very sad to report that the former BBC WM presenter Paul Brighton has died at the age of only 62.

Paul was part of a Golden Age for WM in the 1990s during which he presented the “Coming Home” programme. He had previously produced Ed Doolan.

A highly intelligent man, Paul was originally a Wolverhampton Grammar School boy who went on to study at Cambridge. He was fascinated by politics, serving at one time as a local councillor, and he continued to satisfy his love for journalism and broadcasting as the Executive Principal Lecturer and Head of Media and Film at Wolverhampton University, a post he held for several years.

I got to know Paul extremely well during the many years he sat opposite the WM sports team, and later also had the privilege of giving a number of talks to support his course at Wolverhampton, as well as partnering a student placement programme for some of his cohort while I was managing BBC Radio Shropshire.

He is gone far too soon at a young age and his death will sadden a great many former colleagues and friends who enjoyed both his bright company and his great intelligence for many years. RIP.

Tim Beech