Category: Regional

Regional News Opt-Out – photos by Jim Knights

Photos by Jim Knights, no reproduction without permission.

These photos are of a regional news opt out programme recorded in Berlin, and presumably about the Berlin Wall.  Jim Knights was the cameraman, and appears in most of the programmes.  The programme was probably produced at Pebble Mill, although it may pre-date the Pebble Mill years, and be from when the Birmingham newsroom was in Broad Street.

Please add a comment if you can identify other people in the photos, can date it, or add more information.

Midlands Opt-Out Locations – photos by Jim Knights

Photos by Jim Knights, no reproduction without permission.

The photos are from ‘Midlands Opt-Out’ location shoots, dating from the mid 1980s.  Each week there would be a 30′ Regional Opt-Out’ programme, which tended to be location based programme.  Jim Knights is the cameraman (sporting a Top Gear jacket), and he thinks that the other chap in the first photo is Charlie Tremanye (who went to World in Action, rose to Exec Producer and now produces reality TV in the USA and is quite a TV big-wig) and the PA is Linda Flavell.  The other two photos are also from ‘Midlands Opt-Out’ locations.

Thanks to Jane Marriott for providing information about Charlie Tremanye.

Please add a comment if you have more information.

Look! Hear!

'Look Hear' Badge

Look! Hear! was a regional television music and arts show produced at Pebble Mill in the early 1980s which went out in the Midlands on BBC 1.  The series featured genuinely live popular music performances with a studio audience.  It was presented by Toyah Wilcox plus local radio presenters Ann Butler, Liz Cotton, John Holmes and Chris Phipps, who sat around on odd-looking chairs talking about the arts.

Copies of many studio programmes in the 1970s and 80s were not kept by the BBC; they were seen as disposable. Three episodes of Look!Hear! had been lost, but fortunately presenter John Holmes had kept VHS copies of the shows, and so Paul Vanezis from the BBC was to transfer them, and create copies for the BBC programme library.

Thanks to Ian Collins, VT Editor, who worked on the series, for making the badge available.

Midlands Today – photos from Annie Gumbley

Copyright resides with the original photographer, no reproduction without permission.

Midlands Today presenters 1977

This photo shows the Midlands Today presenters from 1977, front row, left to right, Guy Thomas, Kay Alexander, Peter Windows, David Stevens, back row, Michael Hancock, Tom Coyne.

Midlands Today started broadcasting on 28 September 1964, from a studio in Broad Street, Birmingham, and moved to Pebble Mill when the building opened in 1971.

Pebble Mill newsroom 1978

The second photo shows the newsroom itself and includes: Paul Freeman (standing on left), Jo Dewar (on phone), Annie Gumbley (slightly bent over), Julia Gray (Simpkin).

I wonder if the hand bell (foreground) was for organising meetings!

Regional TV, ‘Day Out’ – photos by Gail Herbert

These photos are from the 1983 regional TV series Day Out produced at Pebble Mill.  The first three photos feature Derby; the next four Tewksbury; and the last two the Peak District.  The cameraman in the first photo is Chris Weaver,  in the Tewksbury photos the cameraman is Jim Knights, and soundman Keith Conlon, with Gail Herbert P.A.; the cameraman in the Peak District photos is Pete Smith, Trina Bond the P.A and Mike Derby the director.

Jim Knights & Gail Herbert