Pebble Mill at One – Page 33 – What Was Pebble Mill?

Pebble Mill at One outside broadcast – photos by John Burkill

Photos by Pebble Mill VT engineer and supervisor John Burkill, no reproduction without permission.

These photos of a Pebble Mill at One outside broadcast from October 1981.

Studio C Gallery – photos by Peter Poole

Photos by Peter Poole, no reproduction without permission.

These photos show Studio C vision control and lighting desk (photo 1), vision mixer (photo 2), and production desk (photo 3).

The main use of this gallery was working with the foyer studio area. ‘Pebble Mill at One’ and ‘Good Morning with Anne and Nick’ were broadcast live from the foyer.

Peter Poole

Daytime Live – behind the scenes

Here is a behind the scenes clip of ‘Daytime Live’ from 1 November 1988, presented by Alan Titchmarsh. It was one of the successors to ‘Pebble Mill at One’, and had a very similar magazine format. This clip is one of a series recorded by the BFI as part of their ‘One day in the life of television’ project in 1988.

The excerpt shows Alan Titchmarsh giving a behind the scenes tour of the ‘Daytime Live’ office, with a psychologist commenting on the state of the production team’s desks and what they say about them as people. Featured are David Morgenstern and Jane McCloskey.

‘Daytime Live’ was recorded in Studio C, like ‘Pebble Mill at One’.

Jane Clement added the following information via the Facebook page: ‘Nice to see the back of my head there (at the first desk as Alan enters the office, opposite the gorgeous Steph). It was actually Jane (not Jo) McCluskey, I think – she was Queen of Books at the time, a role I held myself before her when I took over from the late great Jenny Cowan. Of all my jobs at PM, that was probably my favourite, given my lifelong love affair with books. Also interesting to see David Morgenstern; he and I had bought a house together in Harborne that year (purely as friends, I should say); I was due to emigrate to Australia the next month (December 88) and I laughingly thought the house would be a good investment. How wrong I was!’

Pebble Mill at One – photo from Maggy Whitehouse

Photo from Maggy Whitehouse, no reproduction without permission.

The photo features key members of the Pebble Mill at One presentational team: (left to right) Magnus Magnusson, Paul Coia, Marian Foster, Bob Langley, Josephine Buchan. It probably dates from the mid 1980s. It was taken at Peta Newbold’s house in Selly Park, where everyone ended up after the very last Pebble Mill at One.

Dancing Diggers at Pebble Mill

Stills from Ian Collins, no reproduction without permission.

These stills are of the JCB ‘Dancing Diggers’, performing in the back car park at Pebble Mill. They were appearing an episode of Pebble Mill at One.

Video editor, Brian Watkiss, thinks they date from the mid 1970s. He remembers them being in the 10th Anniversary compilation – one of his very first jobs in VT!