Memories of Gosta Green by Joyce Hawkins, Costume Designer

Gosta Green Studio. Photography by Roger Davis, no reproduction without permission.

I am anxious for this not to be a paean of self-praise, but a celebration of achievement by all Staff who worked at Gosta Green Studio Birmingham, prior to the opening of Pebble Mill, so…

This is my much-abbreviated personal History of Gosta Green Studio, Midland Region, 1958-71.

The studio, a former cinema, opened in 1955, being situated two bus-rides away from the administrative centre at Carpenter Road.

I joined in December 1958 as Wardrobe Supervisor and sole member of the Costume Department. I had a small room with sink, an industrial sewing machine, a telephone and a cupboard containing a box of assorted aprons, a coat circa 1930 and just one Elizabethan sleeve.

The Make-up area had only one member in residence, Neva Bunford, but the two set Designers, Margaret Peacock and Charles Carroll were based at Carpenter Road.

Network Dramas were already in production under the guidance of Peter Dews and during my 13 years there we transmitted 64 single plays and remain justly proud of the reputation given us by renowned critic Kenneth Tynan, who said: “The Mecca of Television Drama is in the Midlands”, (our London colleagues never quite forgave us).

In addition to single plays, both period and contemporary, we made four serials, eight series of differing lengths and five twice-weekly ‘soaps’ all black and white and live.

Rehearsal rooms, Directors, Actors and Costumiers all being centred in London, I spent many hours on trains reading and working on scripts, which on arrival at Paddington would be deposited in a left-luggage locker to save my carrying them around. The I.R.A. then put a stop to this as their activities caused the lockers to be closed for security reasons. On three separate occasions in the early seventies I happened to be very close to their explosions while working with Ian Carmichael on the Peter Wimsey series. One was at St James’ Palace close to Lockes Hatters, where we had been fitting just before.

I attended rehearsals, met actors for fittings at Costumiers, took actors shopping and carried all my purchases back to Brum. (London Designers enjoyed a follow-up system to collect and carry their goods to TVC…). This became a weekly routine during the “Soaps”. On the return journey I read the following week’s scripts.

Our network output was not solely confined either to drama or to the studio, and recalling it all now I am amazed at the variety of programmes we transmitted. Being responsible for both regional and London productions whenever they came into the Midland area, I travelled widely, to Cosford and Bridgnorth RAF stations for the Charlie Chester Shows, somewhere into the countryside for Children’s Caravan, to Nottingham Ice Rink for Cool Spot and Hot Ice and Nottingham Theatre for Treasure Island, Leeds Playhouse for Barney Colehan’s Palace of Varieties and spent a week each year in Great Yarmouth for End of Pier Shows. Another annual event, nearer base in Birmingham, was Barrie Edgar’s Chipperfields Circus. I provided costume for Beaulieu Motor Museum, including an early policewoman’s uniform which I was obliged to wear myself when the artiste failed to arrive, and a docudrama on the history of Westminster Abbey.

Back at Gosta Green studio a series of six Beverley Sisters shows recorded in one week needed alterations to each of the twenty-one dresses they provided to wear per day. I worked until midnight with no assistance. When at last I was able to employ occasional freelance help, I was grateful for talented girls from the Handsworth School of Dress Design. After this early start several of them continued their careers in Costume and became TV Designers. Male dressers were sent on request from London for several years until I was granted an in-house secretary and three permanent wardrobe staff in 1964. Before this all paperwork, orders, invoices etc went from Carpenter Road.

We regional Designers occasionally stood in for one another, so I went to Cardiff when Mary Husband was unavailable, and Joan Wakefield came from Bristol to cover for my two maternity leaves.

On Christmas Eve 1961 I gave birth to my son, Stephen and became a rare member of Staff. The BBC did not have many working mothers in those days! In 1965 Stephen’s sister, Caroline arrived. This latter occasion was during the run of The Flying Swan, with film star Margaret Lockwood, a charming and very professional lady who took delight in speculating on the sex of my expected baby. She was good fun and a pleasure to work with. Another set designer, Michael Edwards, came at this time, but no costume designer joined me until Pebble Mill.

We were kept busy with the many musical programmes, classical and pop. We had the Midland Light Orchestra whose grey jackets were my responsibility, as were the choristers’ surplices for Xmas Carols from Kings College Cambridge, dipped to the requisite mixture of Elephant Grey and beige after laundering, pure white being unacceptable in those days.

There were regional opt-outs, magazine programmes with items of local interest and news, and all this was scheduled to fit in between the dramas. I believe Pot Black and Top Gear originated with us, Percy Thrower’s Gardeners’ World came from a tiny little area outside. Eileen Fowler had her team of housewives appearing in a programme called Keep Fit.

My first drama production in Birmingham was Pinero’s The Magistrate on December 20th 1958 followed by So Many Children on December 27th.I had costumed these during my probationary period in London.  In January we transmitted the six-part series The Nightwatchman. Next Peter Dews directed the six-part serial Hilda Lessways, starring Judi Dench and Eileen Atkins. My costume designs being made at costumiers in London, we relied on them and British Rail to deliver on time and in finished condition, but …as Judi entered the studio her elaborate cascading bustle fell to the floor in a heap of satin and lace….as the direction “standby studio” rang out, I was on my knees frantically pinning it back up. Judi remained calm and I spent the scene huddled behind a sofa on set.

November 1959 saw us filming on War Office territory in Thetford for The Case of Private Hamp, the story of an execution for cowardice in WWI. This necessitated the use of army cadets from a public school as extras. The bleak and cold conditions were exacerbated by firemen using their hoses so the boys showed initiative by making a fire from wreckage timber to dry their sodden uniforms. Called for action, they rushed out in a cloud of steam. The khaki dye made pretty patterns through their string vests!

In 1961 came Spycatcher, a series based on the wartime experiences of Lieutenant Colonel Pinto and then fourteen single plays, including Waiting for Godot and She Stoops to Conquer, in which Derek Jacobi made his first TV appearance, playing Marlow, a character with a stammer. He told me later that his aunt thought this due to his nervousness but that she understood better before he played Claudius! Part of a costume designer’s job I discovered, is to calm and reassure artists making their first appearance before the cameras. Amongst these I remember Vladimir Ashkenazy before he gave a superb virtuoso performance in one of our classical concerts. Nervousness also overcame the actors in The Newcomers, one of our twice-weeklies, when we went into tele-recording. They thought all their little hesitations and fluffs would be shown over and over again and not edited out!

I enjoyed designing period costumes, and there were many opportunities, including the interesting serial Alexander Graham Bell starring Alex MacCowan and Francesca Annis, but we were soon to be plunged into the era of ‘kitchen sink’. At Gosta we were pioneers of innovative stories, being the first in 1967 to examine the lives and problems facing our immigrant population with a play, The Dark Man,  starring Earl Cameron and a series Rainbow City featuring Gemma Jones and Errol John in a mixed-race marriage. These were location film and studio, followed by the twice-weekly footballers’ United, Newcomers, Swizzlewick, The Doctors and Owen MD. These last two caused very long hours for Costume folk. Finishing in studio at 10pm, we packed costumes, travelled the thirty miles to Chipping Campden in the Cotswolds, unpacked and were ready to start filming at 5am, every week! I escaped this routine twice, leaving the series in the capable hands of my assistant, Ann Brown, and went with Bernard Hepton to Cambridge for The Life of A. E. Houseman, and with Freddie Jones for David Jones’ Omnibus series, John Clare – I Am. This latter filming had the unit involved in an actual murder in Epping Forest!

We can also claim to have been an irritant for Mary Whitehouse’s campaign … although undeservedly, with an innocent and very funny scene in Swizzlewick, one of our soaps.

The studio was sometimes used as a try-out, and after the success of a pilot episode, we were disappointed that the subsequent production would go to London. We found however, that once artistes discovered the journey to Birmingham ended in the friendly intimate atmosphere of our small studio and staff, they were pleased to return. Michael Caine came twice, and Thora Hird more than once, the first time reducing those of us in the gallery to tears by the pathos of her character. I can also claim to have recognised star quality in a performance of Michael’s with Sheila Burrell in Jonny Speight’s drama, Playmates. On no other occasion watching from the gallery have I felt I was intruding into the privacy of others. A brilliant script and extraordinary performances from them both!

This is only a brief account of the output from Gosta Green Studio, which should not be allowed to pass without due recognition. I have correlated it all from my person notebooks, diaries and BBC copyright photographs and believe it to be an accurate and honest account.

I could not have enjoyed being a working mother without the support of my husband, Robert, and the understanding and encouragement of senior staff at Carpenter Road.

My colleagues at Gosta Green were without exception friendly and cooperative. Together we were a great team, taking pride in our work, sharing and helping to alleviate problems and rejoicing together at our successes; a splendid example of collaboration between all skills. Sadly, we left this small studio for the larger ones at Pebble Mill …

Addendum:

The greatly anticipated day duly arrived when the first sod was to be cut for our new home at Pebble Mill.

I had already discovered that my wardrobe would be in ‘Phase 2’ of the development, and “temporarily” was in the basement with no access to natural daylight. I later found out that the small ‘drip-dry’ area had an electric point at floor level! My office, to share with Make-Up, was several floors distant and had no telephone….

Back to the grand opening. It rained. All staff assembled, for Gosta, Carpenter Road and Broad Street news studio (which was situated above a car showroom in central Birmingham). Charles Curran, Director General, was due to arrive at this wet marquee where an oblong space had been cut in the carpet (!), to allow him access to the turf to be cut with an purpose-made long-handled silver spade.  Minutes before his expected arrival someone decided that the exposed strip of muddy grass did not look green, so Design Department was called upon to rectify this with a spray-can of green paint.

Just in time…before the DG arrived to tell us how proud he was to be “Opening these new premises for the BBC. The only building in Europe to be built containing both Radio and Television Studios here in MANCHESTER …..”

Perhaps prescient: Pebble Mill has returned to the turf….Gosta Green Studio building remains, an annexe to Aston University.

Joyce Hawkins

Senior Costume Designer Head of Department (retired)

The Nightwatchman 1959

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The Nightwatchman was a six part series of stories by W. W. Jacobs, adapted by Donal Giltinan, and produced by Peter Dews at the BBC Gosta Green studios. It starred Wally Patch as Bill, the Nightwatchman,  and Marjorie Rhodes as Mrs Gibbs. The series was transmitted in January and February 1959.

Here is the list of participants, from the Radio Times entry:

Author: W.W. Jacobs
Adapter: Donal Giltinan
Producer: Peter Dews
Music for the concertina composed and played by: Alfred Edwards
Designer: Stewart Marshall
Director: Terence Dudley
Bill: Wally Patch
Joe Gibbs: Victor Platt
George Brown: Hal Osmond
Bob Kidd: Douglas Ives
Landlord: Norman Pierce
Mrs Atkins: Hilda Barry
Mrs Joe Gibbs: Marjorie Rhodes
Mrs Briggs: Vi Stevens
First Customer: Charles Lamb
Second Customer: Anthony Sagar
Docker: Frank Sieman
Police Constable: Stanley Beard

Thanks to Costume’s Joyce Hawkins for sharing the photo.

Hilda Lessways 1959

Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission

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Thanks to costume designer, Joyce Hawkins, for making this photograph of Judi Dench, playing Hilda Lessways, in the eponymous role, in the 1959 studio drama, from Gosta Green, available. Hilda Lessways was a six part adaptation of Arnold Bennett’s novel, ‘Clayhanger’. It was produced by Peter Dews, dramatised by Michael Voysey, and designed by Margaret Peacock. Note that Violet Carson, who went on to become Ena Sharples in Coronation Street, played the character, Auntie Hamps.

Below is the entry from the Radio Times, courtesy of the BBC Genome project:

 

Synopsis

A serial in six parts.
Based on ‘Clayhanger’ and ‘Hilda Lessways’ by Arnold Bennett.
Dramatised by Michael Voysey.

[Starring] Judi Dench, William Squire
With Brian Smith, Violet Carson
From the BBC’s Midland television studio

Contributors

Author: Arnold Bennett
Dramatised by: Michael Voysey
Producer: Peter Dews
Designer: Margaret Peacock

Hilda Lessways: Judi Dench
Mrs Lessways: Beatrice Varley
Mrs Grant: Alison Bayley
Clerk: Philip Garston-Jones
George Cannon: William Squire
Florrie Bagster: Jacqueline Wilson
Janet Orgreave: Miranda Connell
Sarah Galley: Nancie Jackson
Mr Karkeek: David Lytton
Edwin Clayhanger: Brian Smith
Auntie Hamps: Violet Carson
Maggie Clayhanger: Eileen Atkins
Darius Clayhanger: Chris Gittins
Post Boy: Paul Taylor

http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/023f8773118e4d5e985029334e7d5f1a

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This Year, Next Year

Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission

Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission

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This publicity photograph is from a BBC Midlands drama produced in 1962 at Gosta Green in Birmingham.  It was transmitted on the BBC on 29th June 1962 at 21.25.

Thanks to costume designer, Joyce Hawkins for sharing the photograph.

The drama was networked, and below is the Radio Times entry, courtesy of the BBC Genome project:

http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/38fa043c5d0e47ce9a1319f1f15a0258

Synopsis
by JACK RONDER starring
ELIZABETH SELLARS and BRENDA BRUCE
Produced by Peter Dews Cast in order of appearance:
Designer, Donald Homfray
From the Midlands
Margaret and Louie, two sisters, are on the shelf, but then one of them has a chance to escape.

Contributors
Writer: Jack Ronder
Margaret: Elizabeth Sellars
Louie: Brenda Bruce
Produced By: Peter Dews
Designer: Donald Homfray
Charlie: Frank Jarvis
Joe Charlie’s father: Noel Johnson
Bert: James Grout
Joyce: Jane Merrow

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The Alchemist – Tony Garnett

Roger Shannon and Tony Garnett in conversation. Copyright Flatpack

Roger Shannon and Tony Garnett in conversation. Copyright Flatpack.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last night I went to Tony Garnett’s book signing event at the Ikon Gallery, Birmingham. Tony was in conversation with Roger Shannon, and when asked why he wrote his memoirs, The Day the Music Died, he said, because he had to. He described it as a very painful process, where sometimes he had to stop writing because he couldn’t see the page through his tears! Tony certainly seemed to have experienced more than his fair share of tragedy, especially early in his childhood, when he lost his mother. He told the audience that until he wrote the book, that he hadn’t realised how much his childhood experiences had shaped his approach to the dramas he later produced. Tony was born in 1936, in Erdington and remembered the war in Birmingham well. He was brought up in a large family, with many uncles and aunts, and lots of cousins. He began his working life as an actor, and had a promising career, appearing in a number of stage and television plays. One television play he acted in was The Alchemist, produced by Peter Dews, which was a live drama from Gosta Green, BBC’s Birmingham drama studios before Pebble Mill was built. Also appearing in this production was Topsy Jane, who Tony described as the love of his life, who sadly later suffered from mental health issues.

Here is the Radio Times entry for The Alchemist, by Ben Jonson, transmitted on 29th May 1961, at 21.20. You’ll notice Tony’s credit towards the bottom of the list, playing ‘Kastril, the Angry Boy’:

http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/90d4bd2d1ff14e8b8724dc8bbfe8419b

“starring
AI.AN DOBIE
PATSY ROWLANDS
JOHN WARNER
Produced by Peter Dews
Neighbours, Officers:
Colin Campbell , Mary Chester
Roser Croueher , Murray Gilmore Timothy Harley , Loelia Kidd
Henry Manning , Monica Stewart Isobel Swan
Face and his confederates, Subtle and Doll Common, get up to every trick, squeezing money out of the gullible and the greedy. These lead to outrageous complications which resolve only as the play ends.
Designer, Charles Carroll From the Midlands
See page 21

Contributors
Unknown: Patsy Rowlands
Unknown: John Warner
Produced By: Peter Dews
Unknown: Colin Campbell
Unknown: Mary Chester
Unknown: Roser Croueher
Unknown: Murray Gilmore
Unknown: Timothy Harley
Unknown: Loelia Kidd
Unknown: Henry Manning
Unknown: Monica Stewart
Unknown: Isobel Swan
Designer: Charles Carroll
Face, the Housekeeper: Alan Dobie
Subtile the Alchemist: John Warner
DoH Common, their Colleague: Patsy Rowlands
Lovewit Master of the House: William Mervyn
Dapper, a Lawyer’s Clerk: Edward Petherbridge
Abel Drugger, A Tobacco Man: Terry Scully
Sir Epicure Mammon, a Knight: Thomas Gallagher
Pertinax Surly, a Gamester: Jerome Willis
Ananias, a Deacon: David William
TribulationWholesome, a Pastor: Peter Duguid
Kastril, the Angry Boy: Tony Garnett
Dame Plianthis Sister, a Widow: Topsy Jane”

Unfortunately this production seems to have been Tony’s only work for BBC Birmingham, although he was friendly with David Rose, so it was a little surprising that he never produced any of the English Regions Drama Department plays from Pebble Mill.

Tony Garnett in The Alchemist, copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission

Tony Garnett in The Alchemist, copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission. Thanks to Joyce Hawkins for sharing the photo.

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