May 2012 – Page 3 – What Was Pebble Mill?

Small Town Gardens series 2 – Vanessa Jackson

These stills are from the 2002, second series of ‘Small Town Gardens’. The first series was produced in London, but series 2 and 3 were produced by me at Pebble Mill. Series one was presented by Rachel de Thame, series two by Joe Swift, and series three by James Alexander Sinclair.

The top still is of presenter Joe Swift with garden designer Annie Guilfoyle, explaining the inspiration for the small front garden in Fowey, Cornwall, she was designing for the series.

The second still is of an inspiration trip for garden designer, Andy Sturgeon, with one of the programme’s contributor s and presenter Joe Swift. The garden Andy was designing was a small garden in East Sheen, London – right underneath the Heathrow flight path!

It was a great production team, and a lovely series to make!

Pebble Mill at One – pre planning trip for Billy Joel shoot

Photo by Derek Price, no reproduction without permission.

The photo is of director, John G Smith (on the left). It dates from November 1984, and was at a pre plan for a Billy Joel shoot for ‘Pebble Mill at One’. It was taken on a balcony top, in the U.S.A.

Producer Roz Gower left the following comment on the Facebook Group about how common pre-planning trips were in the 1980s: ‘there were quite a few pre planning type recces done in those days, esp if it was somewhere nice! Alas John Birt put an end to all that fun, sorry, creativity.’

Angels’ OB

Photo by Tim Savage, no reproduction without permission.

The photo is of Engineering Manager, John Allinson. He is enjoying the location catering on an outside broadcast for the hosted drama series, ‘Angels’. Eating a cooked breakfast in a bun required great care – note the tie tucked out of the way, to avoid any dripping egg.

It probably dates from the early 1980s.

Sony Hi8 recorder

Photos by Ian Collins, no reproduction without permission.

VT editor, Ian Collins took photos of obsolete post-production kit before the 2004 auction of equipment when Pebble Mill was cleared prior to being demolished.

These photos are of a Sony Hi8 video recorder.

Hi8 was an 8mm video format, which had better resolution than the earlier Video8, but pre-dated the introduction of Digi8. It was an analogue format, and the ‘Hi’ stands for high-band, as opposed to low-band.

The following comments were left on the Pebble Mill Facebook Group:

John Duckmanton: ‘This machine is still in the bay at The Mailbox and is still used occasionally.’

Peter Poole: ‘I think it was sometimes used for ‘Midlands Today’. The reporter may have used it before the crew arrived.’

Gordon Astley and Children in Need

Photo from Marie Phillips, no reproduction without permission.

The photo dates from May 1993, and shows Radio WM presenter, Gordon Astley, presenting a ‘Children in Need’ cheque for the ‘Allen’s Croft Project’, right outside the front of the Pebble Mill building.