Slade rehearsal
Chris Wright – director
Photos by Jane Mclean, no reproduction without permission.
These photos are from the Tom O’Connor Roadshow in Blackpool, 1987. The top photo shows a rehearsal of the live show with the band, Slade. The lower photo shows one of the multi-camera directors, Chris Wright, deep in thought over the script.
Thanks to Jane Mclean for sharing the photos.
Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission.
This title’s grab is from Good Morning Summer, a summer version of the daytime magazine show – Good Morning with Anne and Nick, but this time presented by Sarah Greene and Will Hanrahan. It went out in 1995. There was a different, brighter and more summery set, with the conservatory in the courtyard, and the courtyard itself, used much of the time.
Thanks to Ian Collins for making the grab available.
Sue Nicholson, who worked in Regional Television at Pebble Mill in the 1970s and early 1980s, sadly died on Saturday 3rd May 2014. She was diagnosed with cancer some years ago and after surgery and treatment appeared to have recovered. Unfortunately the cancer returned last year and despite further surgery and chemotherapy the tumour spread further. She died at home, surrounded by her family. She celebrated her 62nd birthday on Thursday 1st May.
Sue worked on a range of regional output at Pebble Mill, before returning to London and working in the Sports Department.
(Thanks for Katie Cooper for sharing this information)
Pebble Mill Newsroom
Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission.
This article is from Garden Living magazine, Spring 2004. It features a very steep garden in Dartmouth, Devon, which was redesigned by garden designer, Mary Reynolds, as part of the third and final series of Small Town Gardens. The series was presented by James Alexander Sinclair. I was the series producer, and really enjoyed making this series. Paul Vanezis was the producer/director of this episode.
The garden was incredibly steep, and difficult to access, and it proved a real challenge to get the materials in and out. I remember that there was some friction between the contributors and the garden makeover team – which led to some interesting times on and off screen! It was a beautiful, and very natural looking garden when finished.
Vanessa Jackson
(This Press Release, held at the BBC Archives in Caversham, announced the intention of building Pebble Mill, although the actual studios did not open until nine years later. Notice that the Release concentrates on the spiral car park – which was never built, and the canteen and Club – which certainly were! It does not mention the television or radio studios, which is strange because it emphasises that the Midland Region centre would be the first broadcast centre in Europe to combine both television and radio facilities.)
Photo, Model, February 1962. This digital resource is available under a Creative Commons CC-BY-SA 3.0 license, with kind permission of the Birmingham & Five Counties Architectural Association Trust, thanks to the Architectus project (part of the Jisc Content Programme 2011-13).
BBC Midland Region Press Service
For release 12 noon, Monday 12th November, 1962
New BBC Midland Region Broadcasting Headquarters
Statement by R.H.S. Howell
(Head of Building Department BBC)
For a long time it has been the BBC’s policy to re-house its Regional Headquarters in more efficient and up-to-date buildings equipped with the most modern plant, and with this in view suitable schemes for other Regional centres are now in various stages of development. In all of them the common aim and object is to accommodate the whole activities of each centre on one site.
The Midland Region is one of the first to benefit under this policy and the proposed Birmingham Headquarters is unique in that it is the first headquarters in the Country and, indeed, in Europe, which has been planned and designed from the start to fulfil the carefully integrated requirements of both sound and television broadcasting under one roof. The new building will provide facilities for all types of sound and television productions and will include a base for outside broadcast vehicles and their equipment, with a ramped spiral car park above for approximately 350 cars and, of course, an administration block in which will be included a staff restaurant and BBC Club premises.
The scheme has been prepared in association with the BBC’s Building Department and in accordance with BBC detailed requirements which, amongst other things aimed to satisfy the following principles:
Additionally, the Architect was requested to plan the building complex in such a way that, if future needs arise, a second medium-size television production studio can be added at a later date as a second stage of development along with an increase in the size of the scenery production area, extra dressing rooms etc., and with minimum disturbance to the then existing buildings.
All these factors have contributed to the physical grouping of the elements. Clearly the functional requirements of broadcasting are of prime importance, but the resultant forms evolve from these in relation to the principles outlined above.