Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission.
The photo is of the Radio Birmingham carnival float, in the 1970s.
Included in the photo, left to right, bottom row, Annie Gumbley Williams, Kathy Nelson (Scott), now married to David Nelson. Second row Carol McLeod, Dave Lowe, Claire McCloud (copytaker). Back row, Peter York, Alex Lester, Chris Phipps,?, Pete Simpkin standing by the gramophone (producer/presenter).
Thanks to Pete Simpkin for sharing the photo.
Photos by Richard Stevenson, no reproduction without permission.
The photos show the tough life of the cameraman on location!
The cameraman is James French, on a music outside broadcast at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens, in July 1989. The top photo seems to show two of the singers rehearsing or warming up.
The article below is taken from: http://www.desiblitz.com/content/5-bbc-asian-television-shows-to-remember
“The BBC is celebrating 50 years of its programming for South Asian immigrants which started in the 60s and for the subsequent new British Asian generations into the 80s, 90s and onwards.
Programming for Asian immigrants who arrived in Britain started at 9.00am on 10th October 1965 on BBC1.
In Logon Se Miliye was the first programme which was then replaced by Apna hi Ghar Samajhiye known as Make Yourself at Home in 1966.
The programme produced by David Gretton was also repeated on BBC2 and on BBC radio.
Offering a mix of language lessons in everyday English and popular music from Indian and Pakistani films, the programme aimed to help Asians cope with everyday life.
Subsequently, shows like Nai Zindagi Naya Jeevan and Gharbar for women, appeared on BBC television.
Both radio and television progressively began to broadcast shows targeting Asians living and now settled in Britain.
BBC Radio shows like East and West, Midlands Masala and the emergence of BBC Asian Network as a station, all contributed to this programming.
It was the late 80s and 90s when BBC programming for Asians took a new direction, to appeal to new generations of British Asians.
The television programmes were produced by the BBC Asian Programmes Unit (APU), based at Pebble Mill in Birmingham.
The APU was headed by Narendhra Morar and subsequently taken over by Paresh Solanki during this era of BBC’s multicultural programming.
Other members of the team included Narinder Minhas, Tommy Nagra, Fatima Salaria, Farah Durrani, Sangita Manandhar, Gurdip Bhangoo, Jane Dunning and Sara Kozak.
We remember five popular shows from this special era of BBC Asian television.
NETWORK EAST
(Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission)
This weekly lifestyle and entertainment programme was launched in 1987 on BBC2 on Saturday mornings.
It was the first programme to be fully broadcast in English.
This lively show had a series of well-known presenters through its time, including, Valerie Vaz and Samantha Meah, Krishnan Guru-Murthy, Mo Dutta, Shahnaz Pakravan, Sudha Kumari (now known as Sudha Bhuchar), Sanjeev Kohli and Sonia Deol.
It featured lots of major stars and acts including Amitabh Bachchan, Mehmood, Salman Khan, Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Gurdas Maan and Shobu Kapoor (Geeta in EastEnders).
With Bhangra bands being huge at the time, Azaad, Alaap, Heera, Apna Sangeet and many more were featured on the show.
The Network East Mega Mela event was the first major indoor mela held at the NEC in Birmingham.
The show featured and supported live acts and upcoming bands.
In 1998, Asia 2 was used to group Asian programmes shown on BBC 2 on Saturday mornings, starting with Network East: Big Talk, a show discussing Asian issues.
A late night version of the show called Network East Late was aired in 2001.
EAST
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This was a programme produced to address current affairs and controversial issues affecting the South Asian communities in Britain.
Aired weekly from 1990, on BBC2 on Tuesday evenings, it tackled many areas of Asian life in its episodes. Including:
The increasing number of young Asians choosing mainstream pop over the traditional Asian music market after success of Babylon Zoo.
Growing numbers of elderly Asian parents who expected to be cared for by their children are finding themselves alone or in homes.
Increasing numbers of Asian women in Britain becoming involved in prostitution, after running away from sheltered and unhappy homes
EAST – tackled issue of prostitution
Some episodes of the series instigated complaints for their hard-hitting nature.
CAFE 21
The newer generations of British Asians had many social and personal issues to deal with during the 90s.
Cafe 21 was targeted at this youth and debated topics and matters concerning them.
The setting was usually a ‘student common room’ with an audience of young guests who debated topical issues with the presenter Rajesh Mirchandani.
Participants frequently discussed education, careers, religion, racism, relationships, politics, multiculturalism, integration and lots more.
It was aired on Saturday mornings on BBC2 from 1997.
BOLLYWOOD OR BUST
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This programme was shown on BBC2 on a Saturday morning from 1994 and was an amazing concept of a gameshow using Bollywood as its theme.
Presenters of the show were first Mo Dutta and then Sanjeev Bhaskar.
Four contestants were invited into the studios to take part in a series of question and Bollywood trivia rounds.
Each round was introduced with a dramatic piece of Bollywood film music and each round was named in Hindi and English.
Each episode progressively led to a semi-final and then a final.
The winning prize was a fully paid trip to Bollywood itself and a chance to meet some of the biggest stars at that time, including, Shahrukh Khan, Saif Ali Khan, Dev Anand and many more.
FLAVOURS OF INDIA
At the time this was one of the first cookery television shows of its kind. It used the concept of on location cooking with the hugely popular, Madhur Jaffrey, as the cookery star, travelling across India.
The six-part series was directed by Navin Thapar and produced by Sara Kozak and a team from the BBC and India. It was aired from 1995.
Different cuisines were brought to you in each episode featuring a specific state of India and its speciality dishes. Including, Goa, Kerala, Gujarat, Punjab and Tamil Nadu.
Madhur narrated her visits and provided historical facts about each place and made the dishes outside on location.
A book was published to accompany the series.
Most of the above shows were aired on Saturday mornings on BBC 2, which was dominated by BBC Asian programmes – a history in the making, in its own unique way.
Although Asian programmes today are still part of the BBC agenda, the Asian Programmes Unit was closed in 2008. So, it’s unlikely that we shall ever witness another era of domination by shows like the ones we remember here.’
The following comments were left on the Pebble Mill Facebook page:
Tony Jover: ‘I recall we used to do a Top 10 Bollywood movies section, a fashion section and more. At one stage it was presented by Sanjeev Bhaskar. I used to edit Network East with Paresh Solanki.’
Viv Ellis: ‘I worked on the very first Network East under Narendhra Morar, as a director, doing studio and location shoots and editing. We recorded the show in the small studio (can’t remember what it was called) [Studio B] with a “band days” in studio A. We had all sorts of amazing music.’
Gordon Astley: ‘I remember my first TV job was boom op. at Gosta Green about 1970. I remember trying to get as near to a sitar as possible. Must have been one of the first of these shows?’
Bridget Catherine Vaughan: ‘I worked in the days of Ashok Rampal.’
Photo by Jean Palmer, no reproduction without permission.
This plate was the winning design from a viewers’ competition, on Good Morning with Anne and Nick. The plate design was then made into a real plate.
Benedict Peissel is a Dubbing Mixer who specialises in post production audio for television across a wide range of genres (Factual, Drama, Animation & Documentary).
Between January 1985 – 1994 he was an Audio Assistant at BBC Pebble Mill and then from 1994 – 1996 he progressed to the position of Audio Supervisor and from 1996 to the present day as Dubbing Mixer (latterly as a freelancer).
In the following transcription, he looks back on his time at Pebble Mill and how it prepared him for a career in audio production…
(Sam Coley – Birmingham City University)
Ben Peissel, with mixing desk. Photo by Sam Coley, no reproduction without permission
“I started at the BBC 30 years ago as a trainee audio assistant completing a three year apprenticeship. During that time, I worked in radio and television studios, radio and television outside broadcasts, location sound recording and TV post production. So, wherever there was a need for sound in a production, as a trainee, I would work on it – and that gave me a fantastic grounding to appreciate sound in all its diverse wonders!”
“Pebble Mill in Birmingham was pretty much unique amongst all the BBC bases, in that the Audio department serviced both radio and TV, whereas in most other parts of the BBC you were compartmentalised into television, radio, location or OBs. That notion of being tied to one element, whether it was radio or TV, seemed far too restrictive. At Pebble Mill the idea was that if you worked across all of the craft areas, your spread of experience meant you could be more flexibly deployed.”
“Some people would say you ended up as a ‘Jack of all trades and master of none’! I actually think the opposite, it was handled very well in the sense that, at a junior level you ended up with a really good grounding across all the genres, but as you progressed, you might start to specialise in two or three areas. In my case, TV and radio outside broadcasts and post production sound, became my forte. For other people, perhaps they would specialise purely in radio drama work, or documentary work, or light entertainment TV work. There was enough scope for people to have specialisms, but also, if the need arose, to jump in and still do the basics, like clip a microphone, on somebody.”
“I think I was very fortunate to have landed up in a job like that, in a culture that fostered innovation and collaboration across the board. Pebble Mill, the people and the place, thrived on the cross-fertilisation between radio and TV, and vice versa – and in fact neither radio or TV was seen as better than the other, they were just seen as interlocking parts of a bigger jigsaw puzzle.
(Benedict Peissel – Dubbing Mixer)
The following comments were left on the Pebble Mill Facebook page:
Carolyn Davies: ‘I’m proud to have been a member of Pebble Mill’s Audio Unit, best training ground and best variety of work in the country…..sentiments echoed completely here…hope you are well Ben!’
Pete Simpkin: ‘I agree that the wider the early experience the better the basic training. I was lucky in the 1960s to be a member of one of the early ‘sub-region’ units…we were the original multi-taskers. We were engineers by definition but handled all aspects of audio and video from studio camera ops to OBs, area VHF news broadcasts, telecine to audio mixing,film processing and at the start even changing the toilet rolls in the loos! Didn’t get far with the last one there but I enjoyed every minute and with all the knowledge was able to transfer eventually to Local Radio Production where the multi tasking went on!’