May 2017 – Page 2 – What Was Pebble Mill?

Radio studio area

Photographs by Martin Fenton, no reproduction without permission.

These photographs show some of the network radio area at Pebble Mill. The first photo is of the artistes’ seating area between Studios 3 and 5. This area was often frequented by the cast of The Archers. The second photo shows the corridor down to the Studio 3 control room, and the last photo is of the doors from Studio 3. Studio 3 was the main radio drama studio, and where The Archers was recorded, as well as other Radio 4 dramas.

Martin Fenton took the photos in autumn 2003.

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Midlands News 1992

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This page from the internal newspaper, Midlands News from 1992, shows what a vibrant place Pebble Mill was at this time, with both radio and television programmes winning all kinds of accolades, and even the restaurant winning an award for healthy food! Jeremy Clarkson is looking very youthful in the top right-hand corner, but down at the bottom the photographs for Countryfile‘s day out and Sarah Rowlands and Mark Decker’s digital editing session seem to have been swapped over – oops!

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Broad Street News Studio Gallery

These photographs show the news studio gallery at Broad Street in the 1960s. In the second photograph you can see into the studio, through the window. The man in the white shirt is a young Jim Dumighan.

These photographs were originally posted on the Pebble Mill Engineers Facebook group. Thanks to Stuart Gandy for allowing them to be shared.

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

Colin Pierpoint: ‘I did a short time in there. I didn’t do much except change a few caption cards in the studio, and I was on tape and grams at least once. The Director asked me for a particular sound effect, so I went to the F/X disc library to get one. When I returned I incurred the Director’s wrath for not being at my post when they had done a rehearsal! (In fact, I had left the tape machine on remote so the sound supervisor could start it). Photo 1: Sam Shaw standing at the back. I think the tape and grams operator may be Ant (Anthony) Astley.

Gordon Astley: ‘I used to work where the guy, back left in the first pic is, playing in sound fx on disc.’

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John Cheshire

Midlands Today studio at Broad Street. Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission.

I have heard from Annie Gumbley Williams that John Cheshire died last Friday, 5th May 2017. This news was given to her by John Pierce. Both the Johns joined the BBC at Broad Street, and then moved to Pebble Mill in 1971, when the new building opened. John was a mechanical and electrical engineer, which is an unusual and very useful combination in broadcasting.

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

Malcolm Hickman: ‘John Cheshire was in Carpenter Road Mech workshop when I started in Services in 1971, before we moved to the Mill. He was always very obliging, nothing was too much trouble. A real gent. It is a sad loss.’

Colin Pierpoint: ‘The studio shown is Studio 4, which was a Radio Studio (and I remember that Charles Parker recorded Peggy Seeger and Ewan McGregor for some of his Radio Ballads – some of which I edited). Studio 4 was converted to television with instructions that we must look after the equipment (Black and white vidicon cameras) which will be moved to Pebble Mill. Needless to say they weren’t. The previous television studio at Broad Street was Studio 1 which was EVEN SMALLER!

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All Memories Great and Small – Part 9, Alex Christison

Alex Christison recording film sound on the Asian show: New Life. Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission.

This is the final excerpt from “All Memories Great & Small” – by Oliver Crocker

This time it is memories from Alex Christison (Film Sound):

‘The main problem on All Creatures was that we are talking about the days before multi-mic radio microphones were available – so you couldn’t just scatter personal mics around each actor and mix accordingly. We were also recording in mono audio, so I didn’t even have another track to play with like the dramas do these days with split track. Basically, I relied on my boom swinger to get my sound. We’d done away with the old sync lead by then, thank God, which meant I wasn’t joined up to the camera – the boom mic would be connected to my Nagra mixer and would be recorded separately to picture. The clapperboard really did concentrate the minds in those days because it was quite a costly process if you got it wrong.’

60 cast and crew have shared their memories for this new book, which is available to preorder now from Miwk – http://bit.ly/2d7p5ts

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