Princess Anne opening Pebble Mill. Copyright Sue Sweet, no reproduction without permission.
As a follow up to the recent blog about who should officially open the new Pebble Mill building: http://www.pebblemill.org/blog/who-should-open-pebble-mill/ the next memo of interest in the BBC’s Written Archives at Caversham dates from 16th January 1970. It is from the BBC Director of Public Affairs, Kenneth Lamb, to the Director General, Charles Curran, and suggests that either the Prince of Wales, or Princess Anne should be asked to open the new broadcast centre in 1971. Lamb adds that he thinks that one of the ‘new generation of Royals’ would be ‘appropriate’ for the occasion, and both Prince Charles and Princess Anne are ‘one up the scale’ from the Royals who had opened the ITV centres. Princess Alexandra had recently opened the ATV centre in Birmingham!
Princess Anne was subsequently approached to open Pebble Mill.
The BBC obviously did not want to be upstaged by the calibre of Royal that ITV were able to attract!