This shows Barry Lankester and I producing the annual Local Radio Knockout Contest organised by the West Midlands Brass Band Association. This was typical of the programming of the early days of BBC local radio….and the way in which the building itself was used to communicate with the public. A community organisation would get the programmes organised and we would get them on air.
Barry Lankester was the driving force behind all sorts of artistic productions involving over the years literally thousands of local music makers from bands of all types, classical and pop , choirs and many others trooping into Pebble Mill, usually at weekends to record a multitude of broadcasts encouraging and entertaining the listeners. The band shown in the picture is the Dunchurch Silver.
Bob Jacobs was the 1st Assistant Director on Trinity Tales. The Pebble Mill series, which went out in 1975, was written by Alan Plater as a contemporary take on Chaucer’s ‘Canterbury Tales’. It follows the stories of a group of fans on their way to the Rugby Cup Final at Wembley. As in the ‘Canterbury Tales’ they swap stories along the way.
David Rose was the Producer and Michael Simpson and Tristan de Vere Cole the Directors. It starred: Bill Maynard (Stan the fryer); Francis Matthews (Eric the prologue); Colin Farrell (Nick the driver); Gaye Brown (the wife of Batley Alice); John Stratton (the man of Law Smith); Susan Littler (Judy the Judy); Paul Copley (Dave the joiner); Peter Benson (Reuben)
Here are a few photos of Studio B taken in 2003. They include the Studio B production area, sound desk, vision and lighting desk, Calrec mixer, and Midlands Today Studio. This was my final tour of Pebble Mill. The building looked quite run down. It seemed such a shame that Pebble Mill was being demolished.
Studio B was used for News and Current Affairs. Midlands Today was broadcast seven days a week from here. On Sundays The Midlands at Westminster broadcast live.
The Multicultural Programmes Unit also used Studio B for recording interviews and music.
Studio B gallery was open plan to enable easy communication between production and the technical crew.
I starting working for the Film Unit in 1976. Back then Film was used for most location shooting. The sound was recorded on a Nagra tape recorder. One of my jobs was to copy from the tape to 16mmSepmag film. The film editor then synchronised this with the picture. After editing the sound and picture it was taken to the Dubbing Theatre. The edited Sepmag would now be on 3 or 4 rolls. The Dubbing mixer would balance speech, sound effects and music to produce the final mix. My job also sent me on location to assist the sound recordist. After a few years I moved to Milton Keynes. I helped set up the Dubbing Theatre at the BBC Open University Production Centre. After 2 years I was missing Pebble Mill. I moved back to Birmingham and joined the Audio Unit. I worked on many TV and radio programmes. I spent much of my time working on Midlands Today. I left the BBC in 1997. Pebble Mill was a very special place to work. I feel very privileged for working for the BBC at Pebble Mill.
In this video Bob Jacobs talks about working as 1st Assistant Director on the 3 part drama series – ‘Vote for Them’, written by David Edgar. The photos were taken by Bob Jacobs and Bev Dartnall.
The series was set in Egypt as the Second World War was coming to a close. It was a political drama set amongst Allied troops as they consider what sort of world they want after the war and form “parties”, holding debates and elections.
The series went out in June 1989. It was shot on location in Cairo, with a sand quarry in Dorset also doubling as Egypt. The interiors were recorded in Pebble Mill Studio A.
Carol Parks was the producer, James Ormerod the director, with Michael Wearing as Executive Producer.
Barry Lankester was the driving force behind all sorts of artistic productions involving over the years literally thousands of local music makers from bands of all types, classical and pop , choirs and many others trooping into Pebble Mill, usually at weekends to record a multitude of broadcasts encouraging and entertaining the listeners. The band shown in the picture is the Dunchurch Silver.
