Pete Simpkin – Memories of Working at Pebble Mill

WORKING TOGETHER

With the creation of the famous ‘Pebble Mill at One’ show there was an immediate challenge to how to produce a live TV programme in the entrance Foyer and yet keep the building operating. In the end it proved impossible and the actual operating Reception area had to be relocated but for several years we all mixed in and went about our daily business as best we could. On one never to be forgotten lunchtime I had been recording some ‘Thought for the Day’ talks for the breakfast show given by a local Catholic priest.

At the end of the session I had to get him back out to the street and the routine when PM@1 was on air was to just make our way out along a narrow gangway at the back of reception. This usually worked well but on the particular occasion in question the TV show was broadcasting some dancers at that end of the area and just as the producer switched cameras to a wide angle of the dancers there could be seen a bespectacled person pushing gently with hands to the shoulder blades of a frightened looking priest crossing the scene! Clearly the director was not happy because when I attempted to get back into the building after seeing the priest off the door was locked against me. As my next duty was to read the 2pm news summary it was essential to get back in and the only way was to run up Pebble Mill Road to the side entrance, down the long drive, along the back corridor and up a flight of stairs to the studio. My eventual performance was breathless reading with long gaps to get my breath. After the Manager had rushed in to tell me off for careless work and I had explained my reasons there were hurried top level enquiries made and arrangements made to prevent breathless newsreading in the future…….but that’s the sort of building and challenges we had.

Pete Simpkin radio producer

Oliver White (Editor) – His Unreliable Memoirs – The Garland

The Garland

I was nervous of working with Horace Ove on ‘The Garland’.  I’d looked at his previous drama and was alarmed.  Like Mozart’s king, who said, ‘Too many notes’, this had ‘Too many shots’!  and he did ‘The Garland’ the same way!  He was a distinctive figure in his leather jacket…..If I’d squeezed in every angle he’d covered, it would certainly have looked too fussy, so I spent a lot of the time saying, ‘Horace, do you really think we need that shot?’  Then one glorious day, about a month into editing, he said ‘Oliver. Just do what you want to do’.  I could then RELAX and use three shots out of four!  He brought us mangoes from Southall, and I still have his Dracula mug.

There was a room of his fine photographs at the National Portrait Gallery about eighteen months ago.

I regard this film as a personal triumph!

Oliver White (Editor) – His Unreliable Memoirs – ‘Gangsters 2’

Gangsters Series 2

I did the film inserts into this studio-based production, and, as the material seemed to dictate, I cut it fairly sharply….. Alastair Reid seemed happy with what I showed him, but he was often very tired after a day’s filming, and I recall he was probably asleep when I said, ‘Is that ok?’!  We had to get it off to the lab.  Come transmission, I was appalled!   Alastair had done the studio bits in long, elaborate Takes lasting MINUTES!  So when you came to a film bit, you were hit over the head by a plethora of five second shots.  By the time your brain had adjusted, you were back to the studio.  But he was a jolly nice chap.

Oliver White (Editor) – His Unreliable Memoirs – TV Studio Skills

Studio Skills

There were wonderful ‘studio skills’.  I remember being at Gosta Green in 1962 and seeing a chap turn a polystyrene column into a satisfactory tree in under 30 seconds, with a soldering iron, and an aerosol.  And how disappointed the public were by the Henry VII costume exhibition.  There was a wide strip of Copydex glue down the front of one dress, with pearls every twelve inches or so.  The costume lady knew the pearls would show up, but not the adhesive… Wide aperture lenses, so the background was the background!  Michael Edwards wonderful set for ‘Great Expectations’ sticks in my memory.