Pete in WM Studio 1
From PETE SIMPKIN – Radio Birmingham/WM producer and presenter 1970-1988
Pebble Mill was a pioneering Broadcasting Centre custom built to house the cream of the BBC’s non metropolitan broadcasting and its staff. It unified under one roof several premises in Birmingham and so brought together all the talent and technology for Broadcasting in the 70s and 80s. It also was the headquarters of the BBC’s non London Organisation. Others will tell the story of the building, of it’s multitude of programmes both on TV and Radio. There was a high profile Radio operation including drama and Music of all kinds, not forgetting of course the fact that it was the home of ‘The Archers’, the Radio soap opera.
For my part it was a terrific place to work. Local Radio was the first part of the operation to be homed here as it went ‘On air’ as the Mill was being commissioned. Wherever there are local radio broadcasters there are thousands of tales to tell and so I have collected here just four personal memories which pull together the magic of working at Pebble Mill and the ways in which this extraordinary building operated for good or ill!
Long before shows like The Wire and The Sopranos ripped up the television rule-book, a corridor of the BBC’s Birmingham studio was rivalling HBO in the range and riskiness of its output. Over the course of a decade from 1972 onwards the unpromisingly-named English Regions Drama department created a unique culture where young writers and directors could flourish, where sci-fi and cop-show were taken in strange new directions, and where contemporary Britain in all its glory and messiness was reflected on the small screen. Last month the UK was represented at the Cannes Film Festival by Mike Leigh and Stephen Frears, two acclaimed filmmakers who developed their craft on that very corridor. It Came From Pebble Mill offers a rare opportunity to rediscover some of the best work from that period and to find out how those who made it got away with it.