Tag: Bill Youel

34 years since Torvill and Dean’s Gold Medal

Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission

With the opening of the 2018 Winter Olympics today, it is 34 years since the Pebble Mill crew brought Torvill and Dean’s Gold Medal winning performance of Bolero to millions of viewers. The action was caught on Eric Wise’s single camera, when the Yugoslav pictures proved disappointing. Besides Eric, the team included Roger Guest on sound; Bill Youel, vision recording; and John Allinson, Engineering Manager.

The article above is from the internal BBC newsletter, Midlands News from March 1984. It gives the audience for the broadcast as 17.5 million, whilst the BBC today was listing it as 24 million.

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

Marie Phillips: ‘I remember this. I had tickets for their Show that night and was able to get them signed. I asked if they would be performing Bolero and Christopher Dean said “You will have to wait and see !” and of course, they did – wonderful.’

James Lund: ‘”Bad luck had led to disappointing coverage from the Yugoslav’s six rink-side cameras” – seems a strange way to describe things. Is it put diplomatically? Does anyone have further details? I assume the Pebble Mill camera was only for UK viewers, and not fed back to host broadcaster, JRT.’

Torvill and Dean at the 1984 Olympics

IMG_0001 IMG_0002

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission.

This article is from Pebble Mill News, March 1984. It tells how a Pebble Mill single camera crew comprising of Eric Wise, Roger Guest, Bill Youel and John Allinson, brought Torvill and Dean’s, Bolero performance to 17.5 million viewers of the Winter Olympics, when the six Yugoslav rink-side cameras gave disappointing coverage!

The second article is about Nigel Pargeter’s drinking habits in The Archers.

Thanks to Robin Sunderland, for sharing this newsletter, and keeping it safe in his loft for many years!

Here is a link to a clip on YouTube of Torvill and Dean’s gold medal winning performance. Notice that consists of just one shot! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcCj0xfO3H8

The following comment was left on the Pebble Mill Facebook group:

Stuart Gandy: ‘Wow, how amazing that Robin has still got this after all these years. Funny thing is memories come flooding back, I can remember myself and my engineering collogues standing in TAR reading that very article back in 1984 and thinking what a coup it was that a Pebble Mill team got this coverage. Good stuff.’