Thanks to Richard Grantham for sharing these artist’s impressions of BBC Pebble Mill. They belonged to his late father, John Grantham. I’m told that John was in charge of the move to BBC Pebble Mill in 1971, from the other BBC buildings around Birmingham (Broad Street, Gosta Green, Carpenter Road).
Photo of Tony Newbury and the late Geoff Watts, by Ian Collins, circa 1972. No reproduction without permission.
Photo by John Williams, circa 1974. No reproduction without permission.
Tony Newbury died 20thDec 2018 at the Q.E. Hospital.
The following information about Tony is from John Duckmanton, who was a friend of Tony’s since the early 1970s.
Tony was an electronics engineer, he was in the armed forces before he joined the BBC. He worked at the BBC in the 1960s at Carpenter Rd and Broad St, and then at Pebble Mill. He was an inventive and very practical man who built a house in Evesham with Geoff Watts. This gave him a taste for building, and so he left the BBC and became a builder, building bungalows and houses in West Midlands. Tony was a very strong man. There was a fireplace in the Evesham house which needed to be taken upstairs, about 6 of his friends, including John came round and carried it upstairs, when it was up there Tony just put it under one arm and carried it into the bedroom, as if it weighed almost nothing. He was also famous for his tables. He felt that the legs were always in the wrong place, and therefore designed a table with no legs, which was cantilevered from the wall –and incredibly strong.
John remembers an occasion when Tony built a talkback box in the early days of wireless talkback. He was given a talkback in a flimsy plastic box with batteries that lasted around 30mins and asked to rebuild it. As with many things he over specced the modification, ending up with a much bigger box about the size of a house brick, but it was much more robust and with very long-lasting batteries. On another occasion the problem was an insufficiently bright programme countdown clock, when Tony had finished with it, there were complaints that it was too bright and causing reflections on everything!
When Tony worked at the studios in Broad Street he had an old mini whose sliding windows made it very easy to break into. Tony’s solution was to install a fuel switch under the front seat, so that if it wasn’t pressed the fuel supply would cut out after a few hundred yards. He would regularly go searching for it close to Broad Street, if it wasn’t where he’d parked it, as the thieves never found the fuel switch. Once he couldn’t find it, but the police found it a few days later, but said to him that they couldn’t get it started!
Tony had a kidney removed about 20yrs ago but carried on as strong as ever. Several years back, he had problems with the other kidney and needed regular dialysis, however he didn’t get on very well with dialysis and did not have as much as the hospital thought he should. He died from complications with his kidney condition just before Christmas.
Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission
Charlie Moody news cameraman died on Monday (3rd Dec 2018) after a long illness. Charlie started in Manchester in late 50s, moved to Birmingham in 1960,and started at BBC soon after in Broad St later working full time for Midlands Today retiring in 1993.
The following comment were left on the Pebble Mill Facebook page:
Pat Fenelon: ‘Charlie was one of two news crews working for BBC Midlands when I started at ITVCentral (1984/85) he was always a nice man and helpful when our paths crossed.’
Geoff Ward: ‘I remember Charlie really well. Top bloke and cameraman. I’ll always remember his advice. “Keep your head down, and keep sending in the bills”’
Steve Lee: ‘I am truly sad to hear this news about Charlie. Like his partner in crime Derek Johnson, he was a legend in Midlands broadcasting.’
Lisa Manning: ‘Charlie was the first cameraman I ever worked with; interviews and voxpops at the Bull Ring. I probably learnt more in that hour than in any other single hour at PM.’
David Nelson: ‘Charlie was one of the great cameramen unencumbered by sound. I spent countless hours in his company on filming assignments. He was a true gentleman, even when his car was back-ended by Tony Butler coming back from Ludlow to Birmingham! Nobody was hurt!’
Photo by Martin Fenton, no reproduction without permission. These audio tapes are from Radio Studio 3 at Pebble Mill.
When I joined the BBC in Broad street as a Studio Manager in 1963 after about 3 months training in London, one of my first experiences was as Spot Effects S.M on The Archers. Tony Shryane -Producer- sat at the mixing desk, controlling the programme levels. There was a Studio Manager playing in Sound effects off 78rpm records and also from from recorded tapes- recorded originally on 5″ full track tapes @ 7.5″/sec. on an EMI Midget battery powered tape machine. These tapes were edited and compiled onto 10.5″ dia.tape reels of which at that time there were about 2 dozen. These were catalogued originally in a box file but later on fullscap sheets in a spring back folder.
Within a few months I moved on from pouring cups of ‘tea’, opening and closing doors etc to become the Gram and tape S.M. Agriculture was as ever becoming more developed and this meant more mechanisation and more recordings required. F.M radio was expanding and quality sound effects were also required to replace some of the original 78 rpm recordings.
Another S.M joined the Archers Team-Peter Belham- and between the two of us we increased the Tape library for the programme vastly ,and were recording in Stereo, looking to the future for not only The Archers but Birmingham Radio Drama output. This library of effects moved to Studio 3 at Pebble Mill, along with a Mini Archive of significant Archers episodes. Before this time Tony Shryane had asked me to take over at the Mixing Desk. Peter, was grams SM but also mixed from time to time but was also Mixing Radio Drama. We tended to swop roles back and forth as needed and I was quite often Grams S.M. when Peter was mixing a Radio Play. On Tony Shryanes retirement I felt it was time to move on from The Archers. Some years after both Peter and I had retired Mark Decker moved the effects library to the Mail Box and began the process of transferring it to C.D before his untimely death from cancer.
John Pierce
Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission
These photographs show the news studio gallery at Broad Street in the 1960s. In the second photograph you can see into the studio, through the window. The man in the white shirt is a young Jim Dumighan.
These photographs were originally posted on the Pebble Mill Engineers Facebook group. Thanks to Stuart Gandy for allowing them to be shared.
The following comments were left on the Pebble Mill Facebook page:
Colin Pierpoint: ‘I did a short time in there. I didn’t do much except change a few caption cards in the studio, and I was on tape and grams at least once. The Director asked me for a particular sound effect, so I went to the F/X disc library to get one. When I returned I incurred the Director’s wrath for not being at my post when they had done a rehearsal! (In fact, I had left the tape machine on remote so the sound supervisor could start it). Photo 1: Sam Shaw standing at the back. I think the tape and grams operator may be Ant (Anthony) Astley.
Gordon Astley: ‘I used to work where the guy, back left in the first pic is, playing in sound fx on disc.’