Tag: Casualty Saved My Life

Factual and Learning – We are BBC Birmingham

We are BBC Bham Factual & LearningCopyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission.

This sheet about the Factual & Learning department, was part of a booklet given to all staff when BBC Birmingham moved from Pebble Mill to the Mailbox in 2004.

The sheet lists various recent and current programmes made by the department, including: £1 Million Pound Property Experiment, SAS Survival Secrets, Casualty Saved My Life, All the Queen’s Cooks, Sylvia Young Theatre School, and Coast. Major series included: Gardeners’ World, Countryfile, Points of View, Call My Bluff, and Sky at Night. Daytime titles included: To Buy or Not to Buy, Houses Behaving Badly, Feather Your Nest, Trading Up, Big Strong Boys. Asian Programmes unit shows mentioned are: Nuclear Paradise, India’s Ladyboys, The Joy of Curry, Dating the Asian Way, Desi DNA and Malai Presents.

Factual & Learning was a prolific department, producing a wide cross section of shows for BBC1, and 2 as well as some for BBC3.

Thanks to Dharmesh Rajput for sharing the booklet, and keeping it for the last decade.

Tribute to Dave Baumber by Paul Vanezis

Dave Baumber, photo by Peter Poole, no reproduction without permission

Dave Baumber, photo by Peter Poole, no reproduction without permission

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some sad news. Dave Baumber, ace sound recordist and dubbing mixer has died after a short illness. My Pebble Mill friends will be shocked, as I was, but for those of you who think they don’t know him, well, I’ll remind you of his work. My Doctor Who friends will have heard his work as a grams operator on the 1966 adventure serial The Moonbase.

Dave was a BAFTA award winning sound supervisor for Boys from the Blackstuff in 1983, but fans of cult TV will have heard his work as a sound recordist on Tom’s Midnight Garden and Torchwood and as a dubbing mixer on Artemis 81, Gangsters, Spyship, various ‘Play for Today’ editions including Nuts in May, Red Shift, Penda’s Fen and Licking Hitler.

Dave looked after the sound on many of the major series to come out of Pebble Mill including Anna of the Five Towns, All Creatures Great and Small, All Quiet on the Preston Front, Martin Chuzzlewit, Dangerfield and Dalziel & Pascoe.

By 2004 Dave had itchy feet and was keen to get back to doing more location sound. He was my sound recordist on Casualty Saved My Life. He had stints on the real thing, Casualty in Bristol and then the aforementioned Torchwood.

Apart from being brilliant at his job, he was a really nice guy.

Paul Vanezis

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

Ray Holman: ‘So sad. I worked with Dave on several series, some at Pebble Mill such as All Creatures and the last one was in Cardiff on Torchwood. What a shock and what a lovely man, I’m so sorry.’

Steve Weddle: ‘A true professional who made everything he did seem deceptively easy. Happy times.’

Jeff Matthews: ‘I am devastated and totally saddened by this terrible news. I worked with Dave on Torchwood and had many a ‘soundman’s’ type chat with him. He retired and went to drink wine in France. I hope he had lots of fun. A very sad loss.’