Colin Fearnley – What Was Pebble Mill?

Kiki Dee on Showaddywaddy Show

Photos by cameraman, Bhasker Solanki, no reproduction without permission

These photos are of Kiki Dee appearing on the Showaddywaddy show from Christmas 1980.

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

Colin Fearnley: She was a guest on “Showaddywaddy Show” recorded in the 1980’s, the camera is an EMI 2001 which would correspond with that period and it looks like whoever is sitting bottom right of the camera is wearing one of the silly hats the crew and the audience were given. I was on racks and I think John Abbott lit it. Found in my 1980 diary, recorded in Studio A, Sunday 30th November and Monday 1st December. Kiki Dee inserts recorded on the Sunday, then live audience in for the Monday night. My hours 1030-2215 both days. John Kimberley on colour match And Peter Wood-Fisher on lighting desk (Q-File). The reason I remember it so well was that I had just escaped a very long course at Wood Norton!

Pebble Mill’s 10th Anniversary Event

Photo by Julian Sharp, no reproduction without permission

Here is a photo from the 10th Anniversary event in 1981, courtesy of Julian Sharp. On the main table clockwise from left, Keith Warrender, Claire Pilson, Jane ?, James Young, nearside, Colin Fearnley and companion, Julian Sharp, Trish Allen. Holding cracker is Basil Cottrill and on the table behind I can identify Pete Prior and Tony Newbury. There are other faces in the gloom if anyone can identify them.

Thanks to Keith Warrender for sharing the photo.

VTB Channel Record 1988

VTB ‘Channel Record’ 1988 from pebblemill on Vimeo.

The video is a bit of moving history, although it was shot mute for a music sequence. It shows VTB in 1988 doing a drama “channel record” from Studio A on a pair of 1” VPR2 machines. The programme is “Final Run” VTB1 is on the left, manned by series editor Steve Neilson, VTB2 is on the right manned by yours truly. Video drama on location was very much pioneered by Pebble Mill (“Blackstuff”) and it was practice that the recording engineer or editor would record both the studio and the location. The bottle of Bush Mills Whiskey suggests the studio was after our location shoot in Northern Ireland . The “main” recording would be on VTB1 and the “backing” on VTB2. This was a throw back to the days when VT recording was not that reliable and all studio recordings had a back-up in case of problems. The blank tapes were assemble edited from the studio allowing time code to be “time of tape” rather than “time of day “as was used in London. In the case of a drama series we used “multi-episodic” tapes which meant that we would change tapes to that of whichever episode was being recorded. So for a four episode series we would have four master and backing tapes being used at any one time. This saved a lot of time at the edit not having to change tapes, and relieved some of the inevitable boredom of awaiting rehearsals to turn into “takes”. The tape trolley had a four channel audio mixer in it for editing purposes, and if you wanted to add music at all during the edit, you had to order you vinyl disc from the library and have it transferred to ¼” tape in the transfer suite.

Colin Fearnley

2″ editing discussion

2″ editing from pebblemill on Vimeo.

This video was recorded by Colin Fearnley, in Nov 2004, on the last evening of editing at BBC Pebble Mill, before the building was cleared and subsequently demolished.

In this video, introduced by Mike Bloore, editors Tony Raynor and Steve Critchlow discuss how 2″ editing worked in the 1970s.

Editing Boys from the Blackstuff

Editing Boys from the Blackstuff from pebblemill on Vimeo.

Video recorded by Colin Fearnley, no reproduction without permission.

Colin Fearnley recorded this video in November 2004, on the last evening of editing at BBC Pebble Mill. He filmed the editors looking round the empty edit suites and reminiscing about the programmes they had edited there. Mike Bloore remembers editing Boys from the Blackstuff in VTD, on 1″ videotape, with director Philip Saville sat on the sofa in the edit suite.

Editor, Mike Bloore

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

Keith Brook: ‘Well done to Mike. A great editor and thoroughly nice guy. We had so much fun at Pebble Mill.’

Abby Bottrill: ‘Aww, the legend that is our very own Sir Mike Bloore.’