Colin Pierpoint – Page 4 – What Was Pebble Mill?

Colin Pierpoint blog, Part 12 – Radio Links

Radio Links

Dave Thumpston and Graham Hewitt in Radio Links van. Photo by Colin Pierpoint, no reproduction without permission.

Here is a photograph in one of the Birmingham Radio Links vehicles, with Graham Hewitt (right) and Dave Thumpston. To me, the routing of television signal was no different from sound switching

in the control room; you check the quality, pass the signal on, and if there is a fault you query it with the previous station. But there were some Comms staff who resented me coming in from Operations, and what they saw incorrectly as the “Radio” Control Room. Some gave me advice on how to do the job “on the road”, not realising that I had already done many Outside Broadcasts for Radio OBs in the Audio Unit.

Engineering

I was used quite a bit for real engineering with a soldering iron, working to Stan Smith the ACSE (Assistant Communications Systems Engineer). He got me to supervise the wiremen putting in new jumpers on the main distribution frame in the basement of Pebble Mill. Jumpering is adding pairs of wires to provide new circuits. It was necessary because the Comms Centre as it was handed over after installation to Birmingham staff, was missing quite a lot of sound circuits.

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Colin Pierpoint blog, part 11 – Re-organisation

Copyright resides in the original holder, no reproduction without permission

This was a time of change in the regions. Who remembers “Broadcasting in the 70s”? and the setting up of the Audio Units. We had a meeting about the future, led by Controller Midlands. First time I had seen him. Another manager (again, I know who it was, but I will save any embarrassment) was talking to us all and saying “Someone like Eric Sabin,” and he looked at me, “will in future be able to apply for a wider range of jobs, so Eric Sabin from the Control Room” looked at me again “could apply for a Sound Supervisor job in Television.” I had to say something, so I said “I believe every word you say, except that my name is not Eric Sabin”. Well, there was an uproar of laughter. John Grantham said to me after the meeting “What I liked was the way you let him dig himself in first!” But in fact it wasn’t deliberate on my part, and not intended. The same manager did later offer me some good career advise including a suggestion that I apply for a Tape and Grams post at Gosta Green. I never did, but only because it was not the direction I wanted to go.

What I did apply for, by default, was a post in the new audio unit. All those unsettled by the reorganisation were automatically given a board and I was the only one of these to get appointed. I was actually on attachment at Wood Norton at the time, and came back to attend the board. It was my performance on this board, and my board for attachments to ETD that I found I could bring out a personality from my usually quiet self. I enjoyed being a candidate on appointment boards, and we had a good laugh at times. I was later to develop this extension of my personality in my lecturing job; it was very useful in my relationship with students. Anyway, on this board, I remember being asked if I had done any Radio Drama. I said “No, and I wouldn’t do it that way in any case”. I went on to talk about location drama which must have gone down well. They also asked if I had any questions. I said “Yes. Why was Regional Radio being closed down when local radio has not yet taken over in all areas?” There was a long pause. Then the chairman said “You are probably as confused as we are”!

So, I got the only vacant post in the new Audio Unit. What happened to all the other applicants? They were put in the Audio Unit of course! Only the BBC could do it this way!

I mention the residual regional radio, I was often allocated to do Regional Extra, the one remaining Radio 4, Midland Opt-out programme, in Studio 5 at Pebble Mill. There were two audio assistants allocated, and we shared Tape and Grams or Panel (operating the desk). This gave me more Studio Manager experience to add to that I had had in Cardiff.

At this time I had asked to do the Grade C Engineering Course at my request. I was surprised when this was granted, and while on the course at Wood Norton, I asked about changing my career from operational work to engineering. In fact, I liked both sides of technical work and I had already spent years designing and building my own electronic equipment as a hobby. By the time the changes took place in regional broadcasting, I was qualified to work in Communications Department, and could therefore work in the Communications Centre at Pebble Mill. Comms had taken over the Control Room work which I had been doing, with two major changes; no continuity now that Local Radio had taken over from regional broadcasting (almost!), and I would now also be doing Radio Links for television.

Colin Pierpoint

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Colin Pierpoint blog 10 – Pebble Mill

Pebble Mill building circa 1970, copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission

I was one of the first people to work in Pebble Mill Studios, because all the Midland sound editing facilities were in mono at the time, and some orchestral concerts were being recorded at OBs in stereo. In fact, the Producers like Richard Butt, had to travel to London to edit their programmes. I did try to tell the management that there were stereo editing channels at Wood Norton, a lot closer, but I don’t think they understood. (These days, Wood Norton would have jumped at the chance to charge for hiring out editing facilities, but this was before Total Costing, Producer Choice, and department Business Units. Not that I am saying these were necessarily a good thing). So, when the Pebble Mill building was nearing completion, we were allowed to use the cubicle of Studio 1 for tape editing.

To be fair, I must mention another of my disasters. I was using the new Studer tape machines in Studio 1, B62 I think. I had previously used the Studer C37 at Wood Norton on attachment as an Assistant Lecturer, but I was caught out by a feature of the new machine where the wind will inch back and too, but will lock on if you have pressed the stop button beforehand. Anyway, I mangled a tape of an orchestra. The producer, Ron Gardener kindly allowed me to keep the reel while I sorted it out. In fact I had everything except one chord of music, and I built that from copying other bits of the performance and editing them together. A few days later, I played this to Ron, who said that he would have accepted that, but he had since found that Alan Ward, the Studio Manager who recorded it, had a 7 and a half ips copy recorded at the time of the performance. So we used that just for one phrase, about a bar of music. Ron Gardener then very kindly said that I had done good work for him in the past and he was prepared to overlook it. Nice of him to say that, and the only tape I ever damaged, but I did let myself down.

Colin Pierpoint

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

Carolyn Davies: “Colin, was this why future trainee Audio Assistants had to editing in a missing phrase of music as part of their 1/4″ editing training at Wood Norton?? Great story…”

Andy Freeth: “lan Ward’s OB stores equipment list was always “one and a spare!” Hardly surprising that there was another recording ferreted away Colin!”

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Colin Pierpoint blog 9 – SB Switches

SB Switches

At this time [late 1960s] there was a complicated way of getting the network to the transmitting stations on the Home Service (later Radio 4). It needs a bit of explanation, so here it is. Each region had its own Home Service, and I had worked in the Welsh Home Service continuity suite in Cardiff on many occasions. In fact I used to love that job. Every region had the right to opt out of the London originated Home Service as part of their programme schedule. That was the easy part. The complications arose when other regions were to take a network from another region, and they were complicated for this reason: at the time the lines used to send programmes (called “Music Lines”) were of good quality, but when you added several of them together the high frequency loss became very noticeable. So, If a region was to contribute to the whole Home Service network, sending the signal to London and through the Home Service Continuity was not acceptable because, for example, an orchestral concert from Scotland would travel the length of the British Isles and back again to get to the Scottish transmitters. Even worse from Northern Ireland.

So, what used to happen was that there was an SB switch. Remember that SB stands for Simultaneous Broadcast. After the previous programme had ended there was a switching pause of 5 seconds. In that time, the previous distribution network was broken down and another network set up with lines which radiated out from the region of origin. So, in the example I gave of a Scottish concert, the Outside Broadcast would go into the Scottish Home Service continuity in Glasgow, and then straight to the Scottish transmitters. Another feed of SHS would go to Northern Ireland on the same line that they received the previous programme; but the North of England would switch over to a line from Glasgow. In the Midlands, we switched the Midland transmitter network (the Midland Home Service) to a line from Manchester. In this way London became a region on the end of the chain. So each region’s transmitters got the shortest line possible from the origination region, and therefore the best quality available. I hope that I have explained that consistent with my experience as a Lecturer!

Of course, the opportunity for cock-ups was endless! There was no talkback with a cue, as would be done in television, the whole thing relied on accurate timing, and it only needed a few seconds overrun to make some regions switch on time, and others switch a few seconds later. So what? I hear you ask. Well, if you don’t break down the first network, before setting up the second one, you get a loop, and the chance of a howl round. In fact, because Birmingham normally fed Bristol with the Home Service for the West of England, there was one type of SB switch which almost guaranteed a howl round! I used to love it. I remember on one occasion Northern Ireland had told us they would overrun, so we all agreed to delay the SB switch. After several minutes I rang Belfast to ask when they were going to finish and they said “We have already finished!” About a minute ago apparently. So I switched back to London who had already started the next programme. Because we were switching after the continuity, if we missed a switch, there was only silence going out to the transmitters until we put it right.

There was also one daily switch at half past three (1530) in the afternoon. Unfortunately this was also the time of our shift change in the Control Room. It was at the start of a programme called “Home this Afternoon” which I think came from a different region each day. One day we missed the switch in Birmingham, so at the end of the programme the announcer apologised and said “We hope you don’t miss it tomorrow because we have on the programme a special guest….). The next day we missed the switch again! On another occasion at the shift change, someone was taking over from George on the day shift. The operator coming on shift said “Are there any switches?” and George suddenly spun round and switched the Midlands and West of England to the North!

Colin Pierpoint

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Colin Pierpoint blog 8 – Continuity

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

In the Midland Home Service Continuity, we left the Home Service network for Midland programmes. After the weather (including trails on tape) and the regional news at 0710, the next opt out was for the last ten minutes of the Today Programme. The Opt Out cue, from Jack de Manio was (“The time is seven thirty five”). Unfortunately, Jack de Manio couldn’t tell the time (for reasons beyond the scope of this blog!) and he would often be a minute late, or be on time but read the clock incorrectly. As the “Regional Extra” programme was on tape, this gave us a serious timing problem. We did this twice; the second opt out was on the cue; “The time is now half past eight”. At least if the 7-35 one was a disaster, you had the chance to get it right in the second edition.

The objective of the Continuity Operator was to match the levels from one programme to the next, something that you might have noticed is lacking today! We had one operator who hated continuity work, and didn’t bother making any adjusments. This was noticed by our managers listening at home. Unfortunately, the reputation tainted us all.

I was the continuity operator on the day that Winston Churchill died. As it happened, we were about to do a church service to all regions from the Midland Home Service when the news came through. Now, in continuity, although the operator controls the levels, fades up studios, and operated the red lights in the studio, the announcer is in charge. On this particular morning the service was coming from a university city, and the students thought it a good idea to play pop music over the public address loudspeakers once the programme had started. So, I faded up the OB, the minister welcomed the listeners and explaind that the service would be changed to a dedication to Sir Winston Churchill, following the tragic news, and they got into the first hymn. That is when the pop music started. I wanted to chop it straight away, but the announcer would not let me. The OB engineers (who should also have cut it) had both left their post to find where the music was coming from; so I lost contact with them. I begged the announcer to let me fade it out. Again and again I asked him. Still no decision. After probably two or three minutes, he said “All right then, but let me put a record on the turntable first.”!

The operational instructions were changed after this. A memo said that if anyone hears something which should obviously not be broadcast, they can cut it. (By the way, I do remember who the announcer was, and which university was involved. Probably best not to say!)

Colin Pierpoint

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