Costing the Earth – What Was Pebble Mill?

Factual Network Radio Programmes circa 2004

Radio Studio 5, home of Edwina Currie and Stuart Maconie. Photo by Martin Fenton.

Here is a list of factual network radio programmes produced at Pebble Mill circa 2004. This list forms part of a document, which is included in the BBC Written Archives at Caversham.

BBC Radio Two

Night-time

Mon-Fri: Janice Long, Alex Lester

Sat/Sun: Mo Dutta, Sybil Ruscoe (from 6^th June)

Weekly

Best of Jazz with Humphrey Lyttelton

Big Band Special

The Organist Entertains

Bob Harris Country

Paul Jones Blues Show

Listen to the Band

Stuart Maconie’s Critical List

Mark Lamarr’s Shake Rattle and Roll

Ed Stewart

Assorted documentaries and ad hoc series

BBC Radio Four

Farming Today

Farming Today, This Week

On Your Farm

Open Country

Costing the Earth

Ramblings

On the Ropes

Between Ourselves

Radio Five Live

Late Night Currie

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

Lynne Holden: ‘Have worked on all but 3 of these – some very briefly. I still work on 3 of these programmes that are still produced in Brum – the Organist Entertains, Listen To The Band and Paul Jones. We also produce Clare Teal, Sounds of the 50s, Moira Stuart, Don Black and ad hoc series and docs. This Christmas we also produced programmes with Barry Cryer, Barbara Windsor and a delightful programme about Sammy Davis Jr as well as a Clare Teal Big Band Xmas Special and a Sounds of the 50s Xmas Special.’

Pete Simpkin: ‘…and of course the at least 18 hours a day 24/7 Local Radio service!’

Network Radio – We are BBC Birmingham

This grab is from a brochure called We are BBC Birmingham, which was given to all staff, and others, when Pebble Mill closed in 2004, and BBC Birmingham moved to the Mailbox.

It shows the diversity of Network Radio being produced at BBC Birmingham at the time, including radio drama and factual rural affairs series on Radio 4, and 30% of Radio 2’s output, as well as Asian Network and interactive services.

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

Mark Whittaker 1957-2014

You may already know that the journalist and broadcaster, Mark Whittaker, who worked for the BBC at Radio WM in the 80s and returned to Pebble Mill as a presenter of Costing the Earth in the 90s has died after a short illness. He leaves a wife, Jane Stimpson, who also worked at the Mill in the 80s, and two children.

Mark was a know it all in the nicest possible way. He had a huge brain full of stuff that could be deployed at work and at play. As I’ve reflected elsewhere I never lost a pub quiz with him and have never won one without him.

There is a very touching tribute to him on the Ariel page written by his colleagues on BBC World Service World Business Report where he’d been working for the last few years.

Richard Uridge

Here is the link to the article in Ariel about Mark: http://www.bbc.co.uk/ariel/29463075

Below is an excerpt from the article:

“World Service presenter Mark Whittaker has died suddenly of cancer.

One of the presenters of World Business Report and Business Matters, he had finished his last shift at the BBC about a month ago, on August 27.

He was diagnosed with cancer only three weeks before his death on October 1. He leaves behind two children and his wife Jane.

‘Mark was a radio genius who not only had brilliant ideas, but relentlessly executed them to perfection,’ said Martin Webber, editor of BBC World Service business news in an email to World Service staff.

‘We marvelled as he crafted beautiful scripts and then drew on his vast memory of music and sound, to turn a dull topic into a radio delight.

‘He regularly quietly re-edited interviews himself when the producer failed to do a perfect job.

His interviews connected effortlessly with the people he spoke to wherever they were in the world”

‘When Business Matters started with an hour-long format, he thrived doing the extended live interviews that the programme demanded. On location in India and Japan in the past year, he showed us all what could be achieved.”

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

Alex Fraser: ‘He was a lovely, lovely man’

Sue Welch: ‘Such a lovely man with a wicked sense of humour.’

Pete Simpkin: ‘Well said all of the above…in addition Mark seemed to want to break down the barriers of the time between news and general programme staff and he planted seeds that bore spectacular fruit.’

Lorraine Randell: ‘I worked with Mark in Radio WM’s News Room and I reiterate everything that has been said…one of the nicest people I have ever worked with.’