Gangsters – What Was Pebble Mill?

Gangsters Series, Episode 3, 1976

This photo is from episode 3 of Gangsters series 1. It features Maurice Colbourne as John Kline and Saeed Jaffrey as Rafiq. Gangsters series 1 was a 6 part crime serial set in the Midlands underworld. It was shown on BBC1 on Thursday Sept 23 1976.

Here is the entry from the Radio Times:

“A series of six programmes by PHILIP MARTIN with Ahmed Khalil , Elizabeth Cassidy, Paul Antrim, Paul Barber, Alibe Parsons, Saeed Jaffrey and Maurice Colbourne as John Kline. Incident 3 –
A missing consignment of heroin, an abandoned railway station. Surveying the scene are Rafiq, the sophisticated gangster, and Khan, the double agent. How will Kline escape the factions ranged against him at the Battle of Snow Hill?
Music composed and directed by DAVE GREENSLADE
Script editor PETER ANSORGE Designer IAN ASHURST Producer DAVID ROSE
Director ALASTAIR REID. BBC Birmingham”

Roger Slater was a boom operator on the series, with John Gilbert the recordist. Murray Laidla was part of the audio crew in Studio A when the barge was built in the studio.

Joyce Hawkins was the costume designer.

The Rum Runner nightclub was taken over by Gangsters and turned into a strip club.

Interview with Philip Martin

Maurice Colbourne & Saeed Jaffrey. Copyright resides with the original holders, no reproduction without permission

Here is an interview with writer Philip Martin, who died in 2020, about how the 1975, Play for Today, Gangsters, came about:

https://forgottentelevisiondrama.wordpress.com/2021/04/08/philip-martin-1938-2020-part-one-philip-martin-on-gangsters-bbc-play-for-today-1975-and-series-1976-78/

Oliver White and his encounter with Grace Wyndham Goldie

Specially shot video of film editor, Oliver White, talking about his encounter with the legendary Grace Wyndham Goldie, whilst a trainee at Ealing in the late 1960s. Grace Wyndham Goldie was the Head of BBC Television Talks, and later Head of News and Current Affairs, she was a formidable producer and executive. Oliver is talking about the obituary of Dwight D. Eisenhower, who died in 1969. Oliver White worked as a film editor at BBC Pebble Mill for many years, he edited dramas like Nuts in May, Gangsters, Kiss of Death and Red Shift, amongst many others.

This video was recorded at the London Film School, and is part of Royal Holloway’s ADAPT project, which engineers re-encounters between television practitioners and the historic equipment they once used habitually. I think that the editing machine next to Oliver is a moviescope – can anyone confirm that?

Oliver White with a Moviescope

The following comment was left on the Pebble Mill Facebook page:

Ieuan Franklin: ‘A fearsome lady by all accounts – Bel Rowley from BBC drama The Hour is based on Grace Wyndham Goldie but the character is a bit too meek for GWG I think! Great to see Oliver, he’s looking well.’

Gangsters complaint

Letter from Mary Whitehouse to David Rose

David Rose’s reply to Mary Whitehouse

This exchange of letters was given to me by David Rose several years ago.

Mary Whitehouse, in capacity of General Secretary of the National Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association, which she established, complained about many television programmes from the 1960s onwards. The 1975 ‘Play for Today’, Gangsters, clearly wasn’t to her taste, because of its violence, and ‘coarseness’. David Rose’s response defends the themes and tone of the film, as well as stating its public acclaim. I suspect that it felt like a badge of honour to provoke this kind of complaint from Mary Whitehouse: a way of gauging that the point of the play had been successfully made to the audience!

The following comment was left on the Pebble Mill Facebook page:

Jane Partridge: ‘Did you know the lady herself was a visiting speaker for the Royal Television Society Midland Centre’s meeting at Pebble Mill? It would have been somewhere around 1979-1980, possibly early 1981 (but definitely before June that year when I had to change departments). John Grantham was Secretary of the Midland Centre, and as his secretary, I had the job of meeting Mrs Whitehouse in Reception and taking her up to the room we used for the meetings. She was, in fact, a very nice person.’

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Gangsters series in Pakistan

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This photograph is of the arrival of the cast and crew of the drama series Gangsters, when the end of the series was filmed in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Included in the photograph are Andy Meikle (production co-ordinator, far left, beard), Heather Storr, Ann Arnold (costume designer 3rd from the left next to Heather), David Rose (producer – centre front row, black top and sunglasses), Arthur Heywood (sparks, back row, to the right of David), Saeed Jaffrey (actor, next to David), Richard Ganniclift (camera asst/operator to the right of Saeed Jaffrey), Alex Christison (sound recordist, last but one on right, with beard and sun glasses), far right Ken Morgan ( lighting cameraman). Also there, but not included in the shot were: Alastair Reid, director; Philip Martin, writer.

Thanks to Jane Mclean, Steve Saunderson, Janice Rider, Susan Astle, Janet Collins, and Bill Bohanna for helping identify people.

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