Gangsters – Page 3 – What Was Pebble Mill?

Colin Pierpoint blog – Part 17

Pebble Mill canteen. Photo by Philip Morgan, no reproduction without permission

Pebble Mill restaurant. Photo by Philip Morgan, no reproduction without permission

I remember sitting in Pebble Mill the top floor restaurant while a motor bike was flying round the top of the building. Seeing Gangsters recorded and transmitted. The daily Pebble Mill at One. In fact for a long time I appeared daily on BBC1 because the opening titles had a shot of me walking along a corridor. I didn’t know until my mother asked if it was me! In the Comms Centre we had to set up the a circuit daily from Pres A studio at the Television Centre, for the weatherman to be used in Pebble Mill at One. This was normally fed on the BBC2 distribution vision line, with Sound-in-Syncs for the sound, because in those days BBC2 didn’t begin transmission until the late afternoon.

Birmingham Network Production Centre, as it was officially known, was just the right size by accident to make an environment where everyone works together to the same aim. I brought my sister and her family on a visit, and got here to see makeup, which I could not have done in London if my face was not known. There were no divisions between departments and different disciplines which I saw elsewhere, where television people do not understand radio, and studio sound staff were unaware of film sound techniques. These problem were absent at Pebble Mill because you had coffee and meals in the same restaurant and talked to each other. I once had my evening meal with the Midlands Presenter for television, I used to invite other presenters into the Comms Centre for a coffee. A production Assistant and I had an arrangement to see each others jobs. One TM (Technical Manager in television) suggested I follow him around and see his work on the set for Pebble Mill at One. I think the regions NPC working environment has been undervalue by the BBC.

Colin Pierpoint

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Barry Hanson’s Memorial & his Pebble Mill credits

Barry Hanson

A memorial is going to be held for Barry Hanson, who died in June 2016, at Channel 4 on 29th September at 6.30pm. If anyone is interested in attending please contact Peter Ansorge (message me for details if necessary).

Here is a list of Barry Hanson’s numerous Pebble Mill credits:

1970s

You and Me and Him – Director, 1973, Thirty Minute Theatre

The Medium – Producer, 1973, Second City Firsts

Mrs Pool’s Preserves – Producer, 1973, Second City Firsts

If a Man Answers – Producer, 1973, Second City Firsts

The Movers – Producer, 1973, Second City Firsts

King of the Castle – Producer, 1973, Second City Firsts

Patrons – Producer, 1973, Second City Firsts

Humbug, Finger or Thumb – Producer, 1974, Second City Firsts

Girl – Producer, 1974, Second City Firsts

Bold Faced Condensed – Producer, 1974, Second City Firsts

The Actual Woman – Producer, 1974, Second City Firsts

Match of the Day – Producer, 1974, Second City Firsts

Lunch Duty – Producer, 1974, Second City Firsts

Pig Bin – Producer, 1974, Second City Firsts

Too Hot to Handle – Producer, 1974, Second City Firsts

Sunday Tea – Producer, 1974, Second City Firsts

Fight for Shelton Bar – Producer, 1974, Second City Firsts

Squire – Producer, 1974, Second City Firsts

Silence – Producer, 1974, Second City Firsts

Match of the Day – Producer, 1974, Second City Firsts

The Festive Poacher – Producer, 1974, Second City Firsts

Gangsters – Producer, 1975, Play for Today

Early to Bed – Producer, 1975, Second City Firsts

Swallows – Producer, 1975, Second City Firsts

Waiting at the Field Gate – Producer, 1975, Second City Firsts

The Permissive Society – Producer, 1975, Second City Firsts

Released – Producer, 1975, Second City Firsts

1990s

Broke – Producer, 1991

Out of the Blue – Producer 1991

Olly’s Prison Part 1 – Producer 1991

Olly’s Prison Part 2 – Producer 1991

Olly’s Prison Part 3 – Producer 1991

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Saeed Jaffrey

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

Saeed Jaffrey, the well known Indian actor died today (Nov 16th 2015), aged 86. He will probably be best remembered for appearing in Gandhi, amongst a hugely long and impressive list of different film and television roles, but he also appeared in the Play for Today, and subsequent series, Gangsters (1975, 1976 & 1978), at BBC Pebble Mill. Gangsters was apparently one of his first roles after he moved from India to the UK. He played Aslam Rafiq, the charismatic boss of an illegal human trafficking racket.

Gangsters was produced by David Rose; Philip Saville directed the Play for Today, and Philip Martin devised and wrote the film noir, which was inspired by The French Connection.

Tribute to Dave Baumber by Paul Vanezis

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.’

Studio Operations (part 6) – Ray Lee

All Creatures Great and Small, Studio A. Photo by Tim Savage

Saturday Night at the Mill, 1977. Photo by John Burkill

Saturday Night at the Mill, 1977. Pebble Mill courtyard. Photo by John Burkill

The Programmes

Studio A had a lot of drama series, and one off plays, as in those days drama was more often than not recorded in a studio. Exterior shots were done on film for the most part, and played in from TK during the recording session.

One of the early drama series was The Brothers which was a fairly dire soap opera about a set of brothers who owned a lorry transport business. I remember virtually nothing about the series apart from the lovely Lisa Goddard, but it was a regular booking and kept us all in employment. Rather more interesting were the Dickens classics – Martin Chuzzlewit and Nicholas Nickleby. Then there were several series of All Creatures Great and Small adapted from the James Herriot books. The first few with Carol Drinkwater, and the later series with Linda Bellingham, as James’ wife Helen. Then there was Gangsters which was I think the first studio production to use a “handheld” camera. The camera was a Bosch Fernseh, which had a quite large camera on a shoulder pad, connected to a back pack by a short cable, then the cable from the backpack went to a further CCU which was rigged in TAR. The Camera / backpack combination was pretty heavy, so the cameraman tended to put it all down as soon as the required shots had been taken.

There were a number of plays for today, and several series of The Basil Brush Show. The latter was recorded on a Saturday evening with a live audience, but for the afternoon dress rehearsal, several staff members and their children formed and audience so that “Basil” had someone to perform to. My wife and children came on several occasions when I was working in the gallery or TAR.

We hosted Playschool for at least one series, possibly two. This may have been around the time when there was a union dispute regarding who was to start the clock! As I remember, electricians said it should be them as it was electrical, and scene hands said it should be them as it was a prop. I don’t remember how it was resolved, but it was that kind of union silliness that set Margaret Thatcher on her crusade against the unions.

Studio A hosted Young Scientist of the Year at least twice, and also The Great Egg Race with professor Heinz Wolff. There were several series of Angels a kind of forerunner to Casualty. Then there was the great Pot Black which really put snooker onto the map for the first time. This was recorded over four intensive days after Christmas (27th – 30th Dec) and then shown one game per week. The quote of note being “For those of you watching in black and white, the red ball is next to the green ball, just beyond the black” or something like that. The problem was there was little difference in the grey level of red and green balls, so identifying them virtually impossible. It really was a game that had been waiting for colour. There were just so many programmes that came out of Studio A, the place buzzed with activity.

In addition to that there were all the Pebble Mill at One programmes which came from both studio A and studio B gallery, with the cameras in the foyer area or outside both at the back and front of the building, and occasionally on the roof! From the camera rigging point of view it was like an outside broadcast, but with the fixed infrastructure of a proper studio gallery.

In early 1975 a pilot programme Pebble Mill at Night was produced. It eventually materialised as Saturday Night at the Mill but not until 1976. This likewise used the foyer area, and depending on whether Studio A had a drama booked in used either Studio A or Studio B gallery.

Saturday Night at the Mill had the dubious honour of causing 2 of the big windows to be replaced. I think it was the night that a parachute jump landed on the front lawn, and in order to get some additional lighting, the lighting director (TM) had 2 big lights shining through the long gallery windows onto the lawn. The lights were well back from the windows and he checked that the windows were not getting hot. However they would have warmed slightly. That night after the show we had one of the hardest frosts in a long while, and the thermal stress on the windows caused them both to crack (several hours after the lights had been switched off). The replacement of the windows subsequently featured on a Pebble Mill at One, although what may not have been seen was that the new ones were about 3/4 inch too short! The gap was filled with mastic.

Studio B progammes in addition to the regular Midlands Today, hosted the Asian unit New Life programme on Sundays, and Farming, (the forerunner of Countryfile). Pebble Mill at One on any days when Studio A was in use for drama, and several programmes that could be squeezed into the small space, including incredibly some with an audience. Sadly I cannot remember all of them but The Clothes Show certainly started off in Studio B. There was rarely any slack days, and Studio B (or its gallery at least) may well have seen at least 2 and often 3 different programmes during the course of 24 hours! The presentation annex was arranged as a self operated area, and close down was done from there every night, with just a couple of engineers manning the TAR end of things. David Stevens was one of the regulars, and used a series of colour slides for his close down sequence. Sometimes the slides jammed in the slide scanner, resulting in a somewhat curtailed sequence. One of the slide scanners took a pair of slide boxes from which the slides were pushed up into the scanner gate by a metal plunger known as the Sprod. Unfortunately this required consistent slide mounts to work properly, and David’s assorted slides were not quite as regular as required, so sometime it spat out a slide altogether, just leaving a blank white screen. When possible the other slide scanner was used for this as the slides were pre slotted into place in a pair of discs which rotated into the scanner gate. The disadvantage of that being that changing the order of the slides took much longer if they needed to be changed. As there were only the 2 slide scanners, and both studios might need to use slides there was a lot of pressure on the engineers to keep them both in working order.

Ray Lee