Gardeners’ World Live

Photo by Ben Peissel, no reproduction without permission

This a list of factual television programmes, described as ‘current’, was produced before the closure of Pebble Mill, around 2004. The list is included in a document housed in the BBC Archives in Caversham.

BBC One:

Points of View, Animal Sanctuary

BBC Two:

Gardeners’ World, Gardeners’ World Specials, Gardeners’ World Live, RHS Tatton, Gardener of the Year, Small Town Gardens, Rachel’s Country Garden [I don’t think this series was actually made], Million Pound Property Challenge, SAS Survival Secrets, Big Dreams – The Secrets of Asian Success, How I made My Property Millions

BBC Three:

The Brief: India and Pakistan, Greatest Eunuch Show, Black Beauty

BBC One Daytime:

Countryfile, Call My Bluff, To Buy or Not to Buy, Trading Up, Big Strong Boys, Sunday Garden, Trading Up in the Sun

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

Caroline Feldon Parsons: ‘I worked on 10 of those programmes! And don’t forget all the Radio programmes that were also being currently made …’

Simon Vaughan: ‘Pebble Mill was an amazing production centre – why on earth decommission it and pull it down, such an absolute waste. Just like TVC, their like will never be seen again.’

Carole Lowe: ‘Miss Pebble Mill a great building I worked on Anne and Nick and other programmes. Sad loss to BIRMINGHAM.’

Stuart Gandy: ‘Proper broadcasting centre.’

Pete Simpkin: ‘..and of course all the Radio…Live music , recorded music, Radio 2, Radio 3, amazing amount of Radio 4 ….drama, features, documentaries, the Archers and all the Local Radio as well!’

Judith Markall: ‘A sin to knock the building down!’

This titles grab is from Gardeners’ World Live from the 1990s. Gardeners’ World Live was the television show from the annual gardening event of the same name; which is held at the NEC in mid June each year. The gardening exhibition is organised by Haymarket, who publish the BBC Gardeners’ World magazine. The television show is usually presented by a selection of the weekly Gardeners’ World presenters.

I produced this television show over several years, and used to really enjoy making it. We used to have a production office at the show, and then come back to Pebble Mill for the post production, and transmission. It was a quick turnaround, with the majority of the programme being recorded on the week of transmission, with a couple of video-taped inserts recorded in advance. I remember one year, where we realised about fifteen minutes before the transmission that we needed an extra piece of voice-over to make a particular junction work. I’ve never seen people move so fast, and everyone worked brilliantly as a team to find the presenter, write the script, lash together a mic, record the VO and insert it into the transmission tape – and we still made transmission! John Walton was the online VT editor that year, and did a fantastic job.

Thanks to Ian Collins for making the grab available.

Vanessa Jackson

Tag: Gardeners’ World Live

List of Pebble Mill programmes