Geoff Hamilton – What Was Pebble Mill?

Gardeners’ World Golden Anniversary

Gardeners’ World is celebrating its golden anniversary this year. Tonight on Midlands Today, there was an item presented by Kay Alexander from Gardeners’ World Live show at the NEC, showing some of the programme’s history.

The link below is to the Midlands Today 6pm show, and will work until the evening of 17th June 2017.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b08tkz1f/midlands-today-evening-news-16062017

Below are some grabs from the Midlands Today item.

Mary Rhodes introduces Gardeners’ World’s 50th anniversary

Percy Thrower presenting on Gardeners’ World

Peter Seabrook presenting on Gardeners World

Geoff Hamilton presenting Gardeners’ World at Barnsdale, cameraman Steve Saunderson, director Denis Gartside (red jacket), PA Gail Herbert

Alan Titchmarsh presenting on Gardeners World

Monty Don presenting on Gardeners World

Outside broadcast truck setting up for Gardeners World

Outside broadcast truck interior

50 years of Gardeners’ World

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The 50yr anniversary of Gardeners’ World, was celebrated by the RHS magazine, The Garden, in the April 2017 edition: https://www.rhs.org.uk/about-the-rhs/publications/magazines/the-garden/2017-issues/April/a-world-of-gardening-in-50-years.pdf

Gardeners’ World was a BBC Birmingham production until it was moved to BBC Bristol in 2012.

The article gives a timeline of the presenters of the UK’s favourite gardening show:

1968-76 – Percy Thrower

1976-79 – Arthur Billit

1979-96 – Geoff Hamilton

1980-2 – Geoffrey Smith

1996-2002 – Alan Titchmarsh

2003-8 – Monty Don

2008-10 – Toby Buckland

2011-present – Monty Don

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Gardeners’ World – Lavender July 1990

The photo is from the Radio Times, July 1990, and is of me (Vanessa Jackson) in a Norfolk lavender farm, with some expert, whose name I forget! I was a researcher on Gardeners’ World at the time, and I couldn’t understand why the Radio Times wanted a photo of me, with the expert, rather than one of the presenters, especially as I was at least seven months pregnant at the time!

This was shortly before the series was handed over to Catalyst Television, and produced independently for 10 years.

Here is the Radio Times entry for the episode, courtesy of the BBC Genome project: http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/3d4dfe567db54f5d9544599bfd5a5728

“A visit to Dr Stefan Buczacki ‘s low-maintenance garden in Stratford-on-Avon; the lowdown on lavender, the sweet-smelling herb for edging and hedging; jobs for the week from Barnsdale; and a report on the mail-order bugs business – breeding predators and parasites to prey on white fly and other garden pests. With Geoff Hamilton , Nigel Colborn and Pippa Greenwood. Executive producer Stephanie Silk, Editor Dennis Adams
Plant list on Ceefax page 617. “

25 Years of Gardeners’ World – 4 Aug 1994

This titles grab is from the 25th Anniversary edition of Gardeners’ World. The special programme went out on 4th August 1994. The programme was produced by Keith Hayley, and exec produced by John King. It was presented by Geoff Hamilton. This was during the ten year period where Gardeners’ World was made by the independent production company: Catalyst, but it looks like this show was made in-house by BBC Pebble Mill.

Here is the link to the Radio Times listing for the show: http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/69dd0c60a4194396bc6f549e1d26aa5f.

Thanks to Ian Collins for making the still available.

1″ VT Machine with John Duckmanton

1″ VT demonstration from pebblemill on Vimeo.

Specially shot video of VT engineer, John Duckmanton, demonstrating how to operate a 1″ VT machine. The tape John uses is a Gardeners’ World, with Geoff Hamilton, from 1984.

Photo by Paul Vanezis

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

Keith Brook: ‘Editing on 2″ tape you were lucky to get 10 edits an hour. You cannot imagine how huge the edit rate increased once 1″ tape was introduced. The breakthrough was the ability to shuttle by hand and find your edit point visually.’