Jeremy Clarkson – What Was Pebble Mill?

Midlands News 1992

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This page from the internal newspaper, Midlands News from 1992, shows what a vibrant place Pebble Mill was at this time, with both radio and television programmes winning all kinds of accolades, and even the restaurant winning an award for healthy food! Jeremy Clarkson is looking very youthful in the top right-hand corner, but down at the bottom the photographs for Countryfile‘s day out and Sarah Rowlands and Mark Decker’s digital editing session seem to have been swapped over – oops!

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Top Gear Live

Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission

Here is a titles grab from the show: Top Gear Live.

There are two editions of Top Gear Live included on the BBC Genome project, which lists Radio Times entries. One edition of the motor show at Silverstone went out on BBC 2 in May 1998, and here is the entry for the first one in 20 July 1996:

http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/3fff773616ba49d6a3d4a304f90a01f9

“Last Thursday, the world’s first interactive motor show, Top Gear Live, opened at Silverstone, giving the public the chance to go for a test drive on the circuit that recently staged the British Grand Prix. The team from BBC2’s Top Gear programme reports from the five-day event whose attractions include motorcycle stunts, monster trucks, new cars, classic designs, karts and off-road vehicles. Presented by Jeremy Clarkson , Quentin Willson , Tiff Needell , Michele Newman , Tony Mason and Steve Berry.
Producers Jon Bentley and John Wilcox
Contributors
Presented By: Jeremy Clarkson
Presented By: Quentin Willson
Presented By: Tiff Needell
Presented By: Michele Newman
Presented By: Tony Mason
Presented By: Steve Berry.
Producers: Jon Bentley
Producers: John Wilcox”

Thanks to Ian Collins for making the still available.

Top Gear titles grabs

These title grabs are from one of BBC Pebble Mill’s longest running and most well known series – Top Gear. They date from the 1990s.

The series began as a monthly magazine show in 1977, and ran at Pebble Mill until 2001. It was fronted by a whole host of different presenters over the years, including Jeremy Clarkson, William Woollard, Noel Edmonds and Angela Rippon.

The colour schemes are all suitably macho, as are the design features!

Thanks to Ian Collins for sharing the stills.

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

Andy Bentley: ‘Sometimes the vehicles for the program were delivered to Pebble Mill and we kept the keys in the Security office. As space on the car park was at a premium we felt duty bound to re-park them of a night. Got to drive some fab motors.’

Gregory Hallsworth: ‘Standing next to the fax machine the day after Clarkson tore into the Vauxhall Vectra was very revealing!’

Jeremy Clarkson’s – Motorworld

Jeremy Clarkson’s Motorworld was a lighthearted series on BBC 2, about the culture of the car in different countries. It was a spin off programme of Top Gear. There were two, six part series, with an additional special programme going out as a Christmas special in 1996, about motoring in the United Kingdom. The first series went out in January and February 1995, and the second series going out in January and February 1996.

The countries visited included: Series 1: Japan, Vietnam, Detroit, Iceland, Italy, India; Series 2: Monaco, Cuba, Switzerland, Australia, Texas, Dubai, UK.

There was a DVD made of the highlights, and book, written by Jeremy Clarkson, accompanied the series.

Dennis Jarvis was the series director, and the title music was written by David Lowe.

Thanks to Ian Collins for sharing this grab from the titles.

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

Lynn Cullimore: ‘I was the production assistant. Dennis is lovely and great to work with.’

Top Gear: Waterworld

Waterworld was a Top Gear spin-off series. There were five episodes in all, transmitted between 20th July and 20th August 1998. It was presented by Jeremy Clarkson, Tiff Needell and Julia Bradbury. It was a magazine show which covered motorised water vehicles of various sorts.

Thanks to VT editor Ian Collins for making this titles grab available.