Tag: John Holmes

John Holmes’s memories of working at Pebble Mill

John Holmes

I was fortunate enough to work at Pebble Mill during those heady days of regional TV when we had the luxury of not only ‘Midlands Today’ but two half hour opt-outs a week, Tuesday evenings and Friday nights.

That legendary producer Roger Casstles was the first to ask me to join the ‘Look! Hear!’ team as a presenter alongside Chris Phipps and Michael Woods. After the first series Michael left and Toyah Wilcox replaced him. At one time the programme was so popular we were receiving over 600 letters a week.

As a result John Clarke, another legend, asked me to present a new hobbies based series called ‘Sparetime’. The moment I saw the opening credits that Anne Jenkins had created I knew we were on to another winner.

The ground breaking programme ‘Together’ followed this. Ground breaking at the time because it focussed on the lives of communities that had settled in our region. The programmes objective was to bring us all closer together. I well remember the Sikhs of Coventry, the Muslims in Stoke, the Irish in Leicester and the Caribbean community in Handsworth, an OB.

If you have memories of this please contact me. They were halcyon days at The Mill.

I’ve written about it all in my autobiography, ‘This Is the BBC Holmes Service’.

For more details visit johnholmes.co.uk 

Look! Hear! Concert – School Sports

Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission.

This audio is from a concert for the regional arts show, Look! Hear! recorded in Cannon Hill Park in Edgbaston, Birmingham. The band is called “School Sports”, who were popular on the pub rock scene at the time.

Look! Hear! was presented by Toyah Willcox, Chris Phipps and John Holmes. The producer was Roger Casstles, who went on to create The Clothes Show.

Thanks to Peter Poole for making the audio available.

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

Stuart Gandy: ‘Good memories of this programme, one of the first I ever worked on in TV ops.’

Alastair Yates: ‘I have nervous memories of being responsible for putting this opt on air from the Pres. Studio.’

Gary Jordan: ‘After doing a bit of digging the concert was known as “Lark In The Park” Produced by BRMB’s Robin Valk on 25th-29th August 1979 and featured bands like, Slender Loris, Rainmaker, Little Acre, Ruby Turner, City Boy, Fashion. The Specials and School sports who had changed their name from Hooker, who then changed it again to Mean Street Dealers.’

Steve Saunderson: ‘I was on one of the cameras ( Film ). I think I’ve still got a badge somewhere in a draw with my old ID Cards that show this cool cameraman with lots of hair and a beard. Who was that bearded man?’

Rosie Critchlow: ‘I had a Look! Hear! badge, brought home from work by my Dad.’