Thanks to thanks to Sarah Tongue, Carole Howell’s daughter, for sharing this photo of, and invitation to, Sue Farley’s retirement party in 1988.
Beryl Thompson (left), Myles Lang (centre), Barbara Wrigley (right in black patterned dress), Margaret Barton (right).
Sue Farley was PA on the Farming programme, as well as in the Asian Programmes Unit and John King’s unit.
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Going for a Song was a long running popular quiz show about antiques. The original series went out between 1965-77, and was made in Bristol. John King directed on the original series, and it was him who was responsible for reinventing the show and bringing it to Pebble Mill, when he was executive producer of the Entertainment Department. The relaunch was between 1995-2001 for BBC1 Daytime, with presenters Michael Parkinson (1995-9), Anne Robinson (2000), and Michael Aspel (2001). Eric Knowles was the antiques expert.
The show was recorded in Studio A.
Sue Robinson directed many of the shows, with Helena Taylor being one of the series producers, as well as Claire Hobbs. Vicky Jepson and Kate Southcott (now Hillman) worked on the series, as did gallery PA, Jane Mclean.
Thanks to Ian Collins for making this titles grab available.
The following comments were left on the Pebble Mill Facebook page:
Dave Bushell: ‘I had the pleasure of not only working on the Pebble Mill series but also the original when it was produced in Bristol Studio A in the late 60s/early 70s.’
Mike Hayes: ‘There was an incident with a hand wound electrical generator that some guest put his finger in, his partner then just wound it up giving a shock and a good laugh for everyone else.’
Sue Johnson: ‘I did the autocue for this and remember Dave brazier telling us how happy Michael P was with the production team – very fond memories.’
Helena Taylor: ‘I was the Series Producer and great fun it was too and a great team both in front and behind the camera.’
Michael Wood: ‘First TV show I ever saw get recorded – Anne Robinson was presenting. Made me realise I really wanted to work in telly!’
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In the photo, from left to right. Myself (Billy McLauchlan), Mary McLauchlan ( Mother ), Andy McPherson and Brian Morris (Brother ).
Billy McLauchlan talking about Telly Addicts 1986
“I remember being more excited at the prospect of visiting Pebble Mill than of being a contestant on Telly Addicts in 1986.
The highlight for me was meeting Victoria Wood and Anne Reid along with Hugh Loyd and Christopher Strauli who were recording her As Seen on TV series.
I was a big fan of Pebble Mill at One back in the day.
A shame it’s gone …”
The episode was in series 2 , ep5 ( transmitted 30/9/86 )
Here is the Radio Times entry of the episode, courtesy of the BBC Genome project:
Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission.
Thanks to Ian Collins for making this titles grab available.
Telly Addicts was a BBC1 early evening, game show about television presented by Noel Edmonds. It was first transmitted in 1985, and ended in 1998. John King was the Executive Producer, with producers including Tim Manning and Richard Lewis. It was recorded in Studio A.
The questions were about television programmes past and present, with the usual format being a clip followed by questions. There were usually two teams of four people each, with a tournament style of 16 teams, in 8 qualifying heats, being adopted from 1987-1996.
The following comments were left on the Pebble Mill Facebook page:
Denny Hodge: ‘Yes fond memories doing the warm up on the show.’
Jane Green: ‘Your warm ups were a treat to see Denny. Remember them well. I worked on this. Noel was a dream to look after. Helicopter arrived literally 5 minutes before rehearsals began and he had his clothes all ready and pressed and he’d be in studio on time. No fuss, no silly demands. Went to collect him from his dressing room once and found him standing on a chair waving a ‘brick’ around. It was a new thing called a mobile phone and he was trying to get a signal. His very beautiful new wife Helen turned up to rehearsals one evening to support him as his much loved dog had just died and he was so upset. She just walked in – I didn’t know who she was and was about to ask her to leave when someone explained…’
Andrew Langstone: ‘My friend Jennifer Kings (was Hassall) was a production secretary on Telly Addicts. Managed to get us some tickets for a few recordings.’
Malcolm Hickman: ‘Didn’t John King flog the rights to Noel Edmonds?’
Richard Stevenson: ‘The first show I worked on in 1997. Ironically I then went on to work with Noel on numerous Gotchas (65 I think), Noel’s House Party and some great worldwide trips for Noel’s Christmas Presents.’
Belinda Essex: ‘I used to do auto cue sometimes’
Gill Thompson: ‘I used to organise the audiences for this show, never had a problem filling seats was always a popular one!’
Sarah Dunning: ‘And the graphic designer was the brilliant Annie Jenkins!’
Jane Upston: ‘I remember recruiting for this programme (I was Jane Morgan then and worked in HR). I remember Nick Hurran too, the Director and Jennifer Hassell. Who was the PA?’
Richard Stevenson: ‘Trudi Stanton and Roger Sutton vision mixed I think. Can’t remember the PA but it will come to me!….Thea Harvey?’
Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission.
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.