Tag: Keith Brook

More Vote for Them photos in Tenbury Wells

adjusting lighting RT Simon Tooley on camera RT Regal Cinema Roy Thompson Cast in cinema RT Cast relaxing in theTenbury Wells

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photos by Roy Thompson, no reproduction without permission.

These photos from the 1989 three part drama: Vote For Them, by David Edgar and Neil Grant, were taken in Tenbury Wells, Worcestershire. The Regal Cinema stood in for an Egyptian cinema.

Simon Tooley is seen on camera in the second photo, wearing the striped top, with Bob Few holding the tripod, and soundman Andy Redfern in the brown top, to the left, with his mixer on the seat.

Thanks to Keith Brook (Scouse), Peter Knowles and Richard Stevenson for identifying people.

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

Mike Eastman: ‘Played a soldier on this show, but recorded my section at Pebble Mill Studio.’

Janice Rider: ‘Never seen these photos. Thank you Roy for sharing these. There were SO many extras on this show all in uniform!!! You can just see Paul Higton dealing with them in the second photo at the back on the left.’

Pebble Mill Cleaning Ladies

Pebble Mill cleaning ladies Judith Markall

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

This photo is of the Pebble Mill cleaning ladies in the early 1970s.

Elsie Brown was the only full time ladies cloakroom attendant and did so for about 20 years.

Please add a comment if you can name others in the photo.

(Thanks to Judith Markall for sharing the photo).

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

Keith Brook: ‘This may have been the moment when Sidey did his famous quote ‘From the cleaners downwards ……’

That lovely play on words earned him an annual invite to the girl’s Christmas canal barge party!!

They were a great crowd.’

Lynn Cullimore: ‘They were fantastic and so dedicated. Who remembers murial with the beehive hairdo? She took part in the barmaids arms series.’

Dharmesh Rajput: ‘Memories of cleaners – so in the final years of Pebble Mill – who remembers Sharon? She was lovely, but god help you if you were still working late when she needed to clean!’

Judith Markall: Elsie Brown was my mom and she loved working there. We were able to catch up during the day when I worked in Planning Office. She was the only lady that was there all day as the others only worked early mornings. Yes Keith they were a great bunch !

[Included are] Elsie Brown, Elsie Lloyd, Edie Harrison, Olive Taylor, Edna Cuneen, Also ladies I have no surnames for – Betty, Anne, Pat, Doreen. I see Phil Sidey is there and I can’t remember the name of the other Manager.

Jacks’ lead storage

PV018

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by Paul Vanezis, no reproduction without permission.

This photo shows how spools from old VT tapes were reused as jacks’ lead storage in post production at Pebble Mill. You can see the spools screwed on to the end of this bay outside Dub 1 in post production

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

Keith Brook (Scouse): ‘I think they were the 30 minute size of 2″ spools. They took both sides off the centre, screwed it to the wall, then put one side back on.’

Andy Marriott: ‘I would’ve assume timed video leads would make that an MFA area somewhere in post production. Any increase/decrease in cable lengths would’ve played havoc with timings between VT/studios, unless you can compensate for it. This is obviously in the days before you could just stick cheap frame synchronisers on each OS. ISTR that even by the end of Studio B’s life, only a handful of the OS’ had synchronisers on. The others relied on the sources being synchronous and ‘timed in’, like local VT machines etc.

I think the reason they’re ‘timed’ leads, is that basically they’re all the same length, so if you need to patch a component feed between two VT’s (three patch cables required), you’d need the cables to be all the same length to avoid messing up your picture if (for example) the colour difference signals arrive before your luminance signal.

If you were short of spools you can also chop them at 120 degree intervals have three cable hangers instead. You can label as 50Hz, 0-20kHz and >3MHz.’

Raymond Lee: ‘It may have been a JCB [John Burkill] idea, he was quite involved with the refurb.’

CMCR 9/ North 3 Outings 2014 – Jerry Clegg

Steve Harris with North 3 at Lymm, last year. Copyright resides with the original holder.

Steve Harris with North 3 at Lymm, last year. Copyright resides with the original holder.

 

 

North 3 Wins an “Oscar”

The last BBC Type 2 colour scanner still on the road, CMCR9/North 3, has won an award. The Duncan Neale Award for Excellence in Preservation has been awarded by the British Vintage Wireless Society to Steve Harris, the owner of the restored LO5 / Midland / North 3 OB unit CMCR9, which entered service in 1969. Steve’s self-effacing acceptance speech lavished praise on his small team of dedicated volunteers and their multifarious talents, but not mentioned was his own multi-skilled determination without which the North 3 Project would never have got off the ground.

Steve and his team spent the winter getting ready for the new show season and preparing new treats for the visitors. October saw Steve H  produce the first pictures for many years from a 44 year old EMI 2001 camera and December saw the first powering-up by Steve Jones of a very rare Philips PC80 camera originally from North 1/CMCR7. Richard Ellis, former Chief Engineer of Pye TVT Ltd has restored to full operation the original Pye sync pulse generators which he designed back in the 60s. This involved finding equivalents and replacing more than 100 discrete transistors.

Meanwhile, Eric Hignett has been building an amazing generator, powered by a Ford Transit diesel engine. In ‘proof of concept’ form, this was a real Heath Robinson affair on a trailer, with a motor-bike silencer and speed maintained by a modified cruise control for a car. It worked and the first run, apart from producing a tremendous amount of noise, delivered 40 amps at 230 volts, which powered three aircon units and other auxilliaries in North 3, all electronics being kept well away from this unproven beast for the test run. Eric went away to scratch his head, refine the design and try to make it produce less noise!

North 3 was booked at the time of writing to take part in the Cheshire Commercial Vehicle Run on 27th April starting at Lymm Truckstop on the M6. This is a trip of over 100 miles. The first public show this year was at the Llandudno Transport Festival on 3, 4 and 5 May, followed by the Kelsall Steam and Vintage Rally at Kelsall near Tarvin, Cheshire, on 21and 22 June.

Kelsall is a special event for ERF vehicles, originally manufactured at nearby Sandbach, as it marks the 25th anniversary of the enthusiasts’ club. Steve is hoping to take his latest acquisition, ex-BBC Type 7 scanner LO23, (an ERF E6) to display alongside North 3. Restoration has not yet started, so it will be just as it was when rescued from imminent destruction at a scrap yard following decommissioning by SIS.

Later in the summer we expect North 3 to be at the Wilmslow Show in July and the highlight of the season will be another appearance at the popular Onslow Park Steam Rally near Shrewbury over the August Bank Holiday weekend.

Jerry Clegg

(This article is due for publication in Prospero’s June edition)

 

The following comment was posted on the Pebble Mill Facebook Page:

Keith Brook (Scouse): ‘Of all my memories of that scanner, I think having so much fun with the riggers was the best. They really were the salt of the earth.’

Pebble Mill Peelable

 

Two Point 4 Children, photo and design by Lynda Kettle

Two Point 4 Children, photo and design by Lynda Kettle

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A special paint was developed to paint on the floor of Studio A, the television drama studio – it was called ‘Pebble Mill peelable’ and was available commercially.

The following comments were posted on the Pebble Mill Facebook Page, about this special paint, what it did, and whether it was a good thing – or not!

Raymond Lee: ‘Before Pebble Mill peelable the studio floor was painted in water based paints, which ran if anything got spilt on them. Also it required a day between productions to wash the studio floor and let it dry, before the next painting could take place. One of the downsides of of the peelable paint was that after a number of layers the floor became quite uneven, so tracking shots became increasingly wobbly! I’m fairly sure it was only used in Studio A, and not the foyer. A base coat was put on the studio floor, which involved closing the studio for a couple of days. The fumes were quite pungent. Then the special floor paint was used to create the required floor using rollers, as previously. When a new drama went in the next floor scene was just painted on top. This continued for a number of productions, and then the paint was peeled off a bit like lino back to the base layer.’

Lynn Cullimore: ‘Yes, I remember it and it was a company headed by a man called Terry Field – I would think he is long retired now. It was really rated apparently. I knew Terry as he was a friend of John Woods in the press office when I then worked. They did use it in Studio A I believe but I am not sure if they did in the foyer.’

Guy Heselden: ‘The paint used at the London studios sounds similar. It goes on with a roller and can be touched up or painted over as and when and then when required gets washed off back to the bare brown coloured studio floor, ready for a new coat of paint!’

Gerry King: ‘Pebble Mill Peelable existed for many years totally dependent on Pebble Mill studios for income. They had premises on the Hagley Road close to the Plough & Harrow. For the life of me I cannot remember the name of their MD.’

Keith Brook (Scouse): ‘It was the most awful invention ever to fall on the lovely lino floors of Studio A. The original water paint system could be sucked up immediately after the sets had been removed and the new floor painted soon after. That system had the added effect of cleaning the floor and so we were left with a smooth surface to do our famous tracking shots. Pebble Mill Peelable often had it’s thick base coat put down without the floor being cleaned first. To add insult to injury, subsequent layers weren’t cleaned off either and the build- up was horrific. Many of the camera crew carried a Stanley knife and cut out the offending items which annoyed the manager who had introduced the paint. A short lecture on camerawork shut him up until the next time he wanted to flex his muscles.’