Tag: Maggie Humphries

2nd Floor Bar – photos by Peter Poole

Photos by Peter Poole, no reproduction without permission.

The photos show the bar on the 2nd floor of Pebble Mill, before it was moved to the new Club building in the mid 1980s. The 2nd floor bar proved to be a creative melting pot, where staff from all departments mingled after recordings, at lunch time and at the end of the day.

The photos include Liz Nicholls, Martin Harris, Sharon Pemberton, John Allen, Gail Herbert and Geoff Watts.

Please add a comment if you can identify any others.

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

Maggie Humphries: ‘Peter Skinner from Finance and Geoff Watts another couple of names’.

Janet Collins:  ‘I think it’s Sue Brown in a couple of photos’.

Susan Astle: ‘Definitely Sam from makeup -is she standing next to Graham Pettifer from the scene crew? From Susie Bankers’

Brian Johnson: ‘In one of the group photos , first from left, Alex who I think was Bar Manager for a time before leaving with Sarah (standing next to him) , to run a pub somewhere in Worcs I think. In front of them (seated) Colin from security who I believe sadly took his own life in the late 70s when he was still working in P Mill Security.’

Gail Herbert: ‘The tall guy in the group picture is Jeremy Pallant, producer of Farming, etc and I think Sue Williams in in the 3rd photo.’

Film Unit – photos from Maggie Humphries & Juliet Dean

Photos from Maggie Humphries & Juliet Dean.

These photos include stills of the Film Unit Office, featuring Bill Bohanna (Manager Film), Maggie Humphries & Diane Welch, Juliet Dean.

Photos of the crews include:

– Cameraman Mike Willie, and assistant Keith Froggatt and others, by the pond

– Keith Froggatt on the camera crane

– Cameramen Nigel Davey and Keith Froggatt

– John Couzens doing a tracking shot from a wheelchair

– John Parker and Roger Waldron recording 3 Minute Heroes

– Cameraman Eric Wise (below the cross)

– John Couzens, Eric Wise, Andy Payne and Tim Green, filming by a road

The Film Unit was a busy office on the 1st floor at the back of Pebble Mill.  All the allocation of film camera crews was done from the Office, as well as the ordering of specialist film equipment.  The Film Unit also organised the film editors, allocating editors to programmes, including news, dramas and documentaries.  Most filmed programmes were shot on 16mm film.  Shooting and editing on film were replaced in the late 1980s and 1990s by single camera video recording on beta and then digibeta, and the editing equipment changed from steenbecks to Avid.

Maggie Humphries & Diane Welch

Protecting the Children – TX Card from Maggie Humphries

Transmission Card from Maggie Humphries for ‘Protecting the Children’

Transmission Card


‘thank you’ note from Chris Wade

This transmission card is from the 1988, 7 part series on BBC 2  following one of the NSPCC’s Child Protection Teams based in Lincoln, as they investigated cases of abuse and neglect towards children. The documentary series was largely observational and involved film crews being on standby to cover emergencies as they unfolded.

Margaret Jay was reporter for the series.  The daughter of Labour leader James Callaghan, she followed her television career as Labour spokesperson on Health in the Lords.  She was married and then divorced from Peter Jay.

The series was produced by Tamasin Day-Lewis (now best known as a television chef and sister of the actor Daniel Day-Lewis),with photography by Mike Fox and edited by Chris Wade; Sally Ann Lomas was the assistant producer.  This thank you note is from the film editor Chris Wade, and thanks the Film Unit office for their helpfulness.  Maggie Humphries scheduled and organised the film crews at Pebble Mill, facilitating the programmes based in Birmingham.