Mark Ray – What Was Pebble Mill?

John Bland

Photo from Shirley O’Mara of John at the BBC Club, no reproduction without permission

John Bland, film editor, died recently. He joined BBC Birmingham as a news editor in Broad Street, and later became a film editor at Carpenter Road, before Pebble Mill was built. John’s credits include a Play for Today called Packman’s Barn 1976, the police series Juliet Bravo 1980; Mavericks, a BBC1 series in 1984 about eccentrics, produced by John Kenyon, which Sharon Pemberton assisted him on; and Countryfile amongst many others.

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

‘John Bland, a Film Editor at Pebble Mill for many years, passed away suddenly last week aged 78. His funeral will be held at Streetly Crematorium on Weds 26th August 2015 at 10.00am.’

Shirley O’Mara

‘I was John’s assistant for a while and he was very much part of my early years in editing at Pebble Mill. I recall being (pleasantly) surprised by his insistence that ‘Two Tribes’ (Frankie Goes To Hollywood) was the best single EVER and that Ruby Turner was the best singer to come out of Birmingham. (I think eclectic is the word!) I hope they’re both serenading you John. R.I.P.’

Sharon Pemberton

‘Great bloke! I ran the Run the World race with John, Ingrid Wagner and Geoff Dargue. We trained every lunchtime by running up all the flights of stairs at Pebble Mill. Judging by the state of us at the end of the race it didn’t do us much good!’

Mark Ray

PAs Leaving Party & Rum Punch 1998

PAs Leaving Party 17 Dec 1998

PAs at Rum Punch 1998

VT at Rum Punch 1998

Photos from Jane Mclean, no reproduction without permission.

The photos were taken at the Leaving Party for the Pebble Mill Production Assistants, as they took redundancy in 1998, and at Rum Punch which took place a couple of days later.

The first photo includes: Andy Rutter, Paul Scholes, John Cooke, Jim Cleland.

Second photo includes: Anne Varley, Jane Mclean, Sylvia Lloyd, Sue Williams, Linda Flavell. (In the background: Dave James & Geoff Moore)

The third photos includes left to right: Ray Lee, Dave Rhodes, Mark Ray, Gurpi Saini (kneeling), James Allen, Nigel Evans, Mark Davies, Ian Collins, Keith Brown, Robin Szemeti, Adam Harvey.

Thanks to Dave Bushell, Paul Vanezis, Mark Ray, Ray Lee, Stuart Gandy and Jane Mclean for identifying those in the photos.

Telecine – Ray Lee (Part 4)

Jim Gregory & Dave Schoolden in TK in 1976

As with most of the equipment in the programme chain, TK needed regular alignment and adjustment to get the best pictures. There were daily alignment procedures, normally left until the machines had been on for at least half an hour, and long term alignment done periodically to make sure everything was working in the right range. The TK Machines used discrete electronic components, i.e. individual transistors, rather than integrated circuits.(As did pretty much all the electronics in the ’70’s). As a result temperature drift, and voltage variations, had quite a marked effect upon the performance, and so most circuit boards had quite a lot of adjustable trimmers, to enable the system to work properly at standard levels. There was a SMPTE test loop which we ran in the machine in order to correctly set the image size, linearity, and focus, and other slides for setting afterglow correctors, photocell gain, etc.

A daily line up would normally take only a few minutes, up to perhaps 15 if things were a long way out, whereas a full lineup would take more like a couple of hours.

Some parts of the full lineup required boards to be put on extenders, which meant switching off, extending the card, switching on, waiting for things to settle, then finally making the adjustment. Then the machine would be switched off again the card returned to its slot and the machine re-powered. One then hoped that when the elecronics had stabilised, that the adjustment that had been made had stayed “in range”, otherwise the procedure would be repeated until it did.

The flying spot telecine tube ran at a voltage of 30kV and as such produced some “soft” X-rays so there were warning notices all over the area round the tube, warning of X rays and High voltages.

As an engineer one needed to be aware of the dangers posed by the machinary, and there were a lot of safety intelocks designed to prevent accidents of electrocution, or being caught by moving parts, but often needing to be overidden when making adjustments or repairs.

In those days the engineering department was a totally male preserve, it took a further decade before any female engineers appeared at Pebble Mill.

Ray Lee

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

Pete Simpkin: ‘Good to see Jim Gregory in the TK picture. We were at Evesham together in the 1960s.’

Keith Brook: ‘That picture could have been taken at any time because whenever I went into Telecine, Jim was sitting just like that!!’

Mark Ray: ‘I knew Dave from Midlands Today traffic in PSCB during the 1980’s. Dave sadly passed away some years ago.’

Peter Greenhalgh: ‘Interesting note about the x-rays, I seem to remember the cabinet doors were lead-lined to keep the x-rays in?’

The Drinkers

Copyright remains with the original holders, no reproduction without permission. The photographers include: Tim Savage, Paul Scholes, Brian Watkiss, Jim Gregory, Kate Davies, Ian Collins, Paul Vanezis, Steve May, Leigh Sinclair.

Making programmes is thirsty work as testament in these photos. Some of the drinks are definitely coffee!

Brian Watkiss