Paul Hunt – What Was Pebble Mill?

Tony Newbury, Mike Day, Gail Herbert, Peter Skinner

The photo includes Tony Newbury, Mike Day, Gail Herbert (now Everett), and Peter Skinner. It was taken in the BBC Club at Pebble Mill one Christmas.

Thanks to Gail for sharing the photo.

The following information was added on the Pebble Mill Facebook page:

Paul Hunt: Mike was the Broadcast Systems Engineer. In a nutshell he knew everything about all the wiring of Pebble Mill and kept all the records up to date. Additionally he had an encyclopaedic knowledge of all the Post Office landlines across the midlands region!

Steve Dellow: ‘He was also given an ‘Unsung Hero’ award recently’

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/av/get-inspired/46454426?fbclid=IwAR3lHi6eZp0AjzpVqpft-C89ZwTjK3Z2fksytN5JYu4QsvKFDxnhtu5li3U

Building of Pres Gallery 1991

Room to the side of Pres, before the Pres Gallery was built. Photos from Stuart Gandy, no reproduction without permission.

Pres Gallery building 1991

Pres Gallery in use

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These photos from Stuart Gandy show the building of the Pres Gallery in 1991. The first photo shows the ‘before’, the second the ‘during’ and the third, the ‘after’.

Stuart describes how the gallery was built: “the talkback panel in here with the mic sticking out of it was entirely home built, like we did back then – all analogue wiring in and out of the panel designed by me and Charlotte – built by Mech workshop and wired by Pete Holmes.”

These photos were originally shared on the Pebble Mill Engineers Facebook group.

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

Paul Hunt: ‘Is it Clare Clibbery-Davies on the Pres desk and Craig Wood on the Paintbox? Not sure who’s on the Aston?’

Craig Wood: ‘that’s going back a bit, yep that’s me lurking at the back. I can’t work out who it is on Aston either.’

Gary Williams: ‘Jacqui Cawston on the Aston?’

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Radio WM studio

Photo from Rod Fawcett, no reproduction without permission

Chris Nelson in Radio WM, with the desk partially dismantled, on the first floor of Pebble Mill.

The following comments were added to the Pebble Mill Facebook page:

Andy Walters: ‘That’s gotta be Area 1. The only Studio that was orientated that way. The removed unit will contain the Peak Programme Meters, Red DTX buttons and Talkback as well as master level controls.’

Paul Hunt: ‘I think it’s a very young Chris Nelson and he’s sitting in Area 1. (In Area 2 and 4 the operator had their back to the window) The central module has been removed. It wasn’t uncommon for folk to hit the tannoy or DTX (Direct to transmitter) buttons so hard that they would stick in. These BBC Mark 3 desks were hand built by the equipment department at Avenue House in Chiswick. The last one in service is at Radio Lancashire, not bad considering they were designed in the 1970’s!!’

Andy Marriott: ‘Wow, is Lancashire really the last Mk3 site? Does that mean everyone else is ViLoR’ed now? Or are the post 2000 refurbed ER template sites still in service?
I’ve got one of those centre modules in my garage, ex-Humberside, I think. What I’d like to know is what are those 7 segment LED displays are? Next to the LS3/5. Didn’t WM have some kind of computer controlled CD jukebox system for their music?’

Andy Walters: ‘There was a CD jukebox controlled by Acorn RISC computers with NSM mechanisms. It was originally bought for CWR in Coventry. I remember chucking it in the skip. The hard disk system was called Numisys but I do think it was there for very long. World Service used Numisys a lot. The display by the speaker, I think were timers for the two Gram channels.’

Paul Hunt: ‘We did the trial with Studer Numisys in 1994. As Andy points out the CD jukebox system was moved over in 1996 after the merger with CWR.’

Philip Morgan: ‘Am I correct in thinking that this area was originally the Station Manager’s office (i.e. Jack Johnston’s) in the 1970’s? I believe these areas were originally designated something like studio’s 8, 9, and 10 when Pebble Mill was under construction and the area was reserved for the Midland Region of Radio 4.’

Rod Fawcett: ‘The cart machine on the right is a BE (Broadcast Electronics) triple deck – replaced eventually by the Sonifex Micro HS series… The photo is from the 80s and after Radio WM became stereo (as of course its a Mk III stereo console). I can’t remember when WM converted to stereo exactly, was it 1985??’

Simon Walsh: ‘This is the Late Nights with Adil Ray desk, and was a pleasure to drive.’

Thomas Graal: ‘It looks like Chris Nelson with hair to me. The LP on the desk is 20 Fabulous Hits by Jake Thackray originally released in 1975.’

Paul Hunt: ‘So who do I bump into in the basement of BH today but Chris Nelson. He loved the photo and said it was working with people like Ed Doolan that helped him get on. He now travels the globe directing multi camera programmes for BBC World.’

Andy Walters: ‘Here’s how the same studio looked on WMs last day in 2004. It was the last studio on air as it was used by the Asian Network for six weeks after WM left.’

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Rod Fawcett in the WM workshop

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The photo shows Radio WM engineer, Rod Fawcett, in the workshop at BBC Pebble Mill.

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

Paul Hunt: ‘I’m guessing this is about 1988? I joined Dan Cooke as the second engineer there 5 years later with Tom Horsefield as the Engineer-in-Charge. The test set on the upper shelf is an ME2/5 (built by the BBC equipment department). Underneath is a Ferrograph RTS2 test set. On the bench is a DC power supply unit for powering equipment under test. Rod’s holding an AKG D130 which was the “standard” omni reporters mic that would be used with a UHER. The WM engineers workshop, room 104, had started life as the newsroom when Pebble Mill opened. It then moved upstairs to the 2nd floor and then back to the first floor in 1989 to be adjacent to TV news. It’s also worth noting the Dymo tape on the drawers – something very common in Local Radio stations!!’

Christopher Hall: ‘Top shelf, with black meter, is BBC ME2/5 audio test set, below it with white meter is Ferrograph RTS-2 audio test set, below it is an amplifier test rack, to left are two H&H AM8/12 loudspeaker amplifiers, below them is a Farnel power supply, and at the right of the bench is a Telequipment D66 oscilloscope.’

Keith Butler: ‘Isn’t the ‘scope a D66a, I think the earlier D66 was blue.’

Andy Walters: ‘My office for my first three years at WM. Room 104 with it’s views of the River Rae and plague of Ladybirds every autumn.’

George Tatler: ‘All this kit still looks current to me, i wish i had a modern dual PSU like the Farnell one. At the far end of the lower shelf is one of those Glensound Tele Balance Unit boxes with the sloping front that an old tele used to sit on top of – as used in district studios or simple NCA studio setups etc..’

Martin Cox: ‘The grey box lying on its face next to the LS3/5a might be a battery powered Level oscillator’

Susan Hillman: ‘Was just a few weeks ago that we were standing round a Farnell power supply at work and saying that they still looked the same as they ever did. This was in stark contrast to the oscilloscope which had an awful lot missing round the back’

Ian Dyer: ‘I moved an ME2/5 between bays only today whilst rationalising the old MKIII bays in Wiltshire post-ViLoR!’

Andy Walters: ‘The same room on WM’s last day at Pebble Mill in Summer 2004.’

Photo by Andy Walters, no reproduction without permission

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Colin Pierpoint blog 6 – Recording

(Here is part 6 of Colin Pierpoint’s blog about his career at the BBC):

At this time [mid 1960s] the duties as a Technical Operator in the Control Room included work in the Recording Channels. This was sound only, and is usually thought to be as exclusively for Radio, but in fact we also recorded and edited sound tapes to be used in television. At one time Johnathan Miller was in my editing channel M10 to edit sound for a television programme. I worked for quite a number of Producers, editing the Midland Light Orchestra (as it was then), not just cutting in retakes, but sometimes editing out an early entry by some musician, or split notes on the brass. I still have a reel of tape with a selection of my edits both before and after. I worked with Peter Craddy at first, then Ron Gardener. There was “On Your Farm” produced by Tony Parkin; and a Features Producer by the name of Ann (and I can’t recall her surname). One of her programmes was called “Jews in England”. Richard Butt produced the classical music and we regularity worked on editing orchestral recordings. I edited one recording made in Birmingham Town Hall with Peter Pears and Benjamin Britten.

I also worked with Charles Parker. He produced the Radio Ballads; later after his death to be acclaimed masterpieces of Radio. I remember recording a trailer for his latest programme, in the recording channel M4 at Broad Street. It had a small studio with a Marconi 5 channel desk. After he finished the 1 minute trail, he asked me “What do you think?” Wanting to sound interested I said “It could be a bit more punchy” so he said “let’s do it again then” I wished I had kept my mouth shut! He did do his own tape editing, which I objected to because any faults would be thought to be mine! I think I told him that I don’t mind him doing the editing, if I can do the Producing. Editing was done at that time using splicing tape to join the two parts of quarter inch recording tape. Any imperfect sticky edits would cause the tape to bounce, and french chalk was put on the tape to remedy this. He was putting french chalk on all the edits on the reel, and getting it all over the tape machine, so I told him that he would have to clean it all us afterwards, which to his credit, he did.

Colin Pierpoint

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

Paul Hunt: ‘That looks like a BTR2 tape machine?’

Colin Pierpoint: ‘Correct. I did most of my editing on the BTR2, a lovely machine when you got to know it. When we changed to stereo I used Studer B62 at Pebble Mill, and A80s at Wood Norton, then B67s. Going back to using a BTR2 after the Studers made it feel like driving a tank! The BTR2 channel had interesting hidden facilities. The “Autofollow” button for two reel playback. Switching one machine to remote, would mute the other machine. And operating a toggle switch in the bottom of the linking console made one machine play and the other record if the red light was switched on. This was for copying. Of course, you had to be careful to put the original tape on the play machine and not the one destined to record!’