Pebble Mill at One – What Was Pebble Mill?

Early PSC cameras – Ikegami

Photos by John Burkill, no reproduction without permission. John Williams on camera, Steve Saunderson assisting, Dave Baumber on sound.

Producer Phil Franklin in foreground, John Williams on camera.

Phil Franklin

The pictures were taken on the RAC Rally in 1985 in Clipstone Forest, near Nottingham, on the morning of Tuesday the 26^th of November. The cameraman is John Williams, the assistant is Steve Saunderson, the sound recordist is Dave Baumber and the producer, Phil Franklin.

The camera is almost certainly an Ikegami HL-79D and the recorder would probably have been a U-Matic in the bag over Dave’s shoulder.

The live transmissions, usually 10 to 15 minutes after 2300 hrs, were done by OB truck CM2, which was based at Rally Headquarters in the Albany Hotel in Nottingham, so Phil Franklin and VT editor, John Burkill were probably taking a short trip out to see a rally car in a forest. There was one mobile edit van, which was built for the rally, and it followed the event round the country and fed cut items back to CM2. The attached pictures of a machine rigged in CM2 would seem to confirm that the PSC format was U-Matic.

The Ikegami camera was developed for news gathering but was quickly adopted for handheld studio and OB work.

At the time, PSC style shooting was still done mainly on film, but this was the start of the transition to video. There were lots of experiments with different cameras, recorders and crews and this was one combination.

True PSC didn’t really take off until the Betacams and Digibeta came along, a bit later. They had the recorder built into the camera, making it much more like a film camera in terms of handling and the sound recordists made a sigh of relief.

The Ikegamis were used extensively at Pebble Mill for music acts and on jibs for drama. When the first one arrived, there was such excitement that it was used before the necessary adapter box to use it with TV36 cable was ready, outputting its pictures down a BNC cable. So the building’s sync pulses had to be synchronised with the camera (rather than the other way round) to avoid a picture roll every time it was cut to. This reached ridiculous heights, James French remembers, on a gardening item at the back of Pebble Mill for the live Pebble Mill at One. Not only was the building synced with the camera but the whole BBC network was synced to the building. There was a large cardboard sign attached to the Ikegami saying, “DO NOT SWITCH OFF!”

Thanks to John Burkill and James French for writing this post.

Pebble Mill Foyer

These photos date from the 1970s, after the Reception area was moved, when the original foyer was transformed into the studio for Pebble Mill at One.

David Hughes

David Hughes, copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission

David Hughes died recently and his funeral was held on Monday 5 Dec. Here is an obituary for him from Louise and Roger Willcox, which David’s widow, Marian, is happy to be shared.

“David Hughes moved to BBC Pebble Mill in 1974 after having established his credentials at Television Centre in London. He was encouraged to move to this Birmingham Audio Unit by the then head of department, Bryan Forgham, who knew David from his time at Television Centre. The Audio Unit serviced both radio and television programmes – studios, outside broadcasts and post, and promised a greater variety of work.

David’s specialism was sound for multi-camera drama – Pebble Mill was the home of the English Regions Drama department and hosted a lot of drama from London production teams. At Television Centre he had been one of the sound supervisors to mix series 1 and 2 of Doctor Who, so it was obvious that, when the Doctor Who story Horror of Fang Rock was to be recorded at Pebble Mill, David should be chosen as the sound supervisor. The story involved the fourth Doctor, played by Tom Baker. The ‘hurry-up and wait’ nature of making television was even more true for a Doctor Who episode, as everyone had to wait for the special effects team to finish their preparations before a safe recording could begin. Horror of Fang Rock was made at Pebble Mill because engineering work at Television Centre had reduced studio availability and it was the only Doctor Who story of the earlier series’ to be made outside London.

At Pebble Mill, studio multi-camera drama sound supervisors followed their dramas into the dubbing theatre. David was a skilled dubbing mixer and was a great advocate of this continuity, arguing that sound design decisions taken in the studio often made dubbing easier and quicker, and the final sound design more polished.

David was part of the team that mixed the three innovative and iconic Pebble Mill shows: the daily Pebble Mill at One – for those too young to remember, think The One Show, but at 1pm for an hour, with a large audience. Live music in every show and the whole building wired for sound and cameras. The studio was the huge marble-floored reception area, with floor to ceiling windows overlooking Pebble Mill’s front lawns and tree-lined Pebble Mill Road. Items were many and varied: live band; celebrity interviews in the foyer studio – often actors (including Tom Baker) working in the studio next door; gardening items from Pebble Mill’s many landscaped areas; occasional visits from military bands trouping on the front lawns with the odd helicopter fly past, shot from the roof, thrown in; once, a Harrier Jump Jet landing – live and to the timed second – in the field next to the Pebble Mill car park! Pebble Mill at One ran from 1972 to 1986. In the same stable were the occasionally anarchic foyer-based Saturday Night at the Mill chat show (think Graham Norton, but with a smaller budget!) and Pop at the Mill – Pebble Mill’s mini-Glastonbury, from the back garden. Wall to wall music – with all the technical challenges that that involved. David’s talent navigated through them all.

Pebble Mill was also the home of a new Asian Unit, which David was involved with. He was well respected for – and very proud of – his Asian music mixing skills; stylistically so different from western music. In recognition of his work, David and his wife were invited by the Unit’s producers to the Ravi Shankar 50 years in broadcasting celebration – a big event at Pebble Mill.

When David arrived in Birmingham, the Audio Unit made mono programmes for television, but stereo programmes for radio. Television didn’t start broadcasting in stereo until August 1991, but Pebble Mill’s Audio Unit staff were well prepared – not least because, in 1985 David was the first sound supervisor to mix a multi-camera drama in stereo. The series was called Late Starter, about a retired university professor (Peter Barkworth) starting again after his wife walks out, leaving him penniless. Making this series helped the BBC to decide, and define, the ‘format’ (usually centre speech, stereo music and effects) for the broadcast industry, and informed the wider BBC audio community on the operational challenges associated with stereo recording for TV.

In retirement, David went on for twenty years organising and making cassette tapes for the local Talking Newspaper for the Blind. He also did many talks for local organisations called Grampa’s Gramophone

where he took along numerous 78 records of Music Hall songs and others and played these on his grandfather’s wonderful old gramophone which had a large wooden horn. The audience were soon singing along.

When David was admitted into care, five and a half years ago, he still continued his life of music. Each night he conducted silently beside his bed. If anyone asked him where the music was he just replied “It’s all in my head”. He told his wife that he would only ever pass away if and when this music disappeared.

Not long before he died, he said the music was fading….

David passed away on 14th November 2022, he was 90.”

Louise and Roger Willcox

Pebble Mill at One fashion item, with the lighting crew

Here are some photos from cameraman Bhasker Solanki of the lighting crew on Pebble Mill at One, setting up for a fashion item on the banks of the River Rea.

Andy Frizzell at the back, Peter Booth in front, Keith Bullock holding the lamp stand. Photos by Bhasker Solanki, no reproduction without permission

Keith Bullock and Andy Frizzell on lighting, possible Jack Rook on camera

When the Queen visited Pebble Mill

With the sad death of the Queen, I was reminded of her 1981 visit to Pebble Mill. This was to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the building. Here are a couple of shots of her visit to Pebble Mill at One. Pebble Mill at One deputy editor, Jim Dumighan showed her around.

The Queen visiting the Pebble Mill at One foyer studio in 1981. Photo from Keith Brook.

The Queen visiting Pebble Mill in 1981

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

Stephen Hawkins: My Mother, Joyce Hawkins, who was Head of the Costume Department, has asked me to state that “In advance of the Queens visit HM named one person she would like to meet. That person was George Collins, a dresser in the costume dept. Much to the genuine surprise of everyone. They had a private conversation.

David Short: I had just joined Pebble Mill as a camera assistant and worked on the Royal visit.

Norman McLeod: Fortunate to be presented in Radio Studio 1. Charmed as everyone was. Palpable memories still treasured together with the pictures, which I am still searching for! Requiescat in Pace.

Harold Rich: As she passed me and my musicians she turned and said “Are you the backing?”