Tag: Pete Simpkin

CMCR 9 (CM 1) – Ray Lee

CMCR 9 after restoration, Aug 2012

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photograph by Ray Lee, no reproduction without permission.

CMCR9 was built in 1969 and equipped with Pye PC80 colour cameras. It was originally based in Acton, but I believe moved to Birmingham when Pebble Mill opened. It was already in place and in use when I arrived in 1974. In 1979 it was moved to Manchester to become “North 3” which is the name most of the articles refer to it as. It remained in Manchester until 1982, when it was sold to another company.

At some point the PC80 cameras were replaced by EMI 2001 cameras. I can’t remember if that was done in Birmingham, or in Manchester, but I think it may have been in Birminham, as the studio cameras were all EMI 2001, and it would have made sense to have all the same type. I only went out with the vehicle on two or 3 trips, and one trip was to Jolly’s Club Stoke on Trent for the World Darts Championship, and I thought EMI 2001s were fitted at that time.

It covered O.B.’s all over the country and was heavily used during its time in Birmingham. Gardeners’ World at Clack’s farm was a regular venue. Match of the Day, and racing from Cheltenham, Motor racing at Donnington Park, Songs of Praise, in fact think of an O.B. Venue and it probably went there.

CMCR stands for Colour Mobile Control Room, 9 was obviously the 9th one. While in Birminhham it was known as CM1 (Colour Midland 1) when it got to Manchester it became North 3 (as their 3rd O.B. control room) They were generally referred to as “Scanners” but I don’t know exactly why.

Speaking to Steve Harris and his colleague at the show (Onslow Park Steam Rally, where the scanner was recently exhibited) I was reminded of a “joke” played by Birmingham staff when the scanner went to Manchester. As well as putting all the faulty modules they could find, and keeping the good ones for Birmingham, the interior was covered in fake cobwebs of the sort obtained from joke shops in spray cans. Apparently Manchester were not very amused!! It took them some time to get it all working again, and goes down in the legends of engineers’ tales.

Ray Lee

The following comment was left on the Pebble Mill Facebook group:

Pete Simpkin: ‘SCANNERS. They were called ‘scanners’ for historically the very first OB van was built by Baird to transmit the Derby to London cinemas in the thirties and the vehicle’s entirety consisted of the great scanning disk which whirled round at a frightening rate converting the scene into TV signals, so the vehicle was the ‘camera’ or as such things were called in the ealy days the ‘scanning apparatus’. So for ever afterwards even when staff could get on board with their electronc system the name remained. CMCR was never quite as pioneering or exciting!’

Harrier on Pebble Mill at One – Keith Brook

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission.

Ah, the Harrier.

Or, as somebody here cutely called it, the Harriet.

As you can see, it’s a bloody expensive way of getting a bloke from Rutland to Pebble Mill.

Actually, I’ve just checked. National Express don’t go there anyway and the train fare is off the scale so maybe it was the best solution after all.

Thanks to perspective distortion, in this picture I look taller than Marian Foster, although people who know me are aware that I just about came up to nipple height. I had the same problem with Sophia Loren. Oh dear, I think I’d better lie down.

The pilot, who is wearing a boiler suit for some reason, sits with his legs apart on top of the air intake. Now, if you’re a lady pilot, that’s not a big problem but for men pilots who haven’t had the sex change, this can be disastrous. To put it bluntly, using extra thrust can ruin your ability to make tadpoles.

Ah, just remembered, that’s not a boiler suit but a g-suit, designed to keep all your bits in the right place when you deck the throttle.

Anyway, the whole gig isn’t just him sitting on top of a very fast bomb. There’s a fleet of trucks whose sole purpose is to deliver all that metal sheeting to prevent the Harrier from doing a ‘Peter Seabrook’ to the back lawn. They also brought a tanker, presumably because his credit card wouldn’t stretch to a top up at the local garage in Selly Oak.

Now, when these guys say they’ll land at 13:12 they land at 13:12. The director was screaming that they were early but really he should have asked them what time they’ll get close enough to be seen, which is obviously 4 or 5 minutes earlier. So, the ensuing interview had to be cut short and we all legged it out the back. There’s a very nice TV phrase that’s often used in these circumstances called ‘shit, bollock, scramble’.

A helpful squaddie from the advanced party suggested I keep a respectable distance to prevent self-immolation. I’m so glad he told me because it allowed me to pin several rounds of bread to my chest both as protection and for a late
breakfast.

What a racket this thing makes when it hovers and the down-draught is incredible, much worse than a helicopter. However, because it’s a jet, it’s the heat that gets you. The bread proved a winner, but he landed a little too quickly for my liking.

Despite this thing costing hundreds of millions, I couldn’t believe it when they used an extremely old wooden window cleaning ladder for his dismount. Presumably, there’s a window cleaner in Rutland using a very expensive set of steps to ply his trade.

Once in the grasp of mother earth, he was beckoned for the interview with Marian Foster that you can see here. If I remember rightly the answer to the first question was ’10 years’, the second ‘Head for Leicester, straight down the M69, right at the M6 and left at Spaghetti Junction’ and the third ‘In time for afternoon tea’.

If you look closely, there are two very tight straps around his calves. I’ve mulled over these for some time and can only guess that they’re to prevent a toilet malfunction from making a mess in the cockpit.

But I digress.

After a few other Pebble Mill items, it was time for him to sod off.

With me in a safe place and my bread turned for the other side, he lit the blue touchpaper. This time he was showing off because he hovered for a few seconds at about 200ft, dipped the nose as he applied forward thrust, and…. it was gone!! Couldn’t believe it, just disappeared, whoosh.

There was a strange feeling of emptiness at that point but my toast was perfect, my eyebrows and nasal hair were a lot tidier and I didn’t need a haircut for weeks.

So, there we are. Basically a very expensive way of dropping in for a chat with Marian.

And it’ll always be, from now on, a Harriet.

Keith Brook

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

Marie Phillips: ‘This was definitely after 1979 because I didn’t join Pebble Mill until 1982 and I remember this so vividly. We watched it from the sixth floor and it was so exciting to spot it coming in the distance and the noise, as I think I have mentioned before, made my insides rattle !! Definitely more impact that Noel Edmonds’ helicopter !! Incidentally, as part of my Personnel duties, I had to advise the Nature Centre of the expected arrival of the Harrier so that they could sedate any of the more sensitive livestock if necessary. Also, Tally Ho when they trained the Police Dogs. We actually had to do this whenever any exceptionally loud activity was planned for P.Mill at One or Children in Need stunts.’

Stuart Gandy: ‘I certainly remember this, but if I recall the harrier visited Pebble Mill twice in the early 80s. I have some pics too of at least one of the visits. Must look them out. On the one occasion I was in the middle of my annual interview in my managers office on the 3rd floor when the first sounds of the plane were heard. Needless to say we both had to watch from the window as it came in to land and drop to the floor on the club field. The interview sort of fell apart after that!
Good times.’

Jane Clement: ‘Yes, the Harrier landed at least once during my tenure at Pebble Mill (1979-1988), thanks to PM at One director John Smith’s military connections, which led to many an interesting program. Some other highlights for me were the SAS storming the building and a live OB from a nuclear submarine somewhere in a Scottish loch. The bigger the scale, the more John liked it!’

Keith Brook: ‘Well, apart from Peter Poole, it seems you’ve all missed the point. This is a light hearted, hopefully amusing piece, using a bucket-load of poetic licence about an event that happened over 30 years ago. I can’t remember if this was the plane that came from RAF Cottesmore in Rutland or RNAS Yeovilton in Somerset and it doesn’t really matter. I’m sure these weren’t the answers to Marian’s questions but I hope they are funnier. And I can’t remember if the ladder was a window cleaner’s or not. The real intention of writing this piece was that someone would find it faintly amusing!!
Oh yes, the toast? I made that up.’

Maggie Humphries: ‘Great story teller Keith, good laugh, lets have some more, all those years of memories to draw on and remind us of our younger years.’

Pete Simpkin: ‘At the time the Harrier landed I was broadcasting live on Radio Birminghamwhich was on the first floor level and the sound got through the studio soundproofing so effectively it sounded like the end of the world resulting in me having to play back to back records for several minutes until the noise had died down enough for me to be able to explainto listeners what had happened!’

Telecine – Ray Lee (part 5)

Jim Gregory in TK

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I worked in TK for around a year and a half before moving to VT for a brief attachment. I had further subsequent spells in TK, later in my career, including one period where I refurbished every board in the machines, as by that stage some components, mainly the trimmers, were completely worn out. The maintenance budget took a big hit that year, but the machine reliability improved no end.

In the early days TK had regular bookings for ‘Pebble Mill at One’, ‘Midlands Today’, ‘Farming’ (The predecessor of Countryfile), ‘Asian Programme’ inserts, Studio A inserts for various network dramas, and from time to time film inserts to ‘Nationwide’ and other London News items.

I remember one day in I think the summer of 1975, Jim Gregory and I viewing a film trailer for what was expected to be a big series of films. There was an item in a programme about George Lucas, and his vision for the films, the trailer was from “Star Wars” (although I’m not sure it was known as such at the time). It did eventually become a whole series of films, but after the initial “Star Wars” was released in 1977 there was a long period of uncertainty, regarding the rest.

Jim Gregory and Paul Richards pretty much were TK, for most of the time I worked at Pebble Mill. Graham Winter went on to lecture at Wood Norton, and everyone else moved round various places. I remember the time with affection, and was quite sad to see the old Cintel TK’s finally removed to make way for new equipment, something I was involved in as a member of Post Production Maintenance in the 90’s.

R. G. Lee

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

Keith Brook: ‘This is a rare shot indeed. Jim Gregory out of his chair!!’

Pete Simpkin: ‘Fascinating stories of TK. I was at Evesham with Jim in the 60s. I remember in a previous job in regional TK in Southampton waiting to send a commag news story to AP for the new BBC 2 News and after a very long wait eventually getting through to VT there who were going to tape it and the operator said something like ‘Hang on there’s a lot of noise ouside in the corridor, I’ll just shut the door’, we sent the package up OK and when he came back on to say all was OK he told us that TVC and all TV had crashed due to the major power failure in London which eventually led to the abandonment ofhe opening of BBC 2 that night!’

Radio Birmingham Badges

Photos from Pete Simpkin, no reproduction without permission.

These promotional badges for Radio Birmingham date from the early 1970s. They’ve suffered a bit over the years, but show the range of programmes on the station.

Pete Simpkin adds the following information, ‘they were given out at the hundreds of OBs we used to do in those days, also sometimes sent out with prizes for on-air competitions. The multi station one was a particular issue for the addition of Medium wave broadcasting , they were localised to each station involved as part of the national publicity drive for Medium Wave.’

Pebble Mill at One – Sea King, blog by Keith Brook

Keith Brook (Scouse), preparing to record in the Sea King helicopter

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This picture was taken in 1979 by the Navy when we covered a parachute drop for Pebble Mill at One, what else.

I may look cool, calm and collected but I was actually shitting bricks. It wasn’t helped by a very tight throat mike that made me want to up-chuck, or ‘burst’ in Navy parlance. It was only my social responsibility of not wanting to return some of the licence fee to the good people of Selly Oak in the form of fragments of canteen breakfast that held me back.

I needn’t have worried because these guys were among the heroes that saved so many lives in the Fastnet Race disaster of that year. Their stories were incredible and a wonderful example of teamwork. Funnily enough, on the Fastnet rescue, the man who did the ‘least’ work was the pilot. His job was to keep the helicopter in the same orientation and to take orders from the other two crew members. The co-pilot called the waves so the plane would rise and fall with the swell. The winchman then asked for up or down feet and the pilot did the sums to keep the poor man in the same place in space, usually on the deck of a boat. Amazing.

The pilot asked me what I wanted to do when the parachutists came out of the Wessex we were tracking. My well thought out idea was that the sun was very fetching and we’d have a great shot if we could descend with them, keeping them in silhouette. He suggested a rehearsal and promptly dropped the Sea King out of the sky. ‘Excuse me, old chap, but what was that about’, or slightly similar words, came ‘frog like’ from my stupid mike. Obviously, they drop like stones before opening their ‘chutes, so we’d have to do the same. That idea was quickly abandoned to be replaced by a shot looking up at the Wessex and the kamakasi crew dropping ‘through’ the sun. Nice.

The Navy were brilliant and the pilot did everything I asked as the parachutists dropped onto the front lawn. Well, most of them did. Some landed in the trees, which was embarrassing, but not as embarrassing as the poor man who, having wrapped up his parachute, had to walk from Cannon Hill Park, find his way across the Pershore Road and make a dignified entrance to the building as best he could.

Before we landed, I wanted to do a shot of the ‘The Mill’ that was a little different and, after describing it to the pilot, we had a go. It was rubbish, mainly because we were at 2000ft and he did it head-on, forgetting that I was poking out the side and couldn’t see anything apart from my house in the distance.

He announced that we only have five minutes of flying time, and should land. I croaked that we need to do this shot again, sideways, at zero feet, very fast and NOW.

So, off we went beyond the Bristol Road, turned, and came bombing in sideways just above the trees. Halfway down Pebble Mill road the pilot calmly asked ‘What next?’ I shouted ‘Stand by to turn right and hover’.

By the time I’d finished the sentence we were there, so I screamed ‘Turn, turn, turn’, which he did on full lock. This meant the Sea King was on its side, I was dangling, face down, from my safety cable and the camera was looking up through the blades, but we got the shot and it was used in the titles for months.

I should also add that, after we landed behind the new club building, we still weren’t finished and I had to run to the front lawn while the Sea King popped over to the rear car park to pick up the parachutists for one more shot. As I ran from the club grounds, director screaming down my ear, Ikegami on shoulder with large BBC sticker, onto Pebble Mill Road, turning left onto the front lawn, I was stopped by security who wanted to see my ID!! I’m sorry to say that I used a bad phrase that obviously upset the sensitive nature of that particular uniform wearing zealot and he reported me to his boss.

So, as I was sitting on the pavement, in front of Studio A, camera in lap, taking a ‘moment’ after the tribulations of the morning, I was tapped on the shoulder by none other than head of security. He was a little upset at my suggestion of remote intercourse to one of his staff and was going to report me to Sidey. I told him to arrange a meeting at 3:30 because I was going to the bar. Suitably tanked up, I staggered into Sidey’s office and gave my version of the story. HoS was duly told to perform the same distant relationship and, after a Sidey sized gin and tonic, I managed to find my way back to the club for more incredible rescue stories.

Keith Brook

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

Pete Simpkin: ‘Absolutely cracking story! Well done and well told Keith. Phil Sidey, now there’s a name to conjure with!’

Keith Brook: ‘Thanks Pete. Yes, Sidey had a lot to answer for, making us have so much fun.’

Mike Skipper: ‘Wonderful story !! Looks like the camera you were using was an Ikegami HL-79D (I can just about remember those being used back in the 1980s at Television Centre).

Your story about Security certainly rang a bell – even at TV Centre you can sometimes take ‘pot luck’ with whoever happens to be on the gate when you need to get through. I can recall Jim Davidson referring to some of the more “jobsworth” types as belonging to the Zaire Border Patrol, back in the days when we were recording Big Break…’

Keith Brook: ‘Thanks for the comment Mike. In fact it was a 79A. We had set up a single camera unit way before TC and Acton and because it operated out of a car, it was easy to shove into a helicopter. The fun we had in the early single camera days might be the subject of another missive!!’