This photograph is from Gardener of the Year; I think the location is the Birmingham Botanical Gardens. Included left to right are: Joe Swift, Rachel de Thame, Adam Pasco and Diarmuid Gavin.
The following comments were left on the Pebble Mill Facebook page:
Kate Hillman: ‘Yes, I was on this one! The contestants did their show gardens around a central decking. I think there was an art theme for the inspiration of the garden designs.’
Adam Pasco: ‘Yes, that’s me. I helped develop the concept for BBC Gardener of the Year, and judged it for a few years. Great fun, and worked with some wonderful people.’
Adam Trotman: ‘Yep I edited 2 of the years one directed by Dennis Javis and the other Patty Kraus.’
Patty Kraus: ‘I remember it well! Yes it was the Botanical gardens in Brum.’
Steve Bricknell: ‘This was the first show i ever worked on!! Not sure if this was my year though!’
Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission.
The article from the Birmingham Post circa 2002, explains how the move from Pebble Mill to the Mailbox was going to be a positive one, enabling technology and the studios to be improved. The move from the ‘leafy suburb’ of Edgbaston would apparently make BBC Birmingham more in touch with its audience!
Unfortunately these aims were not realised, and the move proved to be symptomatic of the decline of BBC Birmingham.
Thanks to Stuart Gandy to sharing this cutting.
The following comments were left on the Pebble Mill Facebook page:
Andy Marriott: ‘Unfortunately pretty much every move is a downsizing event, and it’s not just the BBC. I’ve been helping a friend out with a project at the old Granada site in Manchester and it’s depressing to see the facilities that existed there that they simply don’t have at their new site.’
Jean Palmer: ‘I’m sure that those who worked there could have told them it wouldn’t work. Shame we lost Pebble Mill’
Carolyn Davies: ‘All very sad….BBC Wales about to relocate….hope the same doesn’t happen…..’
Sue Farr: ‘I always suspected that London was jealous of Brimingham’s success and that was what was behind the decisions that were made. None of us believed any of it was going to benefit the Midlands, did we?’
Andrew Langstone: ‘Seems The Mailbox is the BBC’S dumping ground for things it doesn’t know where to put them.’
Photos by Vanessa Jackson, no reproduction without permission.
There were three series of the garden design show, ‘Small Town Gardens’. The first was made in London, the show then transferred to Birmingham, with me series producing the second and third series at Pebble Mill 2002 -3. I was delighted to be asked to make the show by Owen Gay. The London series was presented by Rachel de Thame, Joe Swift presented the second series and James Alexander Sinclair (shown in these photos) presented the third. Mark Scott and Paul Vanezis were the producer/directors, Sarah Wilkin and Emily Rusted researched on it, with Sarah Costigan and Jo Gray the production co-ordinators. Martin Dowell and Ant Smith were the editors. There were eight episodes in the second series and six in the third. The series were transmitted on BBC 2 on Friday nights before ‘Gardeners’ World’.
The idea of the series was to show how small town gardens could be transformed into creative, innovative spaces. We teamed up well known garden designers with contributors, they went on inspiration and shopping trips to discover what they wanted for their gardens.
It was a brilliant series to make – a lovely production team, great experts, presenters and contributors (well with a couple of exceptions), wonderful locations and a decent budget! And we knew we were lucky at the time.
The photos shown here are from a shoot in Kennington, London, series 3. The garden was a converted farrier’s workshop, with a tiny courtyard garden. The contributors were great, and I seem to remember that when the garden was finished they held a party, and rather the worse for wear tried to bathe in the water feature! The couple shown in the photo are the garden designers, not the contributors!
James always wore his trade mark hat, in fact he had about seven different ones, in various states – some tatty ones reserved for gardening. I think we were lucky enough to have the use of his second best hat! We used to have to check for ‘hat hair’, if we were filming inside and he took his hat off, as his hair would get all squashed and have to be sorted!
