Radio WM – Page 20 – What Was Pebble Mill?

Pebble Mill at One – Goodyear Airship

These stills are from the visit of the Goodyear airship to ‘Pebble Mill at One’.

Please add a comment if you can add any information, or know the approximate year.

Conal O’Donnell left the message on the Facebook page: ‘I think it was in the mid -eighties.I did a piece on it for WM.We sauntered over Coventry at about 2,500 ft -it was a wonderful way to fly in ideal conditions . I wouldn’t fancy it in anything other than ordinary weather tho’.One of the most bizarre aspects of it was the ground handling crew were all Vietnamese boat people.’

Radio Birmingham & WM, Christmas memories – Pete Simpkin

Here is a podcast from presenter and producer Pete Simpkin reminiscing on diverse experiences of working over Christmas on Radio Birmingham and Radio WM.

Andy Walters left the following comment on the Facebook page: ‘It’s not that much different today. This years WM Carol service was recorded last Monday. I have fond memories of being sat in what became known as Area 3 in Pebble Mill devouring Producers tins of sweets as they were bought in.’

Radio WM – photos by Philip Morgan

Photos by Philip Morgan, no reproduction without permission.

Here are some photos by Philip Morgan of Radio WM, taken in November 2004, at the viewing before the auction to sell off all the Pebble Mill fixtures and fittings, before the building was demolished.

I particularly like the sign for ‘Radio Birmingham 206’ pinned up by the clock.

Andy Walters, adds the following information: ‘There is still some equipment in use today that has those BBC Radio Birmingham stickers on. I don’t think any of that kit was included in the auction as it was being used for projects on the days of the auction. The Mk. 3 desks were taken away for spares by BBC Radio Lincolnshire. The pictures look to be of Area 3 (phone in room) and Area 2 (WM self-op studio) on the first floor. Hard to believe but there are still some stations using Mk 3’s today and there are still shelves of Mk 3 spares in the Mailbox for these stations. They were built like brick out houses.’

‘Angels’ – Janice Rider

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Specially shot interview with Janice Rider, about working as Costume Designer on the hospital soap, ‘Angels’. ‘Angels’ was a London production, hosted at BBC Pebble Mill. It ran from the mid 1970s until the early 1980s. Julia Smith, who went on to produce ‘Eastenders’, was the producer.

Pete Simpkin a producer and presenter from Radio WM remembers getting help from the ‘Angels’ cast: ‘When we relaunched Radio Birmingham two of the Angels’ actresses came with me to the old Moseley Maternity hospital to help publicise Radio WM’s first birth.’

Julian Hitchcock remembers ‘Angels’ well: ‘I worked on Angels from 1978 as a floor assistant and was very friendly with the cast and production team. I often wondered what became of them. In 2001, I was working as a lawyer for Granada factual programmes in Manchester, when I heard that my old friend, Kathryn Apanowicz was presenting a programme downstairs on a regular basis. We meant to meet up, but I was appointed to a firm in Melbourne and it never happened, which was such a pity.’

Radio WM – photo of Maggy Whitehouse

This photo is of Maggy Whitehouse, who was a BBC Radio WM breakfast presenter back in 1983. She presented the Breakfast show for a year and then a lunchtime interview show for two years.