Richard Stevenson – What Was Pebble Mill?

Heron Crane – Bhasker Solanki

Photo from Bhasker Solanki. Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission

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

Robert Meikle: Its a Heron. Great fun to drive in a studio with little in the way of a set. I tracked one for a series of dance shows, basically The Black and White Minstrels, but not with the black make up. Very fast crabs all over the floor, with Ron Greene being very cool on the front. Also good for very, very slow creep in, before zooms were commonplace. Example, also with Ron, Pete and Dud in ‘Not Only but Also’. Happy memories of obsolete ways of working. For the anoraks, powered by hydraulic motors, compressor powered by 3 phase AC, could go for a distance with electrical power off, in silence.

Ian Keown: It was a very scary machine to drive, as it could crab (all 4 corner wheels moving), or steer, with just the two rear wheels moving. It went forward and reverse, and in crab mode if you went all the way round with the wheels, they became reversed, as quite a few studio walls and sets could testify! On the front, the left foot pedal was for craning up and down, and the right pedal moved the seat left and right, but if you had your whole foot on the pedal, and pushed your toe down, the seat moved to the left!It was a monster whichever end you sat on!!

Mark Smithers: Once did a play called ‘The Fallout Guy’ with Dave Bushell as the LD. There was a longish scene with a drive through the desert, so to show movement we mounted a 5k lamp where the camera usually is and I sat on the front to point the lamp with the camera supervisor Paul Woolston driving.

Laura McNeil: That was the only drama I did from start to finish, sound from pre to post-production. I loved working on it. Then I didn’t get a credit on it but the runners did. I almost cried it was awful as I found out when the end credits rolled in the edit suite.

Richard Stevenson: Looks like it’s still in the camera store. All the cable coiled up on the back. As far as I know it never went up to [Studio] B – no height in that studio anyway.

Simon Tooley: It used to come out of the store for ‘Crimewatch Midlands’. There was one mark on the floor, and I used to sit on the back of it in the same place for the whole show! If I remember rightly.

Alan Hussey: Very versatile dolly in the hands of an expert tracker – you could slip it from track to crab on the move. On the front both feet and both hands had individual jobs.

Siouxsie and the Banshees – Look! Hear!

Photos by Christopher Glover, no reproduction without permission.

Siouxsie and the Banshees being recorded in Studio A for Look! Hear! Produced by Roger Casstles. Look! Hear! was a regional music and culture show. The photos date from the mid-1980s.

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

Phil Dolling: This brings back memories I was a very junior sound assistant on the floor, I recall the drummer ‘Budgie’ had his fold-back set to terrifying levels with all the high frequencies wound up. It was like razor blades coming out of the speakers. A brilliant series, it caught a great moment in Midland’s music.

Annette Martin: I mixed it she was v good. Just spotted the lovely Ron Sowton Floor Manager in 2nd pic.

Richard Stevenson: It is pre-1987 when I joined as the new cameras were in by then. Probably the Heron crane – one man to drive it and the camera op had a pedal for up and down plus a second pedal to rotate the seat. If you got them mixed up it got very messy!

Outside Broadcast Culture – Adapt Project

This video is part of Royal Holloway, University of London’s ‘Adapt’ project, which organises and records reconstructions of heritage television production practices with the historic equipment. The project is led by Professor John Ellis.

In May 2016 the project arranged a the reconstruction of an outside broadcast, using the restored OB truck, CMCR9, which was Pebble Mill’s original CM1, later becoming Manchester’s North 3.

In this video the veteran BBC crew from the reconstruction discuss the culture of outside broadcasts in the 1960s and 70s. The crew is I think a predominantly BBC Manchester one.

This video is protected through a Creative Commons licence.

Veteran CMCR9 crew

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

Richard Stevenson: ‘Jane Whitmore is sat next to the first guy speaking. A BBC Sport PA whom I worked with on everything from cricket to bobsleigh. Dave Taylor, legendary camera supervisor from Manchester is to her right. Robin Sutherland to his right – ex KA camera sup. Roger Neale, KA Vision Sup (“Twink”) in the blue jumper under the camera by the dart board. Doug Whittaker (?) at 4’35” – ex KA sound sup.’

Dave Rimmington: ‘Geoff Wilson is the guy speaking next to Jane (ex BBC Manchester Director).’

Studio B in action

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Studio B in action at BBC Pebble Mill circa 1975/6. Jack Rooke on the left hand camera and Dave Doogood on the right hand one. The presenter looks like a young Tom Coyne, who presented Midlands Today.

Studio B was used for Midlands Today as well as many other programmes, which didn’t need the much larger, Studio A.

Thanks to Stuart Gandy for making the photograph available.

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

Malcolm Hickman: ‘EMI 2001s on HP peds.’

Richard Stevenson: ‘Although the cameras changed, pretty sure those peds stayed until the end.’

Carole Haysom: ‘Early Sunday mornings for Farming today…remember getting a few shorts straws for that!!!!’

Susan Astle: ‘Farming and Asian progs on a Sunday, early days at Pebble Mill! I remember Samantha once coming in the night before frock! They were early starts!!’

Helen Smith: ‘Love this – that is my Dad on the right hand camera!’

Richard Stevenson: ‘Many happy days being trained by your father. He taught me a lot for which I will always be grateful.’

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Bob Meikle and Jim Gray

Photo by Richard Stevenson, no reproduction without permission

This photo is of cameramen, Bob Meikle and Jim Gray, sitting in the Crush Bar, outside Studio A, enjoying a break and a snack. It was taken by Richard Stevenson in February 1990, when Bob and Jim were presumably working on a show in Studio A.

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

Stuart Gandy: ‘This was when the servery for the crush bar was downstairs, before eventually moving to the corridor above.’

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