Birmingham Post, Sept 1974
The first Pebble Mill Nursery opened in 1974. It was the earliest BBC staff nursery to open. Unfortunately, it didn’t stay open very long. Nicola Silk (pictured in the middle), aged 4, daughter of Stephanie Silk, was one of the first children to attend the nursery. She stayed until summer 1975, when she started Infants School. Stephanie formed the N.A.G. (Nursery Action Group) to try and stop early closure of the nursery, and was supported by the Union.
Marian Foster with Steve Weddle
Today [8th April 2020] is Steve Weddle’s funeral and from a distance I mourn the shocking devastating loss of a lifetime friend. In 1976 we were both new researchers, desk to desk in the hairy scary Dobson days of PM@1. All the producers and directors were male and all the researchers except Steve were female – that’s what it was like in those days. Never macho, Steve quickly became one of the girls to the extent that his name was on the office PMT wall-chart.
First and foremost, Steve was fun. He was of course talented and creative, wacky and wonderful and super sociable but he also had great empathy and kindness and was friends with one and all. He gave my daughter her TV break and passed on his Spurs programmes to my grandson.
Recently we had two lovely holidays at the Exotic Marigold Hotel in Menorca. Steve, a great holiday companion, suggested that we should travel as Hinge and Bracket.
Post Beeb we met up every month with our fellow Sagalouts to wine and dine down Memory Lane. In January we celebrated his 70th birthday. In February Steve talked about his latest book, not an autobiography exactly but drawing on his life in television.
That would have been a good read.
Stephanie Silk
How women’s roles within the BBC changed from pebblemill on Vimeo.
Specially recorded video with Steph Silk, talking about how women’s roles in production teams began to change in the later 1970s. The development of the researcher role was crucial in allowing women to progress up the career ladder in significant numbers. Steph was a researcher, assistant producer and then producer on the lunchtime magazine show, Pebble Mill at One.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Steph Silk talks about working on Pebble Mill at One from pebblemill on Vimeo.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Video interview with Steph Silk talking about working on the lunchtime live magazine show, Pebble Mill at One in the 1970s. Steph worked on the series firstly as a researcher, then as an assistant producer, and later as a producer. By the end of Steph’s long career in television she was the Managing Editor of Daytime Television.
Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission.
These recipes from TV chef, Glynn Christian, were featured on Pebble Mill at One in January 1982. The combination of celeriac and mint flan, carrot and ginger flan, shoulder of lamb with red pepper, accompanied by a puree of parsnips and basil sound like a good wholesome winter meal. Notice how all the measurements are imperial, rather than metric. The recipe sheets could be ordered by viewers, and sent out to them.
Thanks to floor manager, Eurwyn Jones, for sharing these recipes.
The following comments were left on the Pebble Mill Facebook page:
Jane Mclean: ‘Those wanting recipes had to send in an SAE. We typed them out as above, photocopied them and rammed the envelopes. Not even PM headed paper! A tad removed from today and logging on to slash/recipe. Oh the glamour.’
Jane Clement: ‘The joys of life pre-computers, when it was all typewriters and carbon paper. So much fun, especially on a daily, live to air show that changed all the time. Bits of screwed-up paper everywhere and much swearing.’
Steve Weddle: ‘Absolutely. Incidentally I first stumbled upon Glynn Christian when I was researching an item on the Mutiny On The Bounty – he was actually a direct descendant of Fletcher Christian and had written a book on it. So I also tracked down a direct descendant of William Bligh too, Captain of the Bounty, and then let them slug it out in the foyer. On the way back to hospitality Glynn mentioned to me that he was something of a cook, and because he’d performed well I managed to persuade the powers that be to allow him back for a cookery demo. That was followed by a series of six – I’d never researched or produced cookery items before – very much the preserve of Steph Silk and Mary Clyne – and it was a bit of nightmare for me. Not my thing at all. So I was almost relieved when the newly launched Breakfast Time moved in and whisked Glynn away for him to become their regular on screen cook. How he must have loved those early mornings!’