Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission
Thanks to Sue Sweet for sharing this cutting from 1971, of her operating some sound effects for The Archers, in the BBC’s studios in Broad Street, Birmingham. Sue worked in the Sound Effects library at Broad Street, and would help out with effects when necessary.
Studio manager, Alastair Askham, sadly died in the early 1980s.
Copyright, Martin Fenton, no reproduction without permission
This photo shows the ‘door’ from Radio Studio 3 at Pebble Mill. The door would have been used to create effects on Radio 4’s The Archers, as well as other radio dramas. The mini door is on castors so that it could be wheeled around to wherever in the studio it was needed, and is a box construction. It contains all the parts on a door that would make a distinctive sound: a turning key, and knob, and a door chain.
Thanks to Martin Fenton for sharing the photograph, which he took in 2003.
The following comments were left on the Pebble Mill Facebook page:
Jane Green: ‘On my way back from the bar after a hard morning’s PM@1. Was hijacked by a radio person and asked to scrunch my feet on a tray of gravel.’
Stephen Lyons: ‘ I remember well the similar one at BBC Wales Radio where I worked on Schools Radio programmes over many years.’
Malcolm Hickman: ‘Notice the stairs in the background. They had 3 different finishes on each tread. Plus at the top of the flight they had several items of door furniture.’
Angela Padgett: ‘Seen them in the Mailbox on the Behind the scenes at BBC Tour. They’re still being used.’
Ruth Kiosses: ‘I once took in my brothers Elizabethan armour for the sound department (Donald McDonald) to record for some drama. I’m sure clanging baking trays would have been the same? But they wanted authenticity.’
Colin Pierpoint: ‘I don’t know who made it. You can see the original door in the photo which was built in to the stairs f/x (extreme top right). The problem was that it had such a large selection of locks, catches and levers that to open the door required at least 8 hands! The portable one appeared later and I suspect it was to overcome the 3 extra staff required to open the original door.’
Carolyn Davies: ‘Didn’t it used to be brown?’
Kathryn Shuttleworth: ‘All the box doors were painted and the screens refurbished for the move to The Mailbox. We had the sash window from under the staircase mounted into a box too. All still in use, they don’t make ’em like that any more!’
Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission
Sara Coward, the actress who played the part of Caroline Sterling in The Archers sadly died on Sunday 12th Feb 2017, aged 69, after a battle with cancer. She had played the part of Caroline for 40 years. Her last appearance in the Radio 4 soap was in September 2016, when Caroline and Oliver Sterling returned from Tuscany to find that the Grundy family might not be the perfect tenants for Grange Farm!
In a recent interview Sara said she would like the character of Caroline to live on after her own death, and be played by another actress, rather than being written out of the show. Sara had an affection for Caroline, and a sympathy for her sometimes rocky love-life. Caroline entered The Archers as a barmaid in The Bull in 1977, and rose to managing and then owning the Grey Gables country hotel, and marrying the wealthy Oliver Sterling.
Sara had the honour of acting with two members of the Royal household – with Princess Margaret in 1984, when she was attending a charity gala at Grey Gables, and in the 60 years anniversary of The Archers with the Duchess of Cornwall.
The links below are to obituaries to Sara:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thearchers/entries/1b45d644-8fa2-4f78-ab6d-f2838e5d8f70
Photos by Martin Fenton, no reproduction without permission.
These photos are of the kitchen area in Radio Studio 3 at Pebble Mill. They were taken in 2003. The kitchen was used on The Archers, as well as other Radio 4 dramas. Many of the pieces of kitchen equipment were on wheels. The sink could be made practical by connecting an upside-down bottle of water to a pipe around the back, but you had to be careful not to forget to attach another bottle to the drain.
Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission
Thanks to Becky Land for sharing the photo of these Pebble Mill at One cookery brochures. The booklets were published by BBC Books.
Mollie Harris’s Cottage Cookery from Pebble Mill was published by the BBC in 1976. Mollie Harris was an author and actress, she appeared as village shopkeeper, Martha Woodford, in the Radio 4 soap opera, The Archers
in the 1970s. Mollie was a country cook on Pebble Mill at One, and also wrote a country cookery book for The Archers. Additionally she wrote a three part autobiography about her life in Oxfordshire: A Kind of Magic (1969), Another Kind of Magic (1971) and The Green Years (1976). Mollie died in 1995.
Michael Smith was a regular food presenter on Pebble Mill at One. His Book of Sandwiches was published in 1979. Below is a photo of Michael Smith rehearsing on Pebble Mill at One.
Michael Smith rehearsing on Pebble Mill at One. Photo from Eurwyn Jones, no reproduction without permission.