Tony Wass – What Was Pebble Mill?

A Sort of Innocence photographs – James French

A Sort of Innocence was recorded in October 1986. James French was cameraman, and has shared and captioned these photos taken on location in Hereford.

Don’t know who the extra is leaning against the wall. Guy with cigarette is Production Manager, Peter Rose; not sure about stripey, guy with white fleck in hair is Director, John Gorrie; lady is Producer, Ruth Boswell; on right is Sound Supervisor, Ray Bailey.

Grip is Ron Fleet, then Director, John Gorrie and me (2nd Camera) on Elemack dolly.

Me and John Gorrie again

Ron and me again in the foreground. Tim Everett holding the sound boom. I think the actor standing is Linus Roache and sitting in the Jaguar XJS is Kenneth Cranham.

Leaning on tripod is Rigger Supervisor, George Stevenson; Grip, Ron Fleet; cable-bashing is Rigger, Barry Clarke; on dolly is Camera Supervisor, Keith Salmon, with back to camera is Tim Everett (sound) and holding the boom pole is Tony Wass.

No caption necessary as all folk are named elsewhere.

Lighting Director, Barry Chatfield with Lastolite.

Grip, Ron Fleet; Rigger, Barry Clarke; Camera Supervisor, Keith Salmon

Lighting technicians (Sparks!): Roger Hynes and Dave Walter, with Rigger Supervisor, George Stevenson.

Dresser, Paul Higton; Designers, Martin Boddison and John Lindlar; Dresser, Shaun Lowe.

Me again (one of my favourite pics – I actually look like I know what I am doing!)

The only additional people on here are the boy, Actor, Neil Jeffery and with his back to us (next to Neil), Actor, Michael Byrne.

Boys from the Blackstuff cast lists eps 1 & 5

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These pages include the cast and crew for episodes 1 and 5 of the series, Boys from the Blackstuff from 1982. The lists include the stuntmen, and the day by day schedule of the two episodes. Episode 1 includes the death of Snowy, in a fall from a window, which obviously involved a stuntman.

Thanks to Rachel Selby, from Costume, for sharing these pages, and for keeping them safe since the early 1980s.

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

Tony Wass: Myself and Andy Redfern were the Boom Ops on this and I was also the dubbing editor and gram op – we got a BAFTA for the sound too! This was the first time video audio was track laid like film, it took me some weeks……

Jane Partridge: I was working as Props Clerk, then. Can remember the faces of the lads who worked on it but not the names! ? Chris, Alan Fortey (Props Buyer Toni’s son), Dave Ackrill possibly – not sure if Bill did that one, too. Remember them getting ready to go away for the filming.

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Studio 1 – Martin Fenton

Studio 1 control room

Studio 1 light

Studio 1 Neumann U47s

Photos by Martin Fenton, no reproduction without permission. Martin took these photos in 2003. Radio Studio 1 was the largest radio studio at Pebble Mill, and was also used for some television series in the latter years of Pebble Mill.

“Studio 1 was once a venue for glorious orchestral recordings, but by this point it had been deliberately priced out of the market (Abbey Road number 1 was cheaper) and was used for little more than Farming Today

The Neumann U47s , I was told were used at the insistence of Radio 3, when Studio 1 was regularly used for orchestral concerts.” [The mics may be Neumann U87s, see comment below from Andy Groves.]

Martin Fenton

(The Neumann U47s were condenser mics apparently well known for their clear sound. They were apparently the favourite mic of the Beatles manager, George Martin.)

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

Caroline Feldon Parsons: ‘Lots of happy memories doing programmes for Radio 3 in that studio. Everything from live Lunchtime Concerts to live drivetime programmes like In Tune, and lots of recorded chamber music. I did a fair bit of page-turning for pianists too!’

Chris Marshall: ‘Yes, it was really busy with Radio 3 programmes until the bizarre decisions around Producer Choice and bimedia put paid to that. Tony Wass could give lots of info on the technical stuff.’

Jane Ward: ‘Occasionally larger scale orchestral and brass band sessions for Radio 2 took place in there as well. I produced a fair number and, like Caroline, was involved in other ways before that, either page turning or acting as orchestral librarian before I became a producer… I arrived at Pebble Mill in February 1987 as the Music Assistant, a post which not only served Radios 2 & 3 but which ultimately extended to become a research and support service for the whole building.’

Andy Groves: ‘I think you will find the mics are a Neumann U87 rather than 47. Both fine microphones.’

Peter Trevena: ‘I think that the lamp is still working on Doctors‘

Good Morning with Anne and Nick – D-Day

Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission.

Today it is the 70th Anniversary of D-Day, the beginning of the end of WWII.

I remember the 50th Anniversary of D-Day in 1994. I was an assistant producer on Good Morning with Anne and Nick. The D-Day Anniversary was an important topic for Good Morning, and one that we wanted to cover with a live outside broadcast from Normandy. I think that we were going to borrow an existing BBC Events OB unit which was going to be covering some of the events later in the day. They initially said that that was going to be fine, and then decided a day or two before D-Day that they would be too busy to help us out, so we had to organise our own OB!

My job was to be the producer back in Birmingham, in case anything went wrong. We had a whole parallel script made up of links and short films, to go to, if the OB link went down. I think that Will Hanrahan was one of the standby presenters, and I can’t remember who else joined him on the sofa. I was ever so slightly terrified, as I had never produced a live show in the gallery before – but all was well, and the OB signal behaved itself, and I just sat in Gallery C, and followed the dummy running order and script I’d spent days perfecting, alongside the live OB.

Vanessa Jackson

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

Sharon Fisher: ‘I remember! My first OB. Vidal Sassoon was being interviewed and I was busy doing specially printed red white and blue viewer response cards.’

Caroline Feldon: ‘My first OB was for Radio 3 at the Cheltenham Festival. A week or so of fab concerts at the Town Hall and Pittville Pump Room with legends such as Mark Decker, Tony Wass, Steve Portnoi and anyone remember Alan Ward?’

Paul Hunt: ‘Tom Horsfield and I were there in 1994 by Southsea castle looking out across the Solent with Tony Wadsworth and Julie Mayer to do a live OB for WM. We had a very early start to do our rig – once done we had some time to take in the immense scale of what we part of and what we were remembering. Tom then took some photos of the flotilla of ships including the Canberra, the QE2 and the George Washington aircraft carrier. The OB went without a hitch. As we de-rigged we discovered that Tom’s camera had been stolen from the OB van – which put a sad end to such a memorable event.’

Katie Wright: ‘I think you’re thinking of the Dunkirk anniversary Vanessa Jackson. We were on board HMS Alacrity, escorting the little ships across from Dover to Calais…. Phil Thickett was with me.. And Helena Taylor. My father was on the beaches and it was a real honour to remember him and all the others and the many who risked their own lives to rescue them. We had to get Alacrity to sail at a strange angle to keep ‘line of sight’ to our vehicle on the white cliffs, which would explain why you were on standby throughout. ‘

Gardeners’ World – photos from Gail Herbert

Photos from Gail Herbert, no reproduction without permission.

These photos are of a location shoot for ‘Gardeners’ World’ in 1991, shortly before the series stopped being a BBC Pebble Mill production and became an independent production with Catalyst Television.

The first photo shows (left to right) Tony Wass (sound), Eric Wise (camera), Herbie Donnelly (sparks), Denis Jarvis (director).

The second photo shows (left to right) Tony Wass (sound), Eric Wise (camera), Karen Lamb (director), Gail Herbert (PA), Caroline Officer (researcher), Denis Jarvis (director).

The location was Keighley in North Yorkshire, and was I think about railway station gardens. This station is on the Keighley and Worth Valley line, which is called ‘The Railway Children’ Line.