The newspaper for retired BBC Pension Scheme members • June 2021 • Issue 3 PROSPERO

IT’S ALL ABOUT THE BADGE PAGE 12

PENSION SCHEME | BBC PENSION SCHEME

BBC PENSIONER WARNS BBC pensioners for NHS Heroes OF TV LICENSING SCAM Back in October we published the story of BBC pensioner Alan Stephens, who painted a group of NHS workers from the Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy as a way of saying thank you to frontline workers A BBC pensioner wrote to the Pension Service during the pandemic. The painting was handed into the care of the Fife Line to let us know how close he came Art Group. With a grant from the Fife Health Charity and the assistance of utility company Engie, the to being conned – so that we could warn piece was mounted and placed on display in Victoria Hospital’s main thoroughfare in time to mark the Prospero readers about this particular scam. anniversary of the initial lockdown on 23 March 2021.

he scam concerns TV Licensing, where you 4. Check the spelling and grammar receive an email that says your licence is about to Texpire or (in his case) your Direct Debit payment Because scammers can’t use our genuine TV has bounced. When you click on the link, you are asked Licensing web addresses or email addresses, to enter your bank details to renew it. Luckily, our they’ll try to use slightly different spellings – anonymous pensioner realised quickly it may not have look out for things like hyphens and full stops been genuine so he called his bank, who refunded in odd places. the money. Be suspicious too if there are mistakes in the Most scams look real but it’s only on closer inspection email with capital letters or other grammatical that something looks odd. errors, like missing full stops – this could be a scam. Here’s an example of a genuine email from TV Licensing:

Due to Covid restrictions in place at the time, there 5. Check the links wasn’t an official unveiling. Be wary of emails promising money/refunds At the height of the first wave last year, Alan offered – for example, phrases such as ‘click below to to make a work of art to show his appreciation access your refund’, followed by a request to for those working tirelessly to care for patients provide your credit card or bank details .(We in his area. would never process a refund in this way.) He said: ‘Like many other people, I was watching the Always check links in an email before clicking news and reading the newspapers, and hearing or tapping them. about the heroic efforts of healthcare workers who were looking after those who had caught Covid-19. Already entered your personal ‘Your instinct is to do whatever you can to show ! details on a suspicious site? your support and gratitude in any small way you Report it to Action Fraud or call them on can for the work they were doing to care for 0300 123 2040. If this included card or local people.’ bank account details, talk to your bank immediately.

Report an email scam Send any scam or suspicious emails to [email protected] and the National Cyber Security Centre will investigate. 1. Check the sender If the email links to a scam website, it will Genuine TV Licensing emails are sent from be blocked or taken down. [email protected] or [email protected].

On a computer or laptop, you should be able The ‘Take Five’ campaign from to see the genuine email address between Action Fraud encourages the <> symbols. On a mobile device, you may you to: need to select the sender’s name to see the Stop – Take a few minutes to email address. stop and think before parting ✔ TV Licensing with any money or information . ✘ TV Licensing Challenge – Could it be fake? It’s

okay to reject, refuse or ignore any requests. BBC pensioner celebrates Only criminals will try and rush or panic you. 100th birthday 2. Partial postcode Protect – Contact your bank immediately if you Looking in fine fettle, Barbara Galvin If you have provided us with your postcode think you have fallen for a scam and report it to (née Charlwood) recently celebrated her details, our emails will include part of your Action Fraud at actionfraud.police.uk or phone 100th birthday. Her local BBC Visitor Jillie postcode and/or the name on the licence. 0300 123 2040. Sutton presented her with an authentic copy Are you scam-savvy? Take the online quiz at quiz. of a newspaper from the day of her birth – 3. takefive-stopfraud.org.uk 19 March 1921. Barbara married Eric Galvin Look for your name in Singapore in 1942 when he was 29 and If you’ve given us your name, then we’ll always she was 20. Eric joined the BBC in 1958 and address you using your last name and title. worked for the Corporation until retiring on The scammers won’t normally have that his 60th birthday in January 1971. Eric passed information about you. So, watch out for emails away in January 1994 and Barbara now that only address you as ‘Dear client’ or ‘Dear receives a spouse’s pension from the customer’ – or just use your email address BBC Pension Scheme. (or part of it).

2 | BACK AT THE BBC YOUNGEST MASTERMIND PROSPERO

Prospero is provided free of charge to retired Scheme WINNER ‘MADE ME members or to their spouses and dependants. Prospero provides a source of news on former colleagues, developments at the BBC and pension FEEL OLD’ issues. It is available online at bbc.com/mypension Please send your editorial contributions, comments or feedback to: Prospero, BBC Pension and Benefits Centre, Legendary broadcaster John Humphrys bows Central Square, Cardiff CF10 1FT out of Mastermind after 18 years as the show Email: [email protected] Please make sure that any digital pictures you send celebrates its youngest ever winner. are scanned at 300dpi. Please also note that the maximum word count for obituaries is 350 words.

Contents

BBC Pension Scheme 2 BBC pensioner warns of TV Licensing scam BBC pensioners for NHS Heroes BBC pensioner celebrates 100th birthday

Back at the BBC 3 Youngest Mastermind winner ‘made me feel old’ Sudoku

ohn Humphrys told Ariel that seeing the youngest told Ariel he is as busy as he has ever been. ‘Life is a bit Letters 4-5 ever Mastermind winner lifting the coveted glass too busy,’ he says. ‘I did intend after leaving The Today Jbowl made him feel old. Programme that my life would be a bit quieter than this but that’s not quite how it’s worked out. I am as busy as The legendary broadcaster was making his final I have ever been, which was very much not the plan! appearance as quizmaster of the show, which saw Memories 6-9 24-year-old Glasgow student Jonathan Gibson triumph. ‘I’ve never been in control of my own life and I Walking into war! thought that would start changing but sadly it hasn’t,’ John chuckled that Jonathan’s youthfulness simply A close run thing: how the Yorkshire instinct he laughed. served to remind him of his own age: ‘He was a very saved the day bright lad, wasn’t he?’ said John. ‘The fact he was the Writing a weekly column for The Daily Mail means John Flying high with Local Radio youngest winner ever simply reminded me how old I am has to keep in touch with what is happening in the world Round the houses and you can quote me on that!’ and, he says, makes it impossible for him to escape the Segue into the Summer of ’76 relentless news cycle. ‘But then again, I’m not quite sure The show, recorded several months ago in Belfast, that I’m capable of escaping.’ represented something of a swansong for the Cardiff- born broadcaster, who has been a journalist for 61 years: Journalism and news is in his DNA, stretching right back ‘I enjoyed doing Mastermind immensely. It was really to his earliest days as a teenage news reporter in Wales. Obituaries 10-11 good fun and it goes without saying that I wish Which probably means he will never quite escape. ‘It is Clive Myrie well when he takes over and I’m sure he’ll in my DNA. That’s exactly right!’ enjoy it too.’ Clive Myrie will become the fifth presenter of the show But if John expected things to quieten down after which marks its 50th anniversary next year. Clive will Odds & ends 12 leaving Mastermind, he was very much mistaken and begin filming the new series later this year. Badge memories BBC Yorkshire Region Reunion Lunch Caption competition Sudoku S T D Classifieds

Complete the grid so that every row, column and I R N U 3x3 box contains the letters DINORSTUY in some order. One row or column contains a 5 or more letter Y I S word, name or programme title with a BBC R I S D connection. Solve the sudoku to discover what or Prospero June 2021 who it is and send or email your answer to The Editor, The next issue of Prospero will appear Prospero, BBC Pension and Benefits Centre, Central in August 2021. The copy deadline Square, Cardiff CF10 1FT by Monday, 5 July 2021. T O U Y is Monday, 5 July 2021. The winner gets a £10 voucher. Many thanks to Neil Somerville for providing this puzzle. N U T Y S R U The Sudoku winner in April 2021 was WIN Mr K Worden who correctly identified £10 the connection as Watchdog. O D S

PROSPERO JUNE 2021 | 3 | LETTERS

Cards with Uncle Tom BBC Micro

Like most of us, I’m looking back to I was interested in Robert Russell’s letter about the 40th things I meant to do and never got anniversary of the BBC Computer Literacy Project. I was one of round to doing. On Monday, those who took advantage of the pre-release to staff of the BBC Micro and 3 February 1958 (I checked with self-taught myself very basic coding. I can recall my excitement at writing a Radio Times online), when I was simple programme which recalculated and sorted the league table on receipt 13 years of age, I listened on my new of football scores. FM bedside radio (a present from Not long before lockdown I visited the fascinating Museum of Brands in Notting my parents for passing a scholarship Hill, one of whose exhibits was a collection of computers through the ages from exam) to the RC Sherriff play, the Sinclair Spectrum through to the Apple Mac. Missing though was a BBC ‘Cards with Uncle Tom’, at 9.15pm on Micro! I questioned this with a very helpful receptionist, who searched her the Home Service. I found it particularly memorable database for items which ‘might be in the designer’s garage but never made it and significant to life in general, but I can’t remember why, although I still to the display’. No trace! But an assurance that the omission would be given remember the title and author. I find in Radio Times that it was recorded, appropriate attention. as it was repeated at 3pm on Friday, 14 February. Ian Todd I wonder whether anyone can assist me in finding the script of the play, or at least a synopsis of the plot. I assume that the recording no longer exists.

John Chambers Keep your nose to the…

As a young probationary technical operator, I was stationed in BH London in In reply to Neville Withers 1958. On night shift, it was our job (there was a gang of us) to check all the radio studios. In 1979, while filming an episode of The Sky at Night at Farthings, Patrick Moore’s house in Selsey with Michael Bentine, he recounted to our great joy and amusement Faders were rotary in those days, and if you came across one that crackled, the story behind the memo by someone at the BBC. you would remove it, rub the side of your nose with your finger (the handiest place to find grease), then polish that grease onto the studs. This inevitably Any TV programme that wished to film on TV Centre premises had to be granted cured the problem. permission from a department that had far too many initials for me to remember. Michael and the Square World team made such a request to film and, as often Now, 60 years later, whilst reading a crime thriller, I discovered that the grease happened, it was refused. The memo ‘...Television Centre must not be used for the from the side of one’s nose is unique. In my novel, the baddie used it to carry purposes of entertainment’. Michael told us he had this out his nefarious deeds. That grease is called ‘nasal serebum’, and there’s a lot memo and kept it a treasured possession. Whether he of squalene in it, apparently! (And you don’t get many of them to the pound.) had the original or a copy is not clear. It’s a Square Watchmakers use it to lubricate movements. Others who use it include World ran for nearly 60 episodes in the early Sixties. amateur astronomers, anglers, beer drinkers; even pipe smokers.

Pieter Morpurgo So cleaning those potentiometer studs that way was not just traditional after all. You live and learn – eventually. Am I the only one who didn’t know this?

PS: Notice how the Legionnaires’ outbreak characters in my cartoon are wearing jackets. I was Regarding the article in the February rivers and underground streams where reprimanded once for issue of Prospero, although I had no it would be found. In these conditions taking my jacket off in the direct connection with the event, I did it was harmless, but once placed in the Control Room. We were receive a call on the Friday evening, warm environment of the tower with a four floors below ground telling me not to talk to the press but rusty patch, it would breed and would and never had visitors. refer them to the BBC Press Office. become a danger being carried on I also understood that the House the small droplets in the drift from Brian Willis Service Engineers were joined by the tower. those from Television Centre to help I’m not acquainted with the eradicate the bacteria from the cooling replacement cooling system at BH but tower. On the Monday morning I found at TC we completed the work and left myself talking at length to the Director it with an automated bromine injection of Engineering who had driven down Radio audiences system which monitored itself but to Woodlands to have a chat. Could you commend Allan Muirhead’s short but excellent letter to all the current required regular cleaning, twice a year I mention this as, at the time, I was at least. senior management in radio, please? They have appeared to have gone into headless involved in replacing the six wooden chicken mode. In conclusion, we should remember cooling towers on the roof of that Legionella had been discovered Eighteen months ago I was told that radio had to find a way to appeal to the Television Centre. Along with the in Philadelphia following an American younger market. They weren’t listening to us anymore and instead had discovered centre’s HSE, before we started, we Legion event. In the UK there were the wonders of the new kids on the block, such as YouTube, TikTok and Spotify. had a talk with the epidemiologists at several deaths, the worst being at We’d lost them, and if we don’t do anything now, they will never return. the Communicable Disease Centre, the Stafford Hospital, where 68 which was based in Colindale at As a result, instead of Local Radio going for its traditional, loyal, older audience who patients in a ward went down with the time. demand in-depth local news and intelligent chat, we were to target the 40-year-old the disease. market and cut speech to a mere three minutes between more modern music tracks. We spent a morning on the roof of the The interesting bit is that, in the BH east tower with a specialist from As someone who has worked alongside, and on, Local Radio for decades, I pointed case, it required a test and trace Colindale watching the drift from the out that this was a mantra which was originally put forward in the late Seventies. system to be in place. Each and every towers in the prevailing south-westerly Our audience was old and would be dying and then we‘d have no listeners left. person had to be tested, and if they wind, which would put the droplets on Amazingly, the older ones did die, but strangely our audience figures did not reduce, were found to be carrying the bacteria, to Wood Lane, one of the busiest in fact they increased, yet we hadn’t changed our programming. How could this be? their route had to be charted through roads in the neighbourhood. town and then each and every cooling Quite simply, as Allan Muirhead correctly pointed out in his letter: as we become Whilst there, we enquired where the tower had to be tested and verified as older our tastes change and we leave the modern world and its trendier fashions bacteria which could infect our towers safe or otherwise until, in the BH case, behind. We ‘mature’ to favour Radio 3, Radio 4 and the gift of Local Radio. would come from? it was found to be the culprit. Often it And before anyone tells me this is a different type of revolution that will engulf us, was said if the local hardware store ran The man from Colindale said that the out of bleach, then the inspectors were hark back to the days when TV first took hold. The soothsayers told us quite dust from the groundworks on the on the prowl. emphatically that this was the beginning-of-the-end of cinema and radio. Instead, White City site would bring in the what TV has done is just enrich our lives further. bacteria, along with any water courses, Chris Phillips Anonymous, but name and address supplied 4 Dress codes Yet(i) another Schools radio Responding to Edward Mirzoeff’s comments (April, Prospero) that ‘producers winter’s tale suddenly began to appear in jeans. Studio cameramen, TMs, sound supervisors In the 1930s, Blakesley House, my and other technical staff continued in suits’, I think he is mistaken. primary school in Wimbledon, was We retired transmitter engineers one of many to take advantage of I joined the BBC in 1962. I can think of one senior cameraman who regularly wore were amused by the letter the BBC schools radio (or rather a suit, but otherwise technical staff wore more casual, and appropriate, clothing – ‘The winter of 62/63’ in the ‘wireless’) programmes – an hour in except for one occasion that I remember. The TM and the sound supervisor had been February edition of Prospero, but to a function that required a suit immediately prior to a planning meeting where they the morning and another hour after felt, as a work of pure ‘fixion’ it were to meet a new director. When they walked into the planning meeting, the lunch. They were considered to be would have been more effective director’s first words were, ‘Oh dear, I never trust anyone in the BBC that wears a suit.’ an adjunct to normal in-school in the April edition of the paper. lessons rather than a substitute and Rod Litherland In response, I attach a rare we loved them. Each programme, or photograph of a Keilder Yeti (sadly series was accompanied by BBC IT WASN’T SHORT skirts but trousers that caused a furore in the late Sixties. I was now extinct) which I managed to supplied illustrated pamphlets and working in the Gram Library at Egton 1966–67 and, if I remember rightly, at that time, take at the gates of the Pontop Pike booklets which would be referred to throughout the BBC, women were not allowed to wear trousers. There started to be a transmitting station. I was working at on air. There were dramatisations, bit of an outcry about this and there was one woman producer at Egton who defied this site near Stanley in County too, which made them much more the rules and insisted on wearing a trouser suite. Annoyingly, her name escapes me, Durham during the winter of 1971/2, fun than colourless talks. but she was a shortish, brisk woman; and, even now, I can visualise her walking briskly another bad winter. The second along the corridor to the Gram Library in a very smart blue trouser suit. photo shows my car at the site. I think we took geography, history A group of four of us were snowed However, relaxation of the rules was allowed when I got to Bush in 1968. and an intriguing series called in at the site over a weekend from Women SMs were allowed to wear trousers on night shift – just in case any Your Home and Mine, presided over the Friday evening to midday on the of the male broadcasters got a bit too friendly in the middle of the night. by a genial man called Geoffrey Sunday, when we walked out to the Boumphrey. Remove the ‘o’ from his Jane Wood local village (Dipton). surname when pronouncing it and you’ll realise why he was very Thanks are due to John Scott of the popular with small children and Pontop station staff at the time. Duff takes in the garden probably why I remember it, too. Jim Pole Following the article in Prospero April 2021 reviewing gardening programmes At any rate he introduced me to the on radio and television, here is a photo of my first BBC recording which I made delights of wattle and daub. as a technical operator working in London Control Room and Recordings. On one history occasion, the subject I think I still have it because the contributor made was Caerphilly Castle. As we looked several duff takes (at an extra cost to the BBC of at the photos in our pamphlets, the 12/6d for each disc). As you see, I later made my teacher came alongside, bent down own recording of Buddy Holly on the spare disc, and murmured in my ear, ‘Look at but you can read the original details for the insert them carefully’. I was thrilled – of In Your Garden from studio 6C. carefully, Caerphilly – it was the first time I’d encountered a play on words I have always wondered what happened on transmission. Because he was repeatedly making mistakes, each requiring a new disc, I rang the studio and and I became an instant and, I’m said, ‘Give another 10-second cue and go ahead again’, then I continued afraid, life-long pun addict. Blakesley recording on the same disc and made a scroll just before he restarted. House is now a private car park. The scroll cue information I put on the recording report, but if the SM doing Dan Zerdin the repro hadn’t read it they would have broadcast the talkback and restart!

Perhaps an SM from that time (1961) can enlighten me. I’M A MIDDLE-AGED pensioner but was transported back to my Colin Pierpoint childhood when reading my husband’s April edition of Prospero. TR22s The article regarding school radio Arthur Wood and The Archers programmes brought back When I joined in 1969, TR22s were memories of Music and Movement. Thank you very much for including a mention of Barwick Green and Arthur Wood in used to play in inserts to the live I don’t know the name of the lady your piece on The Archers in Notable BBC Anniversaries in 2021. Top of the Pops transmission. presenter but can vividly remember They ran off a 10-second queue and Arthur Wood was my grandfather and the family has always been thrilled that one her encouraging us to be aeroplanes very often the machine had not of his compositions was chosen to be the sig tune. Arthur, who died in 1953, could and whizzing around the school locked up or had clogged by the hall like things possessed, being a never have imagined how well known his tune would become. time ‘3’ was reached and the clock tree in a strong wind and dancing went to black. Fingers crossed time In fact, it was not specially composed for The Archers but was chosen purely by a polka with a classmate but the for the next three seconds. Those chance by the programme’s first editor, Godfrey Baseley, from what is known as broadcast I enjoyed the most was were the days! Library Music. (Most people will probably know, but it’s music commissioned by Singing Together. publishers to be sold either as sheet music or publisher-made recordings.) Dave Hawley is quite correct in that test signals were recorded on two- We were provided with booklets The story goes that Arthur, a longstanding member, and regular frequenter, of inch videotapes to check for damage. containing the words and music for The Green Room Club, dropped in one day to be greeted and congratulated by his I know because I used to do it. several songs which we would learn friends for having one of his compositions picked for this new radio programme. during the school year. Although The signals were black level and Arthur knew nothing about it and thought his friends were having him on. some of the songs would not now be tone, and each tape was then But he checked up and found it was true! ‘reviewed’ looking for drop-outs and considered politically correct, they In fact, Barwick Green (pronounced bar-rick green, please note) is part of a suite scratches. If only a few drop-outs were fun to sing. Two of the songs called My Native Heath, that Arthur wrote in the 1920s, with four pieces reflecting were seen, it was thought that the which immediately spring to mind Yorkshire life and music. Needless to say, Arthur was a Yorkshireman through and drop-out compensators could cope are ‘Villikins and his Dinah’ and ‘Song through. Barwick Green was written as a maypole dance reflecting the annual and the tape was recycled. If too of Lieutenant Kije’, music written by Mayday celebrations that took place in Barwick in Elmet, a village in Yorkshire much damage was noticed, the tape Sergei Prokofiev for a film in 1933. was scrapped. renowned for its maypole. Oh what happy days and lovely This is where, no doubt, many And, quite strangely, not only is Barwick Green used as The Archers sig tune, but, memories, thank you BBC recordings now considered to be much to my surprise, when I started as an SM at Bush in 1968, I discovered that schools radio. of great historical value were lost. The Latin American Spanish Section used it as the sig tune for one of their The reasoning was in those days Hilary Haywood programmes – El Mundo Agrario (The Farming World). Actually, thinking about it, videotape was incredibly expensive. what other tune would you use? Ross Archer Jane Wood PROSPERO JUNE 2021 | 5 | MEMORIES WALKING INTO WAR! The 50th anniversary of the Bangladesh Conflict By Harold Briley

It was to be a six-month mission to research and broadcast positive stories about India and Pakistan to counter their negative image of poverty and deprivation. But my peace mission suddenly led me unwittingly into a war which radically transformed the geography and politics of the whole region. And the BBC was a major media influence.

n early 1971, my assignment took me to the border and integrity in contrast to State propaganda In Nepal, I learned how former Gurkha soldiers in the town of Sialkhot to find out about Pakistan’s broadcasts. I wonder whether it has the same British Army were re-settled back home, trained and Iinternational sports goods industry, manufacturing influence and big audiences in the new era of the equipped to do civilian jobs. tennis rackets and footballs. I was told it grew from internet and social media? early repairs to bullet-ridden bagpipes of Scottish I tried but failed to find the conqueror of Everest, With the war over, I resumed my search for positive regiments based there! Edmund Hillary and his wife, who were somewhere in achievements. I found many, including the grain- the mountains spreading education with what they I was surprised to witness frantic military activity by growing green revolution in the Punjab, extensive called ‘school rooms in the clouds’. troops and tanks. I found out why the next day, after Indo-Pakistan co-operation on the Indus River, the Small Industries Minister cancelled my interview connecting its five tributaries with canals, sharing Some of the delightful Nepalese children invited me with him. Pakistan had invaded India from Sialkhot precious waters, and building huge dams and to climb a small mountain with them to watch the sun and started a war which split West Pakistan from East hydro-electric projects. And I witnessed pioneering rise over Everest at dawn. A magical moment. Pakistan, which emerged as independent Bangladesh. eye surgery all over India and Pakistan. In Ceylon (Sri Lanka), the head of broadcasting was And so I, on the spot, changed from a news reporter I was recruited as an eye surgeon assistant at mass also the censor who checked my dispatches. into a war correspondent. eye-cam’s and in remote unhygienic, fly-ridden I never did find out whether Pakistan’s lucrative sports From Lahore, I headed to Islamabad by train which villages with no electricity, no clean water supplies, goods exports began with mending bullet holes in was strafed by a low-flying Indian Air Force Hawker and open sewers running down the streets. Scottish troops’ bagpipes! But it was an incident- Hunter, which I recognised from my previous army The surgeons performed delicate sight-saving packed assignment, combining conflict and compassion service as a Royal Artillery anti-aircraft gunner. I saw miracles in such conditions, by paraffin lamp and which I vividly remember from 50 years ago. more Hawker Hunters attacking Islamabad, where I torchlight, with me holding the torch. teamed up with television correspondent John I later returned to the subcontinent with the Prime Bierman, an excellent, experienced colleague, to Minister, James Callaghan. He was puzzled at being report front-line fighting in Kashmir. accosted by so many people asking why they could no longer hear BBC broadcasts. From there, I repeatedly travelled by car to Islamabad and up the Khyber Pass to Afghanistan to put On a slow boat chugging down the River Ganges, he television film on the flight from Kabul to London. was a captive audience as I explained that the BBC No satellite transmissions in those days! transmitter in Oman serving the region, had been destroyed by a cyclone. He promptly promised As I had no official accreditation, I had to hide under government funding to replace the transmitter. It is a rug at check points. It was stifling. Someone once surprising what can be achieved by people power and asked me had I ever been up the Khyber. I replied a conversation on the Ganges. The new transmitter ‘Yes, three times in three weeks – UP and DOWN!’ cost several million pounds, ten times more than my I was the first correspondent to board resumed flights total salary in 30 years with BBC news! I reckon the from Kabul to Delhi, where the Prime Minister, As a consequence, I was appointed a Trustee of the BBC owes me! Royal Commonwealth Society for the Blind (later Mrs Indira Gandhi, invited me to join her watching the A sobering postscript is that six of the Presidents and re-named SightSavers International) for 25 years, victory parade. She told me she was so pleased Prime Ministers I met on my two visits were during which the charity helped to prevent or cure with BBC reporting of the war she would allow subsequently assassinated or executed. An blindness in 10 million people. I later became involved re-establishment of its Delhi Office, previously closed unpredictable region in peace as in war. in objection to a TV documentary critical of India. in India’s ‘Magic Train’, taking surgery to far-flung regions with no hospital facilities. Harold Briley (BBC 1960–1990) In Islamabad, I was told by the Pakistani Generals that Indian forces had been driven back in East Pakistan. Surprisingly, I was able to telephone Dacca and speak to John Humphrys, who held his phone to the open window for me to hear advancing Indian artillery shelling the city!

I interviewed the newly appointed Bangladesh President, Sheikh Mujibur al Rahman, who also praised BBC coverage. I was told there was no communication to the outside world, until I went to the abandoned telephone exchange and found I could fax my report to Delhi where the BBC’s legendary correspondent, Mark Tully, had re-opened the office.

Bangladesh had emerged from disastrous floods, a disputed election, demands for greater autonomy for East Pakistan, and repression by the Pakistani army, accused of mass killing and human rights atrocities. Mark Tully (standing 4th from the left) with It was in this turmoil that millions of people tuned members of the BBC Hindi Service in 1970. in to BBC broadcasts in English, Hindi, Urdu and Photo above shows a tank carrying Indian Bengali, demonstrating its dominance and long troops in Hili, East Pakistan. reach. BBC reporting was respected for accuracy

6 | MEMORIES A CLOSE RUN THING: HOW THE YORKSHIRE Reopening of BBC Club W1 We’re delighted at long last to announce that, all INSTINCT SAVED THE DAY being well, BBC Club W1 will reopen on 21 June! At the time of writing, this is the date when the By GC Platts Government hopes to ease all social restrictions. Please check the website for more up-to-date information, including amended opening hours, The BBC policy in respect of radio services, before you travel! We look forward to welcoming you back. from the early days, had been to inform, Connect Club News The BBC Golf Society held its first event of the season educate and entertain and the same policy at the end of May, with the traditional Captains Day. Events will continue on a monthly basis at courses was adopted for television. including East Berkshire and Effingham, with the traditional prizes at stake, including the Alec Lee aving extended 405-line TV coverage over the transmitting stations to duplicate the 405 services trophy and the John Hill trophy. The Golf Society UK by the mid 1950s, and replaced the using the 625-line standard. members are a friendly bunch and the Society has Alexandra Palace transmitter with a higher- a rich history, having been founded in 1928! To join H At Crystal Palace, the required pair of two-channel power one located on the site of the old Crystal Palace, or for more information, please contact the Club combining units were installed and initially appeared to extending the service to the south, the BBC wished to live up to expectations, but after a few minutes internal (details below) or the Club Secretary, Steven Letham radiate an additional programme. By this time, technical arcing was heard and transmitters were automatically ([email protected]). advances that enabled higher transmission frequencies shut down, with an indication of reflected power. to be used had demonstrated the feasibility of so doing, The Yacht Club has now taken A second test ended in the same way. using the same 405-line standard. our two yachts, Ariel and Dismantling the unit revealed that some ceramic Prospero, out of dry dock and However the government of the day was not in favour insulators had actually melted, heated in the same there were some wonderful of this proposal and instead authorised the newly way as food in a microwave oven, and resulting in sailing days in April and May constituted Independent Television Authority (later the flashover! These were replaced by insulators of fused with good winds. June also IBA) to provide an alternative 405-line service in the quarts, which, having a much lower dielectric loss sees the opportunity for higher frequency Band III. This service started on were satisfactory. However, it raised the fear that the overnight trips. The Yacht Club 22 September 1955 from a transmitter located upon feeders to the antennas and associated connectors, is a Royal Yachting Association the same ridge of high ground as the BBC’s Crystal which had never been tested – as there was no Training Provider and runs Palace transmitter to the south of London. transmitter worldwide of the required power and practical courses in yacht sailing, including Day operating frequency to carry out such a test – would Subsequent technical developments in TV studio Skipper and Coastal Skipper and can organise be satisfactory. equipment and transmitters led to a Pan-European Yachtmaster examinations. They also organise Conference held in Stockholm in 1961, at which it was In my youth, as the engineer on site at Sutton Coldfield, shore-based training in navigation, first aid, marine agreed that future TV services in Europe would use a during the installation of the antenna for the BBC Two radio, radar, sea survival and more. To join or for more higher definition 625-line standard and be located service and future 625-line services, I saved the off-cuts information, please see the Yacht Club website: geographically so that transmitters, necessarily of the main feeders to the four-channel antenna, for no https://bbcyc.wildapricot.org, contact the operating on the same channels, would not result in particular reason except it seemed a shame to send Club (details below), the Club Commodore mutual interference. The channels allocated to the UK them for scrap when they could be stored free of ([email protected]) or the membership permitted four-channel national coverage, so that the charge, in the feeder duct to the base of the 750ft mast. secretary, Alison Cable ([email protected]). existing BBC and IBA 405-line services operating in the They remained there until the planned duplication of the lower frequency Bands I and III could eventually be BBC One and ITV 405-line services. The failure of the The Snowsports Club has also taken advantage of closed and the frequencies used for other purposes. insulators in the channel combining units questioned the the easing of lockdown and is meeting at the indoor Prior to and in preparation for this conference, the BBC ability of the main feeders and their connectors to carry slope at the Hemel Snow Centre, getting in some had been radiating two 625-line experimental the combined power of four television services. much needed practice! To join or for more transmissions from separate antennas mounted on the However, BBC engineers developed a technique akin to information, please contact the Club (details below) Crystal Palace tower, separated by ten channels, to gain a child on a swing, when with a series of small pushes at or email [email protected] UHF experience and assist TV receiver manufacturers the right time results in the child swinging higher and in developing domestic receivers. After these tests, one higher. Using this technique, it was demonstrated that At long last we can announce the resumption of of these antennas was modified for the start of the the feeders could carry the required power, but the Prospero Society outings, which will begin with the BBC Two 625-line service on Channel 33, in April 1964. connectors would fail. Eleventh hour modifications to much-deferred trips to the Royal College of Arms in the connectors saved the day and a potentially very September. Those already booked will be contacted A landlord/tenant agreement between the BBC and embarrassing situation for the BBC was avoided! in due course and a newsletter with details for the IBA was negotiated so that each Authority would own half the sites required for 625-line TV, with the outings for October, November and December will tenant specifying its requirements. This enabled the be sent in the summer. Please ensure you have Failed insulation inconnector. IBA, as it expanded its 405-line service, to specify its renewed your Prospero Society membership! future towers and masts to subsequently Lottery news accommodate separate BBC and IBA two-channel Our lottery is drawn on a monthly basis and antennas for future 625-line services. continues to send prizes ranging from £100 to The existing earlier BBC antenna support structures, £1,000 every month. Our quarterly £10,000 jackpot excepting the later Crystal Palace tower, had been winner in March was a BBC pensioner so designed to accommodate only a single TV service and congratulations to her! To join the lottery, email the future planned VHF/FM radio services and could not be Club stating how many shares you would like each modified to accommodate separate two-channel IBA month (minimum of 5). and BBC antennas. However, BBC and Marconi engineers, working closely together, demonstrated the feasibility of manufacturing two and four-channel combining equipment, but had no means of verifying [email protected] the required power carrying capacity. BBC Club Broadcast Centre, BC2 B3, 201 Wood Lane, London W12 7TP The BBC and the IBA agreed and published a date for the simultaneous opening of the first ten main

PROSPERO JUNE 2021 | 7 | MEMORIES FLYING HIGH WITH LOCAL RADIO Browsing through Prospero during the last lockdown, writes Jill Hopkins, it struck me that most of us who’ve worked mainly in BBC Local Radio have had interesting careers!

encouraged to bring their own ideas to life, even if it meant a change in routine.

In 1973, I had the chance to drive to Iran with two friends – a journey that would take four weeks. Our programme organiser could see that this was a journey that could produce some interesting recordings. I was offered the time off if I worked through every weekend and holiday spent most of my career in Local Radio, which I period for the next six months, and the opportunity to believe was an important BBC organisation for local make programmes when I returned. It certainly did that, Icommunities. This was borne out to me when I joined with the usual frightening events like being held at BBC Radio Humberside at its birth in 1969. gunpoint after accidently parking up next to a military base all grist to the mill of making a programme! For most of the team, it was a totally new experience, Radio Humberside had a brilliant team, and we all and after a month’s training in London we journeyed to worked well together. However, there came a time when Hull to set up the radio station that would cover both Above: At Stoke on Trent with Jack Ashley during I felt I should be moving on from being a station sides of the Humber. Of course, nothing is a phone-in; he was the only totally deaf MP in the assistant and successfully applied to become a producer straightforward, and before we could have our ‘Opening House of Commons and it was difficult to of Roundabout East Anglia in Norwich. Day’ in early 1970 we were brought in to help the local remember not to speak looking at the ‘desk’. community cope with power cuts. We broadcast My first year coincided with the ‘Troubles’ in Northern Bottom left photo: Parachute jumping for charity. information about when and where the blackouts would Ireland, where the Royal Anglian Regiment were based. Middle column photo: In Northern Ireland with the happen, using our first telephone interviews to see how East Anglian Regiment. people were managing.

After the official station opening, it was a steep learning What a friendly radio station that was, with the first curve for all of us. I was one of two women at the ‘sharp woman to manage a Local Radio station, Sandra end’. Fiona Cowan was employed as a producer and Chalmers, looking after her staff like a mother hen. presented programmes like the early morning show. My last few years in Local Radio were spent at Radio I was a station assistant, helping to produce and drive Oxford, where I produced and presented the mid- programmes. However, that didn’t stop me doing the morning programme with Mark Kasprowicz. Oxfordshire same work as producers. My first programme was a was a mixed area relying on the manufacture of cars, the weekly farming programme, so I found a local farmer to University, agriculture and the Royal Air Force. The present it, and agricultural contacts on both sides of the mid-morning discussions were always looking at ways Humber, and did a huge number of farming interviews! forward, and many included local politicians. I can never forget when, exactly a week after discussing local issues with MP Airey Neave on a programme, he was murdered outside the House of Commons. It struck me we could do a Christmas programme of recorded messages and music requests to the local East Oxfordshire had a large Royal Air Force base, and at the Anglian community. Having made the suggestion, I got time the Red Arrows were based at Brize Norton, so the job of recording the messages with the troops, so continuing with the ‘aerial activity’ theme that started all over to Northern Ireland I went. The first night I was that time ago in Radio Humberside I made several more treated to formal dinner with the officers, while we programmes on flying. discussed my requirements. When a letter landed on my desk asking if I would do a I was shown around the barracks and offered various parachute jump with Local Radio presenters from all options for recordings. These included going on night over the country to raise money for the charity Age patrol through the streets; a helicopter journey around Concern, I couldn’t resist. I immediately went over to my the nearby countryside; and a chance to talk with the co-producer Mark and said that, as we were born on the soldiers in the barracks. They did say I could opt out of same day, we should take this challenge together. I could Our station manager, John Cordeaux, was keen to try any of the suggestions, but I had to realise these could see the shock waves, but he obviously felt he couldn’t anything new and supported ideas for single be dangerous situations. It was only when I donned my refuse; we had an amazing day training with Local Radio programmes featuring local groups. So, always up for a bulletproof vest and helmet that I took note of the countrywide staff, all of us wearing our radio station challenge, I suggested a feature on local RAF Cadets warning. I walked in line with the soldiers describing T-shirts. who were being taught to fly gliders. After a morning of the atmosphere, and endeavouring to cover the light on interviewing the lads, and a jolly lunch, as we walked And finally, when I married – yes, a commercial pilot my UHER. back to the runway the instructor turned round and – and moved back to my home county of Yorkshire, I still asked if I fancied a flight to do more recordings. Well, I The following morning it was into the helicopter with a carried my UHER and continued doing features for couldn’t say no to that! newspaper reporter at my side. The pilot informed us Woman’s Hour. that we would be passing over a farm building with ‘IRA’ We were soon flying over the airfield after being written across the roof; as we got to the house he said dragged up by a speeding wire. The instructor looked at he would do a sharp low circle – the effect being to his instruments and then across at me with a smile. knock everything off the internal walls with the ‘We’ve just enough height for aerobatics.’ vibrations – and this he did. To my left I saw the reporter I think my smile faded…‘Er well, my tape recorder will fall drop his notebook; as I looked at his pale face I hoped out.’ (It was in the days of UHERs, a heavy bit of kit.) But he wasn’t going to be sick! It was all a huge experience; I was on the losing side, and so it became one of the good to talk with the troops and to record the messages most exciting (and frightening) moments of my life, and for their family and friends back home. the first of many aircraft experiences throughout my East Anglia was a good place to work, but I moved on radio career. to Bristol where I worked for BBC World Service and The good thing about Local Radio was that it could Radio 4, interviewing rather than producing. After a work to its own standards and this way of doing and year in Bristol I moved back to Local Radio, this time at planning things was reflected in the way the staff were Stoke on Trent to do the mid-morning programme. 8 SEGUE INTO THE ROUND THE HOUSES Synchronising a videotape machine to a studio SUMMER OF ’76 by James Day

p until 1984, Television Training Department (TVT) was based at Prompted by stories in the last issue about the Open University Woodstock Grove, a building at the end of a cul-de-sac of the same and the Summer of ’76, I dredged up a memory that neatly Uname, just off the pointed end of Shepherd’s Bush Green and alongside combines both. Kensington House. s a junior cameraman at TVC that year, it was my turn to be one of the holiday TVT had a small television studio which went colour in 1975. At the same time, reliefs seconded to the OU base at Ally Pally studios for three months during the Department’s videotape format was standardised on low-band Sony U-matic Athat glorious long hot summer. There were drawbacks, but more of that later. format (SUM), a robust ¾ -inch tape cassette system. I drove there in my open topped, slightly sporty car, enjoying the sun and the breeze The Woodstock Grove videotape (VT) area consisted of two SUM machines as I navigated the back roads between Greenford and Muswell Green, including the which could be remotely controlled from the technical position in the production famous Bishops Avenue, even then a Millionaires’ Row with multiple houses being gallery. During training programmes, one machine would record the studio redeveloped into enormous palaces. output while the other would play-in inserts via a frame store synchroniser to A small camera team of permanent and attached staff serviced the OU programmes, ensure synchronous working into the vision mixer. so I was given an introduction to kipper ties and the slightly laboured presentation of There was a problem though – when TVT ran regional courses (e.g. in Plymouth), most of the lecturers. But fascinating content. One of the major highlights of the year two spare SUM machines would go with the technical staff plus the synchroniser was to be recording, for the Drama Course, an excerpt from Samuel Beckett’s ‘Waiting for Godot’. This was to star two heavyweight actors, Leo McKern and Max Wall as the from the VT area. two tramps, who were then aged 56 and 68 respectively. This meant that, if our studio was required for training programmes during the We shot the piece over several days in Studio A at AP, which was first used in 1936. time the regional course was taking place, VT inserts would have to be taken It was a real privilege to work in the birthplace of television. Unfortunately, it had not non-sync on the vision mixer. been much updated since then, especially where the air conditioning was involved – i.e., there wasn’t any. However, sometime in the late 1970s/early 1980s, an item appeared in a Weekly Information Sheet to the effect that three transcoders had been installed in the There were three Link 110 colour cameras and associated modern gear, but no cooling. Standards Convertor Area at Television Centre (TC). The cameras still needed lots of light in those days and there was a sizeable white cyc cloth to light, so there were a lot of lamps. And the heatwave was at its height. These normally converted between PAL and SECAM or vice-versa, but there was The temperature inside the studio reached unbearable levels quite quickly. Between a comment that, if set to PAL, the unit would act as a Field Store Synchroniser each take, the lights were turned off, the studio doors were opened and the ‘fans’ (FSS). It was this that made me sit up and ring Lines Bookings! turned back on, having been too noisy to run during recordings. Max and Leo had these quite thick ’tramp’ costumes and very quickly turned into This produced the information that, of the three units, one was permanently pools of sweat – never a good look on TV. They still produced an amazing booked to News (now there’s a surprise); the second to International Control performance, despite not being in the first flush of youth and working in such trying Room; and the third was bookable. and exhausting circumstances. The Woodstock Grove studio had two reversible vision circuits to TC (plus The crew were all in shorts, I seem to remember, except the boom operator, whose associated music and control lines). By sending the raw video output from the name escapes me, resorted to swimming trunks and nothing else. Well, he was several replay SUM up one vision circuit, into the FSS and the FSS output sent back on feet higher than the rest of us, so it was even hotter up there. the other vision circuit, gen-locking the studio to the returned signal would give Having just found clips of it on YouTube, I immediately remembered some of the synchronous VT replay (albeit with the signal travelling at least two miles, action. Amazing after 45 years. if not more! No doubt we all ‘rehydrated extensively’ afterwards in the excellent Club facilities that And this is exactly what happened on quite a number of occasions when TVT Ally Pally boasted. undertook regional courses and the VT synchroniser had been taken away. Another more personal twist to this story is that one of the permanent cameramen And the fact that the Woodstock Grove studio was gen-locked made it there at that time was Dan Scala. Later, we both joined TV OBs at Kendal Avenue and effectively a Television Centre studio running on 6A pulses! have worked closely together ever since, till he retired in 2019 and myself last year.

There was one stipulation from Lines Bookings: if an urgent call came in for the After careers full of Royal and State occasions, Proms and generally lots of music, our FSS during our booking, then TVT would get about 10 minutes warning before last regular gigs were the live cinema screenings of opera and ballet from the Royal the facility was taken away. In fact, in all the times TVT booked the FSS, this Opera House, where we were part of the team of mostly ex BBC staff, bringing all of happened once! our decades of broadcast experience to the big silver screen. A suitably dramatic conclusion to our 45 years as friends and colleagues, though no doubt occasionally For more information on the Woodstock Grove Training Studio and associated some more ‘extensive rehydration’ will occur again. areas, see BBC Engineering for July 1978, pages 5 to 10: https://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/publications/bbc_engineering_110

TV Training was the first department to move to Elstree Centre in 1984, where the Department was ‘given’ Studio D for three years and built another – Studio E – from most of the equipment moved from Woodstock Grove.

Dave Buckley Television Training Department, 1969–1993 (and then freelance until 2003)

The author taken around the end of the 1970s, sitting at the lighting/camera control position in the production gallery of the Training Studio. The gallery was effectively a lecture theatre as behind me is raked seating so that course members could sit and view training productions as they happened.

PROSPERO JUNE 2021 | 9 | OBITUARIES

As a family, we were given the opportunity to join Sid Although I was based in the Central Music Library in John Theocharis on the film set to watch TV programmes being filmed. Yalding House (W1), my job, organising music copying, (1932-2021) These included Last of the Summer Wine, Target printing and binding for the orchestras, soloists and (starring Patrick Mower) and a drama called Circus, singers, included all the regional orchestras. That was Known to everyone as Theo, John was an outstanding where we were lucky enough to be in the audience how I got to know Mary and we remained friends after radio drama director and an imaginative features and appear on TV. we both retired. and documentary producer, winning Sony Gold for Alexandrias which he wrote and presented. Sid took early retirement in the early Eighties, which She was an excellent baker! When she visited her gave him time to spend in his garden, which he was sister Jean in London, she would call on us in Yalding Born in Alexandria, John spoke several languages, extremely passionate and proud of, growing fruit, and bring some of her delicious home-made biscuits had a passion for Greek classics, Cavafy, Italian opera vegetables and flowers. He enjoyed going on luxury and scones. and Shakespeare. holidays with Margaret, his wife, visiting the Caribbean Sadly, Mary died on 5 March 2021 aged 89. Because of After graduating from RADA in 1964, he joined the Greek and, in the summer, going fishing in Norfolk, joined by Covid restrictions, her sister Jean tells me she has not section at Bush House as producer and presenter. In the his children and grandchildren. yet been able to organise the funeral. If anyone wishes early Seventies, he transferred to Radio Drama where he Sid and Margaret married January 1961; they have just to make a charity donation in Mary’s memory, her eventually became senior producer and features editor, celebrated 60 years of marriage. favourite charity was Christian Aid. working with a variety of artists from John Gielgud and June Dorr (Sid’s daughter) Paul Scofield to Pam Ayres and Kenneth Williams. Diane Ward He served as a much-respected chair of the prestigious Prix Futura (later Prix Europa) competition, where generations of international documentary-makers Meg Naish valued his impartiality and wisdom. Philip Hedley Warren Sadly, Phil Warren has died. A spellbinding raconteur, two stories stand out. (née Chambers) He had been in poor health Following a performance of Twelfth Night in Addis Those who remember for some time and was being Ababa in which he played Malvolio, Emperor Haile Meg Chambers of BBC well looked after in an Selassie spoke to him about power and authority. Appointments Department, excellent care home, but his The second occurred at the Vatican when he presented London will be saddened to condition worsened and he John Paul II with a cassette of his play Outside The hear of her death at age 92 was recently admitted to Jeweller’s which he had directed. John delighted in on 24 February 2021. hospital, where he died recounting how, to the amazement of the gathered Meg joined BBC Pebble Mill in peacefully on 10 March. dignitaries, the Pontiff swiftly became Karol Wojtyla, the 1947 as an executive assistant He had a long and interestingly varied BBC career, playright, anxious to know if his play been well-received. in Outside Broadcasts. By 1960 she was in London Everyone must have wondered why John elicited such working as the assistant to sports organiser TV. initially in BBC Radio. His first move was to Technical a remarkable personal response from the Pope! She also worked in Music – a job which had some Operations in Television Service where he was part of a studio crew. John’s natural charm, wit, humour, elegance and involvement with The Proms. erudition endeared him to generations of actors, writers, In 1971, she was selected as chief appointments officer After gaining experience there, he moved to Television PAs, admin staff, studio managers and fellow producers. (secretarial and clerical). News at Alexandra Palace, where we first met, again in studios. That was an interesting time, when we had to A little-known aspect of Theo’s life took place when Her appearance was always elegant. She combined get to grips with the first remotely controlled cameras the military seized power in Greece in 1967. Every night, glamour with shrewd intelligence, humour and a and later the re-opening of Studio A, ready for BBC2. John spoke directly to the thousands of Greeks who down-to-earth approach and she led a group of This entailed re-organising the two shifts into three faced arrest if they were found to be tuning in to the appointments officers in all aspects of recruitment. studio crews, and Phil became the vision engineer on World Service. Amazingly, the imprisoned composer, The work involved interviewing external candidates, my crew. Mikis Theodorakis (Zorba The Greek) somehow including many school leavers, chairing appointments succeeded in smuggling protest songs out of the Once TV News moved to TV Centre, our paths boards of both external and internal applicants, country. Addressed only to J.T. at BBC London, they diverged, but Phil continued to move on, spending attending school careers conventions, giving careers reached John who, with his expressive baritone voice, a lot of time with the TV News OB unit and then talks to schools and colleges, and escorting tours of sang them over the airwaves offering hope for making his final move, to the News Intake camera unit college leavers around BBC studios – all supervised and a brighter future. where he finally succeeded in becoming a TV News directed by Meg, who took part at the senior level. She camera operator. We extend our deep sympathy to his wife, daughters expected and received from us hard work and results and grandsons. and gave us her loyal support and encouragement. He was a good friend and a good man to work with. Martin Jenkins In 1975, Meg married Charles Naish, head of buying, Phil is survived by his wife Vera and two children, Central Services and in 1981 she took early retirement. Richard and Diana. Eventually Meg and Charles moved to the Cotswolds. Ken Oxley Very sadly, Charles died in 1987 and Meg faced a long Lighting gaffer widowhood. However, she built up a good social life It is with great sadness I have and took an interest in local affairs, becoming a to share that Sid Morris has local councillor. From Kiwi cameraman passed away at the grand When Appointments Department was disbanded, due to Director of Lighting age of 88 after fighting a to reorganisation, in 1988, we all kept in touch with Meg long illness. and each other. Over the years, we have had many It is with great sadness I write regarding the death of Sid was born in 1933 in enjoyable parties in our homes and elsewhere. Meg also John McGlashan BSC. Islington, London, living invited us to her lovely house near Stratford-upon- with his parents and two Avon. There were many memorable summer lunches in John was born in New brothers. After leaving school, he completed three her beautiful garden. The weather always seemed to be Zealand in 1934. Inspired by years of National Service and then went on to do fine and we would all sit together around a long table seeing Casablanca at his local several jobs until finding his true passion, working under a large white umbrella with Meg as our eternally cinema, he successfully gained for the BBC. youthful, welcoming hostess and friend, exchanging employment in the local film stories, frequently humorous, of days gone by. Sid joined the BBC in the Sixties, working in the industry. On arriving in the UK, he eventually joined studios at Ealing. Wanting to progress further, Sid set Meg will be much missed by us all. the BBC in 1958, working as cameraman on the arts on becoming an electrician. He went to college in the programme Monitor. Julia Harbour evenings while working during the day in the studios. I first worked with John 50 years ago as a junior Once a qualified electrician, an opportunity came up member of the Lighting Department at TFS, filming to join the Lighting Department, where Sid was able Assistant orchestral a Christmas ghost story in Norwich Cathedral. to work away from home and travel the world. I had observed that directors of photography could In his 30-year career Sid did exactly that, working in librarian be a flamboyant breed, but John was different. His the UK and some of the most beautiful countries of quiet, unassuming manner, coupled with simple, but Mary Wines moved from London to Cardiff in 1976 the world, mixing with some of the most acclaimed elegant, atmospheric lighting, immediately marked and within three months had found a job at BBC artists in the industry. John out as a talented man with a lighting style I Cardiff. From then until her retirement in 1991 she was should remember. Sid was given the opportunity to work with Dame assistant orchestral librarian to the BBC Welsh Shirley Bassey in Jamaica; he really enjoyed working Symphony Orchestra. A major aspect of that job from John worked on major documentaries, including alongside her. While in Jamaica, the BBC crew created 1983 was the supply of music for BBC Cardiff Singer John Betjeman’s Metroland, while continuing as some lyrics about Sid and put it to music. of the World, quite a task I assure you. cinematographer on prestige dramas. 10 From 1985 onwards we worked together on a huge In 1963, Peter joined the Army and was posted to range of drama productions for the next 20 years. Woofferton Bielefeld, West Germany where he served in 14 We formed a close bond and worked to produce Squadron, Royal Corps of Transport. He continued to the best lighting we could while being efficient and connections play in local venues and at The Waggoners Club. cost effective. Gerald (‘Gerry’) Lindon His army testimonial describes his service as Griffiths was born in John was the consummate director of photography, Leominster and joined the ‘exemplary’: ‘An intelligent and capable young man who not only with his eye for lighting but also his supremely BBC at Woofferton, eight has done well in the service. A hardworking and most fluid camera operating. We communicated on set miles away. willing individual… with a flair for the entertainment largely by sign language that often had production world musically. A charming and cheerful personality.’ foxed. They were waiting for lighting changes that had Overseas Station Extension already happened. 10 was a newly built station, After leaving the Army in 1969, Peter continued gigging transmitting shortwave and worked as a DJ at the Silhouette Club and the Directors relied on John’s vast wealth of experience, broadcasts to Europe. In August 1944, soon after Bird’s Nest in Southampton. In 1972, he was the winner not only to provide a pictorial vision to meet the appearing as a young lad on a Woofferton staff of the BBC Radio London Silver Microphone Award. director’s visualisation but also for his economical use photograph, Gerry was sent for training at the BBC of resources. It was John’s artistry that often brought Peter had lived with myeloma for the last 14 years Studios in Maida Vale, a place where he claims to have the show in on time and on budget. and was an active participant in his treatment. In 2017 heard the Glenn Miller Band! he made a video with the charity Myeloma UK about BAFTA nominations came for Clarissa, Natural Lies, Gerry was called up to the Army in 1945 and posted his experiences, which is available on the website The Buddha of Suburbia and Scarlet and Black. to India, where he worked on the Signals Staff of Lord myeloma.org.uk Those who worked closely with John, his past Louis Mountbatten. Upon return in 1947, he was posted Peter died in Derby on 11 March 2021. He is survived by assistants, gaffers and grips, have all spoken so warmly to shortwave station OSE8/9, at Skelton in Cumberland, his sisters Ann Groom and Jennifer Burton, and brother about him, of his generosity in sharing film knowledge, where he met Tom Smart, who became a lifelong friend. the gentleness in teaching them, the kindness offered. Robert (Bob) Gore. Gerry returned to Woofferton, beginning work there in John looked for good in people and rarely judged. He 1949 and later becoming a local union representative Ann-Marie Boyle has passed on skills that will live on. He leaves a film for the Association of Broadcasting Staff. legacy to be treasured and admired. In 1951, Gerry married Joan (1930–1995) and they Paul Evemy settled in Leominster, in 1954 moving to a cottage in Lighting manager Yatton, a village where he was to spend the rest of his My good friend and work life. They had three children, Jill, Jane and Philip. colleague Derek Stockley died Legendary film Tom Smart, Gerry’s friend from Skelton, arrived at recently after contracting Woofferton in May 1962. He and Gerry rekindled their Covid-19. He joined the producer ‘discussions’ around sport that were sometimes loud BBC in Manchester during the Francesca Kirby-Green, and explosive. Despite these disagreements they always 1960s where he was employed legendary film producer remained friends. Alongside other Woofferton ‘old- as a lighting electrician on across a whole range of BBC timers’, this comradeship often revolved around golf. outside broadcasts. We first programmes, died on 27 met in 1970 when Derek In 1979, Gerry was promoted to take charge of January from lifelong asthma, joined the Lighting Department at BBC Television Woofferton’s aerial field and to organise the riggers aged 80. Film Studios, Ealing. who, with him, would maintain its aerials and masts. Francesca had a striking Gerry spoke their language and looked after his team. Derek’s experience ensured he quickly progressed list of scoops. On 24 Hours, They were always ready to get out in the wind and rain to become a trusted senior lighting electrician (or she secured an interview for Ludovic Kennedy by for aerial emergencies! gaffer), working on dramas such as Jack Rosenthal’s doorstepping defecting ballerina Natalia Makarova, Spend, Spend, Spend to the major dramatised Gerry left his post at Woofferton in 1985 and had a announcing that he was married to Moira Shearer. documentary series The Voyage of the Beagle. long and happy retirement. He attended Tom Smart’s She assisted on films of Mstislav Rostropovich and The series followed the scientific exploration of Charles 90th birthday celebration at Ludlow Golf Club in 2017. Jacqueline duPre. She secured an exclusive interview Darwin, taking Derek around the world. The team had In 2020, surgery for a replacement hip joint led to with the Shah of Iran (reporter David Lomax) just the privilege of being among the first to film on the complications and he passed away shortly afterwards prior to the collapse of his regime. She was at Bloody Galapagos Islands. Sunday in 1972 with the young Max Hastings. at the age of 93. Derek was a family man and while he enjoyed filming All staff regarded Gerry as a favourite uncle, full of There was hardly a current affairs programme she on location, he missed home life. This led him to stories, some maybe exaggerated especially those did not work for. She produced the ground-breaking successfully apply for the post of lighting manager involving Tom Smart. But always affable and helpful. film (with Margaret Jay) and a live special featuring (allocations), where he was responsible for allocating the wonders of IVF treatment, and the ethical Jeff Cant staff to literally thousands of assignments annually, dilemmas of surrogacy. On Panorama she worked many involving the contracting and hiring of complex with an array of reporters, producing films on US equipment requirements. Later, he became lighting presidential candidates, the NHS and Prince Charles manager with overall responsibility for 60 lighting (who she persuaded to wear a mic to record ad hoc Peter James Gore staff. He managed the department with integrity and conversations). Peter began his 25-year kindness, always with a concern for the welfare and She had little time for prizes, but when a Tonight film she career with the BBC in 1973, progression of his staff. produced (Vincent Hanna reporting) won an RTS prize, joining BBC Radio Solent. Derek loved being involved with the filming of the the editor omitted to alert her to the awards ceremony, He presented the Breakfast annual Christmas message from the Queen. Ealing later giving her a photocopy of the certificate! Show, Afternoon Show, crews had been involved with its production for Weekend phone-ins and She was never happy with the impositions of the John some years and Derek considered it an honour for Deep South Country. Birt regime, believing the rigid pre-scripting stifled his technicians to be entrusted with this assignment. creativity. She retired from the BBC in 1996. He was part of the small team He wanted to be at Buckingham Palace or Windsor that set up BBC Radio Jersey. On 15 March 1982, his Castle to ensure everything went smoothly. In a sense After starting work as a messenger at Impact telefilms was the first voice to be heard on the new station. he felt it was his baby and wanted it to be a feather in in Soho, she got a BBC traineeship as film editor’s Ealing’s and the BBC’s cap. assistant at Ealing studios, which gave her a unique In the early 1980s, Peter moved to BBC Radio Derby, understanding of the nuts and bolts of film making. presenting Up and About. On one occasion he He retired from the BBC in the early 1990s, enjoying She had special relations with the technicians, camera presented the whole show from a hot air balloon. a long and happy period with his wife Ruth. Sadly, and sound crews who treated her as one of their own. During this period a colleague wrote of him: ‘Peter Ruth has also just passed away from Covid, which she She also had the good fortune and the nous to benefit sits in the studio serene, chatting to you and generally contracted after visiting Derek in hospital to say her from BBC attachments during her career. Working on keeping his head when all about him are losing theirs.’ final farewell. We offer our condolences to his family Monitor and later Chronicle, Francesca profited from (John Brooks, BBC Radio Derby 269 Magazine, 1984) knowing that the loss of both parents so suddenly will stints in Arts and Music and Current Affairs and was leave a big hole in their lives. Until his retirement in 1999, Peter continued at BBC made assistant producer. Radio Derby, presenting, producing, programming and Paul Evemy After retirement, she studied psychotherapy as a reporting as a senior journalist. Jungian, and at 70 did degree courses at the He was born in London, growing up in Bristol and Obituaries for Tin Tin (Rose) Sann, Barry Burgess, Open University and through it all stoically battled Southampton. Having taught himself to play keyboards Peter Dunkley, Stewart Woodcock, Ron Bowman lifelong asthma. and guitar, he began gigging in pubs and clubs and Anne Bristow will appear in the August issue. Fred Emery around Southampton.

PROSPERO JUNE 2021 | 11 | ODDS ‘N’ ENDS

BADGE MEMORIES CONTACTS

We had a fantastic response to Lesley Curwen’s request in the last issue for Queries information on the BBC lapel badge she picked up at an auction. We have printed For benefit and pension payroll a selection of the responses here, along with a photo from the BBC Archives. queries, call the Service Line on 029 2032 2811 or email [email protected] I remember our driver who took the VT Presumably no German spy would van to Rome (and while there became dream of wearing one. John Waters Prospero our staff-car driver) said he used a few My brother Reg worked for the BBC To remove a name from the each day to get us a place in the car from 1944 to 1948 in what I would distribution list, ring the Service park. So my advice now to Lesley would describe as Radio Operations. Line on 029 2032 2811. Prospero be to hang on to that badge, you never He is now in his 94th year and whilst is provided free of charge to know when it might come in useful. he cannot remember when the badge retired BBC Scheme members Roger White was issued to him he is confident only. Prospero is also available The badge is part of the uniform that he was required to wear it during on audio disc for those with of a BBC commissionaire. Somewhere the BBC coverage of the London sight impairment. To register, I believe I still have one which is Olympic Games in 1948, particularly please ring the Service Line. attached to a peaked cap, though the at Wembley when working around Alternatively, it is also available badges may also have been fixed to the the site. online at bbc.com/mypension, lapels of the commissionaire’s jacket. John Warner under ‘Documents’. How I came by mine I can no longer When I joined the BBC in 1955, I was BBC Club recall as it was a very long time ago, working in the Lime Grove post room, The BBC Club in London has a though I fear strong drink may have tucked away behind the despatch. retired membership costing £3 per been involved. Anonymous I was given a badge to wear in my month or £36 per year. Members When I joined the BBC in 1958, These badges were worn by lapel to let commissioners etc. know can also add friends and family I remember being impressed and commissionaires (throughout the BBC) intimidated by the very smart I was a member of staff. This was of to their membership for a small and possibly the internal postmen, commissionaire who held open the door course long before ID cards became additional cost. Regional clubs certainly in Television in the good old for me on my first morning at London the norm. Neville Withers may have different arrangements. days (mine 1950–1965). Mrs Pauline Kay Please call the BBC Club London BH. He was wearing a very smart dark My father was a commissionaire at office on 020 8752 6666 or email uniform including a peaked cap fronted I inherited in my mother’s button box (!) BBC Riverside studios at Hammersmith [email protected] for details, by one of those metal badges. Most the same badge depicted in Lesley in the 1950s. He and his colleagues or to join. BBC buildings had a badge-wearing Curwen’s April piece. I never saw my all wore a dark blue uniform with commissionaire at the entrance to father, William Mair (WREx as he was this badge on their lapels and, if I Benevolent Fund welcome visitors and direct them within known) wear it but I do recollect that remember correctly, a smaller one on This is funded by voluntary the building. When I joined the TV the BBC driver in Bristol – I wish I could the peak of the caps they wore, as part contributions from the BBC and Outside Broadcast Department in 1962, recall her name – wore it on the lapel of of the uniform. My own BBC career its purpose is to protect the I found that all the rigger-drivers wore her driver’s uniform in the 1950s. lasted for 46 years, predominantly welfare of staff, pensioners and these same badges in the lapel. Jane Mair within BBC Publications and Worldwide. their families. Roger White The badge is one issued to staff We have a luncheon Club for ex An unusual and little-known use of at the outbreak of WW2. There was Publications staff called the MHS Grants are made at the discretion these badges was as a sort of currency widespread public concern about spies (Marylebone High Street) Club. of the Trustees. They may provide on overseas trips. It was found that and ‘fifth columnists’, and people (such Any ex Publications staff are welcome assistance in cases of unforeseen handing out badges helped to ‘get as BBC reporters) asking questions was to join. Please contact me for financial hardship, for which help things done’. On a trip to Rome as a VT viewed with widespread concern. further information. Steve Wehrle from other sources is not available. engineer for the Summer Olympic Tel: 029 2032 2811 Games in 1960, it was suggested we each took a bagful of these Prospero Society distinguished silver badges to help BBC Yorkshire Region Reunion Lunch Prospero Society is the only section of the BBC Club run by matters along and ease difficulties. Having had the disappointment of cancelling the reunion lunch last year, and and for retired BBC staff and just about everything else, I am delighted to announce that we are back at the their spouses. Its aim is to enable Dower House Hotel in Knaresborough on the later date of Thursday, 9 September, BBC pensioners to meet on a Covid permitting. We meet 12.30 for 1pm, when we will enjoy catching up with social basis for theatre visits, CLASSIFIEDS old friends and colleagues over a four-course lunch at the very reasonable cost luncheons, coach outings, etc. of £19.95. Please pass on this info to anyone you think would be interested in Classified adverts within Prospero joining us. Partners very welcome. Prospero Society is supported have been under review as we For more information please contact Sue Pagdin ([email protected]). by BBC Club funds so as to only receive a few for each issue. make events affordable. If you If you have placed an advert to be would like an application form, included in future issues, this will WIN please contact: continue but new adverts will no Caption competition £10 longer be accepted. Gayner Leach The winner of a £10 shopping BBC Club Menorca. Stunning detached holiday voucher is Ms S Martin with ‘I knew BC2 B3 Broadcast Centre villa in Es Castell. Fully equipped I was wearing my Blue Peter badge 201 Wood Lane including linen. Private pool. Sleeps somewhere around here.’ There were London W12 7TP 2-7. Brochure 07860 232854 or lots of references to engagement [email protected] rings in the entries this month. Tel: 020 8752 6666 Email: [email protected] Roy Willox biography. Saxophonist, 70 years big bands, recording studios, BBCPA TV, radio. £15 (includes £11 for charity The BBCPA was founded in 1988 to Help Musicians). For our latest competition, please promote and safeguard the interests [email protected] post your entry to Prospero by Monday, of BBC pensioners. It is independent 5 July 2021. Or, you can email your of the BBC. For details of how to EMI TR50 reel-to-reel tape recorder. entry to [email protected], with join, see the panel on page 9 or Complete but requires attention. ‘caption competition 3’ in the subject download a membership form Free to collect from Wiltshire. line. Please include your BBC pension at bbcpa.org.uk [email protected] number. Good luck!

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