The newspaper for BBC pensioners Sailing with the BBC Yacht Club Page 6 April 2016 • Issue 2 New CEO for Pension Legends of the A remarkable Scheme NDO man Page 2 Page 8 Page 9 NEWS • MEMORIES • CLASSIFIEDS • YOUR LETTERS • OBITUARIES • CROSPERO 02 PENSIONERS BBC Pension Scheme Do you need a appoints new CEO helping hand? John Cullen took over as Chief Executive Applications are invited for grants for Officer, BBC Pension Trust Ltd in mid-March. educational and hardship purposes from the He has experience of managing complex Grace Wyndham Goldie (BBC) Trust Fund. pension schemes and supporting Trustee The Trust Fund exists to help those engaged Boards, including six years as Pensions in broadcasting or an associated activity, Director of the industrywide Merchant Navy now or in the past, as well as their children Pension Funds. and dependants. Prior to that he worked as a consultant to The Trustees of the Grace Wyndham commercial and not-for-profit organisations Goldie (BBC) Trust Fund, in their discretion, Who is this? on the funding, administration and will consider giving assistance towards Can anyone help with information on the restructuring of occupational pension schemes. educational costs in small ways, such as film cameraman in the picture above? At an earlier stage of his career he was the travelling expenses, school outfits, books and In 1969 I had just started as an National Pensions Officer of the GMB Union additions to educational awards. Electronic Engineering student at and worked with the TUC to establish the For example, the Trust Fund helped one Lanchester Polytechnic in Coventry. I had TUC Stakeholder Scheme. recipient to complete his MA at the National always wanted to be a cameraman and as I He has professional qualifications in Film & Television School (NFTS). He says, had ambitions to work for the BBC it was pension scheme management (FPMI) and as ‘A demanding course in a fiercely competitive only natural to search out the film crew when I heard they were arriving on John Cullen. a financial adviser (FPC) and is a graduate of industry, the NFTS has given me the resources Cambridge University. to become a professional documentary campus to make a programme for the filmmaker. Had it not been for the Trust’s Schools Department. support, this opportunity would have As an enthusiastic photographer I also remained out of reach. I am sincerely took a couple of pictures, which I have grateful to the Grace Wyndham Goldie just rediscovered during a loft clearance. Honorary degree for BBC Trustees for their help and hope that the My personal diary tells me the filming Trust will continue to play its fundamental took place on Monday, 13 October 1969. role for many years to come.’ Thanks to the wonders of the BBC The resource of the Fund is limited. So Genome project, I have found it was for a ‘scooter gran’ Schools programme called ‘New Horizons that help can be given where it is most - A Matter of Degree? 4. To College Former BBC employee, Sandra Coombs, has been awarded needed, applicants must be prepared to give, in confidence, full information about the (Aspects of the daily life of a student)’, the an honorary Doctorate of Arts by Kingston University in circumstances supporting their applications. producer being Gordon Croton. It was Those wishing to apply this year should transmitted on BBC 1 at 11.30 on Monday, recognition of her outstanding contribution to the communities write for an application form to: 9 March 1970. However, the identity of the cameraman of Kingston and Surbiton and for her unwavering support BBC Pension and Benefits Centre Broadcasting House in my picture remains a mystery to me. If of the university. Cardiff CF5 2YQ anyone recognises him, knows whether he or visit the website where you can download is still with us or knows any location for his family, I will be delighted to pass on Sandra spent a large part of her career with an application form: www.bbc.co.uk/ my print to them. I am sure our Editor the BBC in a number of roles which involved charityappeals/about/grants/grace- will act as intermediary. her working on the Eurovision Song Contest wyndham-goldie and assisting Latin American broadcasters Application forms should be returned by during the 1966 World Cup. 31 July. Applicants are considered annually in Her first association with Kingston September and in no circumstances can University was in the late 1990s when continuing help over a number of years she joined a degree course, graduating in be promised. 2002 with a BA in art, architecture and design history. She came to university education quite late, having spent much of her adult life caring for her ailing parents. She says, ‘Kingston threw open its doors to me in my 60s and I am eternally thankful for that.’ Known locally in Kingston as ‘scooter gran’, Sandra, who is now 81, can be By the way, my second photo suggests seen out and about on her foot-powered how a blimped Arriflex 16BL may possibly scooter. She volunteers with St Raphael’s influence the future, as the magazine looks Church and the university chaplain and like a cross between E.T. and Angry Birds. attends the freshers’ fair every year in How weird is that? support of the Kingston University Chris Rogers Christian Society. Email: [email protected] She explains, ‘The experience of studying Grace Wyndham Goldie. Photo credit: The Surrey Comet Tel: 01548 550746 gave me a new lease of life and direction.’ Please send your editorial contributions, or comments/ feedback, to: Prospero, BBC Pension and Benefits Centre, Prospero is provided free of charge to retired Scheme members, Broadcasting House, Cardiff CF5 2YQ. or to their spouses and dependants. Prospero provides a Email: [email protected] source of news on former colleagues, developments at Please make sure that any digital pictures you send are the BBC and pension issues, plus classified adverts. scanned at 300 dpi. It is available online at www.bbc.co.uk/mypension To advertise in Prospero, please see page 12. The next issue of Prospero will appear in June 2016. The copy deadline is Monday, 2 May 2016. PROSPERO APRIL 2016 BACK AT THE BBC 03 BBC iPlayer ‘loophole’ to be closed soon John Whittingdale. New brooms for BBCPA The culture secretary, John Whittingdale, has ‘The BBC works on the basis that all who The new chairman of the BBC Pensioners’ The BBC Pensioners’ Association AGM will vowed to end the iPlayer ‘loophole’ soon, watch it pay for it. Association, Albert Barber, has been joined be at 2pm on Thursday 21 April 2016 at so those watching catch-up TV do not get ‘Giving a free ride to those who enjoy on the committee by Maurice Maguire who Friends House, Euston Road, London NW1 ‘a free ride’. He said the licence fee would Sherlock or Bake Off an hour, a day or a replaces Nick Whines after 10 years as the 2BJ (opposite Euston station). be extended so it no longer just applied to week after they are broadcast was never membership secretary. The keynote speaker this year will be live television viewers. intended and is wrong.’ Until recently, Maurice has been an Charlotte Higgins, the Guardian’s chief Only UK TV licence holders can use iPlayer He plans to bring forward, ‘as soon as administrator at Blackburn Cathedral, culture writer and author of This New Noise, to watch BBC programmes as they are practicable’, secondary legislation which will having spent the previous 30 years at the on the life and troubled times of the BBC. broadcast live, but currently those without extend the current TV licensing regime, not BBC in a career ranging from newsreader All BBC pensioners a licence can view the shows at a later date. only to cover those watching the BBC live to producer of Songs of Praise. will be welcome, Mr Whittingdale said: ‘When the licence but also those watching the BBC on catch-up Albert takes over from Hugh Sheppard space permitting, fee was invented, video on demand did through iPlayer. He would like to see an as chairman. Albert joined BBC Film with an opportunity not exist. order drafted and agreed by Parliament ‘as Department, then as network director, to meet Charlotte, And while the definition of television in soon as we can’. promotions producer in BBCTV the committee and the legislation covers live streaming, it does He added: ‘It could be this session if I can Presentation, and finally producing Grange friends over a cup not require viewers to have a licence if they get it done and get a slot.’ Hill before being a freelance director on of tea. watch BBC programmes through iPlayer even The current parliamentary session ends The Bill and EastEnders. if it is just a few minutes after transmission. in July. CROSPERO 190 devised and compiled by Jim Palm BBC Shop shuts BBCShop.com ceased trading with effect from Tuesday 29 March 2016. 1 devisedComplete and the square compiled by using by the Jim clues; Palm these apply only to words A BBC Worldwide spokesperson explained, running across. Then take these words in numerical order and ‘As more and more consumers move to 2 3 extract the letters indicated by a dot. If your answers are correct, digital viewing we will be focusing our these letters will spell out a children’s serial. efforts on BBC Store, the new BBC Worldwide 4 5 Please send your answers in an envelope marked ‘Crospero’ to digital service. The Editor, Prospero, BBC Pension and Benefits Centre, Broadcasting ‘This is part of the BBC’s wider strategic 6 7 House, Cardiff CF5 2YQ, by Friday 6 May 2016.