‘I had to take some scripts and captions down to an OB unit’ says Paula Westbury. ‘I was sitting on the bus minding my own business when a mother and her daughter of about 18 behind me started talking about an article in that morning’s Daily Telegraph. It was about being a PA. “I think I’d rather like to be a PA – it sounds a nice job,” commented the girl. ‘No,” replied the mother immediately, “you don’t know what they did to get there”.’

Well, whatever they might do to get there, Fusion thought it might be interesting to find out some of the things which happen to them once they are there. This article by Julia Helps is based on a random series of interviews with the production assistants of Rediffusion Television.

Drawings by Maureen Roffey.

Scene: a continental nightclub after a hard day’s filming …

One member of the team quietly asks Marjorie Graham up to his room for champagne later that night – champagne which he has on ice in the bath. ‘He was showing off a little, so I decided to teach him a lesson by accepting.’ Later, as planned, she knocks at his bedroom door, clutching her toothmug. ‘He welcomed me. Then he saw the rest of the unit behind me, carrying their toothmugs. I must say, the champagne was excellent.’

Scene: Television House …

Marjorie is told she is going to Vatican City and that the team will probably meet the Pope. Cyril Bennett, then head of features, warns her to get a ‘Vatican Dress’. ‘I searched London for a dark, demure dress, and finally came up with the very thing,’ she recalls. ‘‘It was navy-blue cotton with a high neck and buttons down the front and it had a belt and long sleeves’ She returns to the features office wearing it and terribly pleased with herself. There is now no time to change it before leaving England. Faces fall. ‘Your Vatican dress,’ gasps Cyril, ‘it’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.’

Scene: The American deep South …

Marjorie discovers that the State is dry. No liquor can be bought. The American unit insists that they have to have a drink,. The nearest place to get one is in the next State. A wealthy student who has attached himself to the unit helpfully offers to drive 200 miles in his Thunderbird to get some. Marjorie insists on going with him. They return some hours later with cases of whisky and beer. ‘The only reason I had gone was because I was sure he would forget the beer. I needed it to wash my hair.’

Scene: St Benedicts Abbey, Ealing …

Ruth Tester is told there are strict laws about exactly how far into the Abbey a woman can go. ‘They said punishment for the monks would be excommunication. I didn’t want to get all those kind monks excommunicated and I was so worried that I might overstep the mark. The crunch came, though, when I had to spend 6d to spend a penny. I had to take a 6d bus ride to Ealing Broadway.’

Scene: The South of France for ‘Riviera Police’ …

At the weekend part of the unit decides to go to a nearby island for a day’s water-skiing. ‘I went along for the ride,’ says non-swimmer Erika Klausner. ‘Seven of us piled into a little fibre-glass boat.’ Then the Mistral blows up. The boat starts shipping water badly. ‘Someone later said I looked a bit scared,’ says Erika. ‘A bit scared – I was nearly hysterical.’ Luckily they are near where H.M.S. Carisford is anchored on a goodwill visit. ‘They rescued four of us and fed us food and drinks in the wardroom – very much needed.’

Scene: Agadir for ‘Crane’ …

‘Another thing that happened to emphasise the point that salt water never brings me good luck,’ she continues, ‘took place in Agadir just after the earthquake.’ All are transferring from a small fibreglass boat (again) to a yacht. There is a moment when each is poised between both boats – rather like a minor Colossus of Rhodes. There is a swell and one larger wave than usual rolls along. ‘I lifted one foot from the little boat and put it down again – straight onto a rowlock. It went right through my foot.’ Erika is rushed to a clinic where nobody speaks English, though the doctor knows some French. Everyone smiles sweetly and carries her into the operating theatre. The doctor smiles again, picks up a needle and just sews up the gaping wound without an anaesthetic. ‘None of that stiff British reserve for me – I yelled the place down.’ Ruefully she adds: ‘The pay-off came when somebody said – not at all nastily – “and we’ve lost an afternoon’s filming”.’

Scene: Eastbourne …

‘The Story of John Logie Baird’ is being filmed. Somebody decides that a shot of seagulls swooping down is needed. Naturally no seagulls are to be seen. Vicki Miller is sent to buy some raw fish. ‘I sliced them up, then ran along the front, throwing bits of fish behind me. Hundreds of seagulls appeared. I had to run faster and faster until I was flat out, as the seagulls were really dive-bombing me. I don’t know when I’ve been so scared or when I have run so fast.’

Scene: The men’s Turkish baths in Jermyn Street for a live ‘ Here and Now’ …

‘Being a coward, I asked for a female vision mixer,’ says Nona Richards, ‘but I didn’t get one, so I was the only woman there. In a quiet moment, Geoffrey Hughes, director, leaps out of the scanner for a quick bath. ‘He left me in charge of his shirt.’ Tim Brinton, the commentator, is supposed to strip off and dive into the water at the end of his piece. All goes according to plan.

‘The shot that went out was fine – but you should have seen the pictures on the other cameras. It was incredibly funny.’

Scene: A ‘Here and Now’ from a dog sanctuary in Surrey …

Myra Hersh recalls: ‘Neither Daphne Shadwell, my director, or I had done an OB before. Our first problem was how to get into the scanner. Both of us were in tight skirts and high-heeled shoes. The one and only step was about two-foot high. The crew thought it was a great joke. Finally someone brought a box.’ Just before the recording, a terrific thunderstorm breaks. Both Myra and Daphne are terrified of thunder. ‘There we were, trying to do the programme and hide under something at the same time. It wasn’t our day.’

Scene: Canada for an Intertel …

Mary Horwood and researcher Stacey Waddy want to get back to the hotel to see the rushes of that day’s filming. It is the day of the East Coast power cut. They try buses, tubes, trams and even hitching. ‘We were so worried about being late for the rushes.’ They walk in pitch darkness through the lampless streets of Toronto. Finally they get to the hotel. ‘It hadn’t dawned on either of us during our frantic dashes that the power cut would stop the rushes being shown as well.’

The post It happened like this… appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

‘It happened, as most good topical TV features seem to happen now, on ITV’s “This Week”’ – Daily Mirror.

Fusion thought it might be interesting to learn just how these eulogies about a “This Week” item on Santo Domingo were earned. So here programme director PETER ROBINSON tells how bullets stopped him mowing his lawn.

Emotionally, at least, it all began with a satellite called Early Bird, a tune called, ‘Hey, Look Me Over’, ‘whooping’ red Indians, a New York restaurant where the waitresses didn’t wear too much, and my lawn at home in Epsom.

Early Bird was my reason for crossing the Atlantic on April 21 – to film and make technical arrangements for Rediffusion’s first programme via the satellite. It was called ‘Tonight in America’, and was transmitted on May 3, at 6.00 p.m., New York time, 11.00 p.m. in London.

‘Hey, Look Me Over’, was the title music for the show – a catchy, exhilarating tune, chosen by Cyril Bennett, the producer.

The ‘whooping’ red Indians were what we heard every time we cut to George Ffitch, on the steps of the Capitol in Washington during rehearsals – a totally inappropriate noise, funny at first, then more jarring and frightening as we came nearer and nearer to transmission time. We were connected soundwise to a Western being screened for early evening viewers! The American Broadcasting Company who provided the technical facilities did a swell job, including laying on the OB unit in Washington at 3.00 a.m. that morning, but things go wrong in the best regulated families. So we heard George’s voice only during transmission.

The restaurant with the sexy waitresses was where we went to celebrate the successful transmission of the programme in a great wash of relief and self-congratulation. It was also the place where Russell Spurr, Bryan Fitzjones and I were asked by Cyril Bennett, sober, whether we’d like to do a film piece on Santo Domingo for ‘This Week’- transmission May 13.

My lawn in Epsom was my conscience, and my therapy for the last two weeks’ work in Washington, Philadelphia and New York, the scenes of the Early Bird programme. That programme had also contained the latest news film from the Dominican Republic – a distant nebulous place, now looming large as my lawn receded.

Tuesday, May 4 – Russell took off for San Juan, Puerto Rico, the nearest airport to Santo Domingo to which the airlines now flew. I spent the day in New York buying suitable clothing for the location and trying to obtain a film crew from ABC. In the evening Russell phoned – San Juan was lovely, big hotels, swimming pools, beaches, palm trees, but Santo Domingo didn’t sound so good. Please purchase water bottles, tin plates, knife, fork, and spoon for the crew and ourselves.

Wednesday, May 5 – Bryan and I had a long conference with Jeremy Isaacs in London about the storyline and the plans for the location. Bryan was to stay in New York and do the dull and thankless job of maintaining contact with London and San Juan (whence we would send messages and exposed film), arranging interviews if necessary in Washington, and searching out historical library film. Then Jack Busch of ABC called to say that he had a crew. It had been difficult finding one – Morgan Smith (sound), Manny Longueira (camera assistant) and Ralph Mayher (cameraman).

Thursday, May 6 – at 6.30a.m. Russell and I met the crew at the naval air base at San Juan. As well as finding out the latest news from Santo Domingo and the conditions in the city, Russell had arranged with the US marines for a flight in one of their Navy Transport DC 4s. We met in a hangar together with three press men, one of whom was Roy Perrot of The Observer, and several members of the Organisation of American States, who were to travel with us. It was a self-conscious meeting. We were all tired, breakfastless and unshaven – none more so than Mayher, who had the beard as well as the stature and visage of one Fidel Castro. He wore an American field uniform and flashes on his shoulders labelled Vietnam. Apart from Russell and I none of us knew each other, or quite what we were in for. The marine colonel, Buffkins, informed us that we were going to a city where a ‘shooting war’ was going on, did we understand? Yes, we were beginning to. Here were our travel documents, which would entitle us to pass freely in the American security zone when we got there. They were important and should be carried at all times. On the one hour and 20 minute flight I tried to get acquainted with the crew, and to explain our methods of working. Ninety per cent of our shooting would be hand held, nothing would be set up or staged, and there wouldn’t be time for the usual pleasantries of light readings and sound levels. They understood. Mayher was used to it that way, Morgan Smith less so. We had three cameras, a 400-ft Auricon (for sound filming) with shoulder pod and a 100-ft Arriflex and a Bell and Howell for silent; also a small tape recorder for wild tracks. The two cameras not in current use must be kept loaded at all times, each film roll must be slated, and I would keep rough continuity sheets. ‘All righty.’ But had we got a script? No, we hadn’t got a script, but Russell would fill them in on the situation. From 1930 to 1961, the country had been ruled by the dictator, Rafael Trujillo, who, backed by the army and the big landowners, made millions for himself and his family. He was feared, hated and eventually assassinated. Chaos reigned and the rest of the Trujillo family were thrown out. A series of stop-gap governments followed, but in 1962 democratic elections were held for the first time in 30 years and Juan Bosch won a landslide victory. Bosch, a left of centre reformer, had been exiled for 25 years – now he was President. But the vested interests which prospered under Trujillo cried ‘communism’ – a military coup and Bosch was out, exiled again to Puerto Rico. A military junta took over and, in 1963 a motor car salesman, Donal Reid Cabral, backed by the army, and principally by General Wessin y Wessin became boss. On April 25, a group of younger officers, including Colonel Caamano, rebelled. They overthrew Reid Cabral and captured Santo Domingo, the capital. On the following day the Dominican air force under orders from Wessin y Wessin bombed the military barracks and the Presidential Palace. Several civilians were killed including a six-year-old child. This more than anything else probably accounts for the hatred that the Dominican people felt for Wessin y Wessin and his junta.

The biggest airlift since Berlin brought thousands of American airborne troops into the Dominican military base at San Isidro, and from there they linked up with the seaborne marines. Already there were more American service men in the Dominican Republic than in Vietnam. We had heard President Johnson in a television broadcast while we were in New York say: ‘We support no single man, or no single group of men in the Dominican Republic. Our goal is a simple one; we’re there to save the lives of our citizens, and to save the lives of our people. What began as a popular democratic revolution moved into the hands of a band of communist conspirators.’ However, the impression of the Dominican people and of the majority of the press was different. They felt that although the Americans had undoubtedly prevented a massacre they were patently siding with Wessin and the military junta against the ‘rebels’, or the ‘Constitutionalists’ as they call themselves.

The Americans had carved a military corridor which connected San Isidro airbase (where we were to land) with the Security zone around the new diplomatic quarter on the other side of Santo Domingo. This corridor cut straight through the rebel-held part of the city and the bulk of the rebel forces were penned into about two square miles of the business quarter. Already about a thousand soldiers and civilians had been killed and another thousand wounded.

When we landed at San Isidro the evidence of what Russell had said began to confront us – planes of every type; hundreds of American troops on foot and in jeeps and many others, just flown in, dossed down in the nearby hangars. We decided to try to reach the El Embajador Hotel, about 15 miles away on the other side of Santo Domingo, where we were to be accommodated with the rest of the press and television, as soon as possible. We spoke to a young US lieutenant … there would be no transport for at least two hours … OK, we’d start filming here … how about some food and a jeep in which to get round the airbase? Grab what you can – we did.

The bus to take us to the hotel was a beat-up old vehicle with all the outward appearances of a colander – it had been shot up two days before. As we moved off, Ralph saw an American pick-up, and confirmed that it was going to the hotel, jumped into the open tray in the back and filmed all the way into and through the city. The scenes were fantastic, soldiers everywhere, every kind of equipment from artillery to field hospitals, and then more troops and the occasional tank or armoured car on the shanty town street corners … the poor Dominicans trying to lead some sort of day-to-day existence, and children playing with the spent shells of yesterday’s sniping. At the hotel, the scene was equally bizarre. Surrounded by soldiers and guns, refugees, with their children and odd belongings, shacked down on the patio and in the central lobby. We went to the reception desk … there were no rooms. On to the military press office just down the corridor. We explained who we were. Yes, we could have one room for the five of us and our equipment … they would try to find others. They needn’t have bothered, Russell was in his element. Familiar faces appeared everywhere, old press friends from Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia … he’d been around the trouble spots of the world. Within half an hour he’d got promises of four more rooms by nightfall … requisitioned half a hundredweight of American ‘C’ rations and, since everyone else was drinking the hotel swimming pool, six Coca Colas – there’d be more later. As well as being an admirable quartermaster, Russell had also made his contacts to get filled in on the story on the ground. He set off into the city, and the crew and I filmed scenes in and around the hotel, ending with a military press briefing, one portion of which sounded ominous: ‘This morning at approximately 10.30 Al Burke and Doug Kennedy of the Miami Herald were wounded when they were caught in the cross fire between a US and rebel outpost. They were returning to the US line from the rebel-held section of the city when the rebels commenced firing … I want to say that all members of the American press here have repeatedly risked their lives in an effort to report fully to the people of the world all facets of the political and military situation. The tragic and unfortunate wounding of these two men should point out to everyone in the world who listens to a radio, reads a newspaper, or watches television, of the outstanding job that you courageous people are doing.’

That evening, we sat in a bedroom in the semi-darkness – the electricity flickered on and off – canning up the day’s exposed film, writing continuity sheets and deciding what to do next day. Russell had made several contacts, including one in the rebel sector, who had agreed to take us to Caamano, the rebel leader. The crew did not show immediate joy at the prospect of this. What safeguards did we have? What about the two press men who’d been shot that morning? True, but many others hadn’t been shot. First we must get a car, and write ‘press’ all over it in large letters, then, when we’d got to the rebel zone, we’d drive very slowly, five miles an hour, to the place where we were to meet our contact. Once with him we’d be OK. The crew were happier, but still sceptical. Two would go, one was doubtful. OK, sleep on it. We arranged with one of the taxi-drivers outside the hotel for a fat price to have him and his car for the next three or four days.

Friday, May 7 – we met William, our driver, at 7.00 a.m. – all of us. He drove us to the edge of the rebel sector, explained how to get to our destination, got out and suggested that we drove ourselves from now on. Russell drove, we smiled and waved out of the windows at the suspicious looking civilians and scrappily uniformed rebels standing about in doorways and at street corners. After five minutes we were lost. We decided to stop, and I got out and spoke to a rebel holding an old carbine. He looked no more ferocious than any of the others we’d passed, but he never actually took his finger off the trigger. After a short conversation in pidgin-Spanish, many protestations that we were Inglese and not bloody Yankees, he ordered two youths to come with us and show us the way. Beside the building which was our rendezvous, the two boys pointed proudly to an American jeep which had been captured the day before. The three Americans who had been in it were now prisoners, they said. We were shown up and met Russell’s contact, who thankfully spoke English. After much palaver and explanation that we were from English Television and wished to present both sides of this unhappy story equally fairly, it was agreed that we should see Caamano in the afternoon. The fact that the three members of the crew were obviously not Inglese (although Ralph had now shed his conspicuous field uniform which we had persuaded him would be a sure target for every rebel rifle) proved something of a drawback to begin with. However, once it was understood that they were merely a technical crew working for English Television, all was well. We were welcomed warmly and asked what we would like to film during the remainder of the morning. First we would like to look around the rebel sector, film whatever scenes seemed interesting, and interview our English speaking contact.

The poverty of the place at the best of times was obvious and shameful. Add to that days of accumulated rubbish piled high in the middle of every street … a grotesque charred body lying on a pavement (they couldn’t bury all the dead) … battle-scarred buildings … shot-up or burnt-out vehicles standing about like so many deserted waifs … children of 14 carrying rifles (the new-found symbols of their manhood) … starving dogs and sounds of intermittent gunfire … and you have a Caribbean city under revolution. We turned a corner near the sea-front. A hail of shots surrounded us. Our contact, Hugo, was first out of the car and into a nearby building … we followed. We were greeted by our hosts with peels of laughter … there must have been a funny side to it … and, as we were soon to find out, the population had become so used to gunfire that they no longer considered it worthy of much excitement. Several times we poked our heads out of the door in an effort to see who was shooting at whom, but without much success. We decided the situation was too good to miss, and after finding a way out of the back of the building, we clambered over a wall and into a street running at right angles to the one where the firing was going on. We were protected by the buildings on our left and could see the bullets striking another building with a Red Cross flag on it about 20-30 yards away. The marines, it appeared, were firing at some rebels in the building and one had already been shot in the stomach. I decided that this was the time and place for Russell to interview Hugo. The result was unusual – Russell and Hugo in the foreground, Hugo protesting violently that he and the other rebels were not communists but Constitutionalists who only wanted free elections and a return to democratic government. In the background there were American bullets hitting the Red Cross building, and on the corner, just behind Russell and Hugo, a little cluster of rebels firing back. Every now and again another rebel would run across the street to join them, and across the way, one over-exuberant Dominican was carrying on a private war running backwards and forwards firing from behind a tree. The interview continued for about eight minutes, including two magazine changes, and then Russell also did a camera statement crouched down on the pavement beside the rebels.

In the afternoon we went to see Caamano. We had to pass six guards on the way into the dingy headquarters, and were frisked twice. We had a drink, some dreadful pink liquid, tried to collect our senses, and filmed a few minutes of the shambolic press conference which was going on. Eventually, when it had ended, we got our interview with the rebel leader – an extraordinary interview punctuated by the personal interpolations of his Minister for State, who was also acting as Caamano’s interpreter.

News travels fast in situations like this, and that night at the hotel there was much envious rumour and gossip of our scoop of an interview with a rebel under fire that morning. We were all delighted, and felt that while we had been lucky, we had got it because we had gone it alone, rather than filming with the main pack of camera crews who stayed together most of the time. The crew were as delighted as we were, but felt that we’d pressed our luck far enough. Russell and I agreed that we seemed to have covered the rebel zone and that there should be no need to return.

Saturday, May 8 – Manny, the camera assistant, went down with ‘gyppy tummy’. Russell went off to arrange interviews with the American Ambassador and the head of the local Peace Corps. I took Ralph and Morgan filming along the corridor and in the security zone – Junta troops, US marines and strongposts, military convoys, checkpoints, a mobile Red Cross unit. On the way back Ralph sat on the bonnet of the car hand-holding the Auricon, for a 10-minute tracking shot through the centre of the town.

We met Russell at the American Embassy. The Ambassador was unfortunately engaged. OK, we’d do the Peace Force. Robert Satin, the local head, had set up his HQ at a school two miles away. He’d be delighted to talk to us, but some other time. He was on his way to the rebel zone to relieve three captured American service men. Could we go, we asked? Yes, but only three could fit in the car. It was decided that Russell, Ralph and myself would go, taking Morgan Smith’s sound gear and leaving him to guard the remaining equipment with the driver. Satin, a romantic Pimpernel figure in a large Spanish straw hat and yellow cape to make him easily distinguishable, was the only man in Santo Domingo whom both sides trusted, and who could, therefore, undertake a mission of this kind. An American himself, it would be fair to say that he was not entirely uncritical of the American position in Santo Domingo. We were soon with the rebels, but not until our papers had been checked and our purpose explained would they lead us to the prisoners. On the way, as we walked through one of the rebel-held streets, one of the leaders tried to explain the rebel cause to Russell in Spanish. Satin interpreted, and we filmed as we went. The rebels here were so courteous and obviously sincere that one could not feel other than sympathetic towards them. Perhaps my early West Indian upbringing – I lived in Trinidad till I was 14 – made for a certain affinity.

The three prisoners, two petty officers and one private would say little to us, understandably. They gave us their names and confirmed that they had been well treated. The atmosphere between them and their captors was friendly, and one of the rebels complained that the only trouble they’d had was that the little fat petty officer ate too much. We stayed there at Cuccaraca 20, the name of the rebel headquarters, for about three hours, while they tried vainly to contact their main headquarters for permission to release the prisoners to Satin. The lines were blocked, no communication was possible. We suggested sending a runner, it was only two miles away. That would mean their man crossing the security zone, a risk they were not prepared to take. Could we do it for them? ‘No’, they said, it was too risky, and it was getting dark. We should really return to the security zone at once. The prisoners would have to wait for their release until the next day. As we were filming a final camera statement outside Cuccaraca 20, a rebel arrived to say that a junta 50mm machine gun was trained on the street where we were, and that a large number of rebels were ready to return fire from a building just across the street … we really should go. We did, but after 20 minutes’ driving we still could not get out of the rebel zone, barred everywhere by road blocks. Eventually we came full circle, and the members of Cuccaraca 20 undid a road block to let us out. That really was our last visit to the rebel zone, but not the end of the excitement for the day. As we neared the American Embassy, we ran into some sniping, which caused Satin to take to a side street. At the Embassy, American troops were active, kneeling behind trees, and taking up positions of advantage. It seemed mild compared to the events of the last two days. I sat on the Embassy steps investigating a blistered toe. A medical orderly insisted on disinfecting and bandaging it. The humour of the situation did not strike him.

That night, Russell and I took stock of what we had, and decided that next day he would film the re-arranged interview with the American Ambassador, and an opening camera statement on the border between the security zone and the rebel zone. I would catch the morning plane to San Juan and thence home to London to help identify and assemble the film. Russell would catch the evening plane, film an interview with Juan Busch, the ex-president, in Puerto Rico and then follow on to London too.

Sunday, May 9 – I missed my plane, the arrangements for transportation to the airport had been changed. When Russell returned to the hotel, having completed his filming, not without further incident (during his camera statement firing had again broken out, but he’d completed it nonetheless, and so filmed what must be the most unusual camera statement on record) we agreed that we would all take the evening plane. Back in our luxurious hotel in San Juan that evening, a bath, clean clothes, and a good meal at last in the penthouse restaurant from which there is a view of the whole city.

Monday, May 10 – 7.00a.m. call. ‘Breakfast is nerved by the swimming pool.’ What am I going back to London for?

3.00 p.m. – ABC New York – where all the in negative film was processed before shipment to London – ‘It’s good quality, you’ve got a humdinger’.

6.00 p.m. – a drink and a chat with Bryan FitzJones. ‘New York’s been in the nineties, Jeremy wants me to stay here till tomorrow. I’ve booked your flight, a BOAC VC 10, take off Kennedy Airport 9.30 tonight.’

Tuesday, May 11 – 9.45 a.m. – landed London Airport. I still had a wife – or perhaps she still had a husband.

11.00 a.m. – back at the mill (TVH) … rushes at 3.00, everyone delighted, but feel flat.

Wednesday, May 12 – more rushes – rough cut – script conference – rough cut. Jeremy and I left Peter Mills and Roy Jordan, the editors, to it at 3.00 a.m. on Thursday – transmission day. They worked all night.

Thursday, May 13 – 8.00 a.m. See another rough cut. Russell back … discussion … another cut … Jeremy asks Cyril Bennett for an extra five minutes on the running time … OK, 31′ 30″ it is. Finalise picture, Russell writing commentary … recording commentary … laying tracks … dubbing … Freddie Slade has to do it without rehearsal, take first time. Somehow the him gets on the air with five seconds to spare. Thirty-one minutes later we’re on the Hollywood Crawl – roller caption in American jargon – and that’s where it all began.

Saturday, May 15: I still have a lawn – I’m mowing it – a friend calls. ‘How’s the telly?’

‘Fine.’

‘What are you working on?’

‘This Week.’

‘That’s on a Thursday, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

‘What do you do the rest of the week?’

The post Bullets stopped him mowing lawn appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

An acorn of an idea can grow into an oak covering many hours of TV programming. Anybody can have an idea at any time. The hard part is to translate it into something which can be put into a TV studio and transmitted: to unite into a team all the dozens of people involved. On these pages, Fusion has taken two highly contrasting subjects… an educative series based, of course, on facts and a scripted entertainment series based on vivid imaginations. Two contrasting people write in their own way about each. The first article is by executive producer STELLA RICHMAN (ATV’s ‘Love Story’, Rediffusion’s ‘The Hidden Truth’, ‘Blackmail’ and ‘The Informer’ which is to come this autumn). She allows her imagination full fling by putting down her ideal conditions for the production of a series. The second article is by executive producer GUTHRIE MOIR (Towards 2000′, ‘Design for Living’, ‘Royalist and Roundhead’). He sticks to the facts which led to the present 13-week series on the Civil War.

Cultivate under blue skies

The truth about television is that, apart from the actual title and perhaps original idea, no successful series ever belonged to one person alone. An idea is only something in a person’s head. Success or failure depends on the execution of that idea and, in the making of a series, dozens are involved, all of whom contribute.

It is, however, vital that the development of the basic idea is carried out as thoroughly as possible before the series reaches the studio. If we
lived in an ideal world, I would dream of something like the following happening…

First, Cyril Bennett as director of programmes would have to give his blessing to an IDEA – just a germ confined to two sheets of paper. I should then put someone else behind my desk. Preferably he would be someone with a heart of steel and an ability to add, someone who is con-man proof. Then I would collect people like Peter Collinson (producer), John Whitney (editor), Reuben Ship (writer) and Ian Hendry (actor) and go off on a yacht, preferably to the Greek islands. Oh yes, there would either have to be a tape recorder, or a super-type James Bond girl complete with an electric typewriter. We should then live on full pay for about six weeks, talking and thinking about our idea.

Ian Hendry is the only type of actor who would be allowed on this working jaunt, because he not only thinks like an actor, but is also one of the few actors I’ve ever known who can think in terms of a whole idea, not just his own character.

After six weeks, I should return to Cyril Bennett with a most beautifully typed working document, not, repeat, not format, for that is far too rigid. This working document would outline the character who would dominate the series, the background, six complete story lines, the supporting characters and the general development of the series. Perhaps there would be a little on how the producer intended it to go in terms of techniques. The whole lot would be tied up in beautiful ribbon and bound in leather (not too expensive).

After Cyril Bennett had read it and if he was in between crises, I am sure his good sense would prevail and he would join us on our yacht. There the clear air, the blue sea and the bluer sky would add to his already highly-developed critical faculties. He would go through the whole document with us, adding bits here and asking us to lose something there. After giving us some more money, he would return to Kingsway, happy and confident that we were going to bring home the bacon – eventually.

Our two writers would then start work on one script each from two of the six story-lines. The producer and I would then start thinking about the casting, the other writers (only two) we should approach. It might then be necessary for he and I to return to London to start planning the production and to talk to writers and actors and directors. Six weeks later, the two sun-tanned writers would return to London with their two scripts.

They would hand them over and beat a hasty retreat. Only after the producer and I had had them revised after much discussion with the writers would we give them to Cyril B. These scripts would show the leading characters and any other permanent characters, plus whatever permanent sets would be used throughout the series. They would get certain attitudes and behaviour across which had come out of our discussions. One of these would then be chosen as the pilot. By this I mean not the opening episode, but the one we should use as an exercise for the rest of the series – it would be slotted in around episode 5 or 6. While the producer (wearing his director’s hat) set up this episode for a production date six weeks later, the two other writers would be given the first two scripts to read. They would then be asked to a ‘talking out’ session and invited to submit three complete story lines each, but not a script yet. The story editor would be working with the producer on the pilot. Six weeks later we should have taped our first show. This would be nearly five months from the day we were given the go-ahead. At that point, this pilot would be shown to Cyril B., the other directors who were to follow the producer, the four writers and the leading characters. The camera crew, film camera man and editor and any other technician who worked on the show would be asked to come and see it probably a few non-contributors like secretaries and night-watch- men, would be asked too. Then a few of us would see it again for analytical purposes. After that, the real writing operation would start. Changes might be made to the second script before it would be given to a director. Four writers would now be working on 12 accepted storylines. Each would have three months to write and revise three scripts. Production of the series would start approximately three months after we had seen the pilot. All 13 scripts would have gone through to a second draft.

Involvement of regular characters would have been worked out to allow the maximum rehearsal schedule possible while still recording weekly. The story editor would stay with us until the last show had been recorded. We should work with a team of four directors only. Each director would have his three scripts before starting. And so, roughly 32 weeks after the idea had been passed, production on a major series would start. For eight months, a creative team would have been paid to think and there would have been no results to see for maybe a year.

Too much time and money? I don’t think so. An unrealistic dream? I hope not. Anyway, like most of us working in television, I am still a child at heart and believe that dreams always come true.

Stella Richman

Fertilise with facts

The idea for the series came to me as I was visiting Boscobel House in Shropshire, where the young King Charles II hid after Worcester. Admiring the venerable oak in the grounds – descendant of the original in which the monarch hid – one halcyon spring day more than a year ago, I resolved to try to transmit to a wider audience some of the magic of these battles long ago and of our nation’s tortured conscience. The original oak was pulled apart by eager Restoration souvenir hunters and vandals the Age of Reason had them too – and its successor is fenced around to deter their twentieth century counterparts. The Boscobel Oak, as portrayed on a contemporary coin, has been adopted as a symbol for the television series among the screen titles and on the supporting literature. It even features on a special ‘Royalist and Roundhead’ series tie which will be presented to participants and distributed to a wider public.

Rediffusion possesses a small dedicated team of adult educationists: two directors Graham Watts and John Rhodes – the editor – Peter Hunt, and three researchers, Helen Littledale, Edward Hayward and Simon Buxton, the last two history graduates. The team is completed by Frank Jessup, head of the extra mural department at Oxford University, who compiled a special source book for the series Background to the Civil War (Pergamon Press, 12s. 6d.).

Working against the clock is the greatest nightmare for most adult education television producers. They and their schools programmes colleagues are the odd men out in an industry which prides itself on living intensely in the present and in putting out important special programmes at a few hours’ notice. They alone have to plan their programmes’ contents and set their presenters to work on draft scripts as much as six months to a year ahead of transmission if they are to relate their supporting literature effectively to the programmes and encourage serious viewers to creative follow-up work, without which even the best programmes remain just so many arrows fired into the air. Some months of research followed last autumn in the British Museum, the National Portrait Gallery and obscure local museums and sites of battles up and down the country. This produced the plan to interpret the period through its great representative figures like Clarendon, who spanned in his life of astonishing political and literary activity the whole period, and more, Coke and Eliot, Pym and Hampden, Strafford and Archbishop Laud, Charles I, Cromwell, Prince Rupert and Fairfax, the poets Milton and Marvell, Lilburne the pamphleteer, Hobbes and Sir Henry Vane, Charles II. University dons, including Professor Hugh Trevor-Roper of Oxford and Professor John Hale of Warwick, were consulted and contracted to write outlines.

Purely didactic programmes, particularly if they take the form of straight lectures on television, fit uncomfortably into an evening’s viewing in which entertainment predominates, and can deter even intelligent viewers who are not ready or in the mood for profound concentration. All speakers were requested, therefore, in conceiving their outline scripts, to try to assemble their material in a way that would lend itself to visual and dramatic treatment. Dons, like bishops, are accustomed to addressing their audiences from above and as a result many of them find difficulty in adapting their customary lecture-room techniques to the needs of television, where an effectively personal and relaxed manner wins viewers and its opposite repels.

All the outline scripts, setting out the gist of what was to be contained in each programme, had reached Television House by the end of January to be mulled over by all the creative members of the team. The presenters were then individually visited in their separate universities by the editor on the scripts, by researchers for guidance on illustration, and the director for timing, style and rehearsal. Dramatic sequences were discussed and agreed as were the use of actors to read speeches, poems and letters. It was commonly agreed that no dialogue should be invented and no imaginary scenes – every word spoken in the dramatic sequences had to be authentic, culled from the records of the period. By the middle of March, some of the earlier scripts were ready for recording. The session in the studios lasted the best part of a day for the presenter, with additional days of rehearsal, of course, for the actors.

One difficulty was found common to almost all the scripts. Each expert tended to presuppose in his audience a greater fundamental knowledge of the seventeenth-century background than could be counted on. After reading one or two programmes, it was decided that a special introductory programme to set the scene must be added. The programme started with the dramatic scene on the scaffold outside the Banqueting Hall in Whitehall, Henry Soskin playing Charles I, not forgetting the stammer. Cromwell appeared twice, portrayed by Patrick Wymark, who said he had always wanted to try that part. Ludovic Kennedy, a professional historian himself, though of a different century, put the questions that the average viewer would need answering to get the most out of the rest of the series to Dr. Maurice Cranston. In the end not all the programmes were recorded in the studios. For Professor Trevor-Roper’s programme on Charles I, the whole team flew up to Chiefswood, his vacation retreat near Melrose in the Scottish borders.

It is difficult to assess the comparative value of adult education on television. Adult education programmes have only been regularly seen for the last three years. It is too soon yet, therefore, for completely satisfactory methods of audience research and assessment to have been established. Without much more detailed research, feed-back of audience reaction and follow up methods, such as are envisaged in the Prime Minister’s ‘University of the Air’ project, producers can never be absolutely confident that their programmes are giving their audience exactly what they want. All that can be claimed now with certainty is that the audience for series like ‘Royalist and Roundhead’ constitute incontestably the largest adult education classes in the country. A television series can present a string of experts of national repute in a way that no local class or group could hope to. Producers of such series have a two-fold responsibility and it is sometimes difficult to reconcile the two parts. While it is legitimate to assume some basic knowledge of the subject matter and equally some will to learn in the viewer, as an educationist himself the producer is keenly conscious of the chance always open on the television screen, of catching and drawing and keeping the more general viewer almost unawares or in spite of himself. The dilemma with all education programmes remains how to satisfy the minority of serious searchers after new knowledge without alienating the majority of viewers, without whom national television networks could not exist.

Guthrie Moir

Drawings by Brian Morris

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THAT was a decade that was. That was a decade that was…

Oh, put the emphasis where you like. The fact remains that all of us who were there on the night when Rediffusion and ITV first flickered on to the screen are now 10 – no, 11 – years older.

I’ve changed. How about you?

Rediffusion has certainly altered. For a start it is no longer ‘Associated’.

Incidentally, dear editor, it would be interesting to find out just how many people at present on the pay-roll were with the company on Night One (still known to some as the night they invented champagne).

The answer is 252 – Editor.

From my own memory book I recall Sally Sutherland, Red Lyle, Dennis Atherton, Richard Hawkins, and the late Hugh Finlay – all part of the Press Office over the years.

Where the nostalgia really hit me was at the ITA’s white-tie Guildhall banquet when 10 glorious years and all that were celebrated.

It might have been the wine and brandy but sitting there under the stony stare of Gog and Magog I suddenly realised that 10 years (and part of a hair line) had vanished since I was in almost the same seat for ITV’s curtain-up.

The instant reaction was to check for ‘old familiar faces’ along the tables around me. Of 40 or so TV ‘professionals’ within range only four, perhaps five, had been there back in ’55.

Now I know how Greybeard felt. If my memory is right was Lord Hill, now ITA chairman, at that September 22, 1955, dinner as Postmaster-General?

And at that time didn’t ABC TV consist of just Howard Thomas and a secretary?

Before quitting that particular celebration I wonder if the champagne would have flowed so freely had it been known that within one year Rediffusion would be over £3 million down?

By the way, hasn’t that been perhaps the most important change of all – turning those colossal losses of the early years into a profit?

As a privileged spectator seeing much of the game from close quarters it seems to me that Rediffusion’s development has been in three stages.

The first, naturally, was that somewhat daffy unreal period when the newly recruited army worked excitedly to get the company on the air and keep it there.

Forgive me if there is an overlap for so many shows have been crammed into the decade, but those were the days of Gordon Harker and ‘Sixpenny Corner’. Of Ralph Reader’s ‘Chance Of A Lifetime’.

The weekly sports magazine. The Granville Melodramas. And of Sgt ‘I Only Want The Facts, Mam’ Webb and ‘Dragnet’.

Wasn’t there a freakish series called ‘You’ve Never Seen This’? Book reviews in the morning. Sheila Matthews as Friday’s Girl. Wasn’t this, too, the Jack Hylton variety era… the names which occur being Arthur Askey, Tony Hancock (he once did a one-man show in an emergency), Rosalina Neri, Bryan Michie, Ivor Emmanuel, the Crazy Gang and the Water Rats?

Roland Gillett was the programme controller, Lloyd Williams was on the production staff, and the whole period was like the froth on top of a pint.

The second stage was marked by the appointment of Paul Adorian as managing director and John McMillan as programme controller.

Now the workaday face and output of the company was being established. On went the old originals in ‘Take Your Pick’ and ‘Double Your Money’.

But morning TV disappeared. Much of the early pioneering excitement went with it. And the staff settled down to a more orderly existence.

Schools programmes started – remember Enid Love? Was it in this spell or even earlier that we had those Michael Ingrams’ series? How about those Goonish shows like ‘A Show Called Fred’, ‘Son of Fred’, and ‘Idiots’ Weekly’? Not only Sellers, but Milligan, too.

The work of putting in the foundations went on continuously.

‘Cool For Cats’ caught popular fancy and brought Joan Kemp-Welch’s name to the forefront. ‘This Week’ was going strong. Somewhere around this point Cyril Bennett and Elkan Allan began contributing to the company’s fortunes.

Peter Cotes is one more name I associate with this sector of Rediffusion’s fortune. And was I alone in liking America’s ‘Johnny Staccato’ jazz-thriller series?

I went down the Thames on one Rediffusion birthday party – and across to Paris for another. That was the day that George Sanders, then working on a special programme called ‘Women In Love’, helped to play host. Although only a voyage down the Seine, Captain Tom Brownrigg was also on hand.

So we had ‘No Hiding Place’ and ‘Intertel’, ‘Wagon Train’ and ‘Rawhide’. But where was Tig Roe? Whither Alan Morris? Goodbye Kingsway Corner.

Out went advertising magazines. Out went ‘Jim’s Inn’ – after setting the standard for all shows of this type. But in came the many successful Pinter plays.

The most successful, of course, being ‘The Lover’, with Alan Badel and Vivien Merchant. It must have won almost every award possible… actor, actress, author and director. Surely Rediffusion’s most successful production in all those 11 years?

Just as the TV scene was growing contentedly sedate on came ‘Ready, Steady, Go!’ to give half the nation convulsions and the other half blood pressure.

Visiting the ‘RSG’ studio at TV House brought back all the din of 1955 and that drilling year when Adastral House was being converted.

By now Rediffusion was part of life. Dan Farson, always prominent in company affairs on the screen (his ‘Time Gentlemen, Please’ show was not only entered at Montreux but must have been responsible for the introduction of ‘Stars and Garters’), was a notable departure.

But phase two was drawing to a close too. On went John McMillan to general manager and in came Cyril Bennett as the new programme controller.

This is now part of the latest story… come in David Frost, Stella Richman, Benny Green, ‘Three After Six’, ‘The Rat Catchers’, and David Jacobs.

Pausing only to nod a farewell to Buddy Bregman and a friendly greeting to Europe’s favourite TV ‘uncle’ Eric Maschwitz, it scarcely seems credible that Monica Rose was hardly walking when ‘Double Your Money’ was first televised.

Yes, you’ve changed all right. Some more memory jogs… Stuart Hood, that ‘Arabian Nights’ opening for Wembley Studios, ‘Hippodrome’ in colour, the American deal with David Susskind, ‘Dial M For Music’, ‘Alfred Marks Time’, Keith Fordyce, Groucho Marx, Dickie Henderson, and on, and on.

It’s been a long time. Perhaps after all it should be that was a decade that was? What’s more Gog and Magog are still waiting.

The post That was the decade that was appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

Next week, with the Thursday programme at its peak, they are to hand over to a new producer, Jeremy Isaacs, so that Bennett, a former national newspaper journalist, can devote all his time to his appointment as head of an ITV company’s feature department, and Morley can concentrate on the production of special documentaries.

Tall, dark-haired Morley, who began his working life in the projection box of a West End cinema, lit a cigar as we talked in his office six floors above London’s busy Kingsway. There was a two-hour delay on the phone to Moscow, no impending Cabinet crisis, and the cigar smelled good.

“These have been two exciting years for us,” he said. “During our ‘reign,’ This Week has visited every continent and has had as guests, world leaders in politics, industry, commerce and royalty.

“We’ve spotlighted race riots in America’s Deep South, troop trouble in Minden, rocket bases in Cuba and conditions under Communism in Poland.

“We’ve had interviews with Mr. Nehru, the Shah of Iran, the Prime Minister, and every member of the Cabinet. And we’ve put out a 45-minute programme with Prince Philip on his tour of America. Without doubt, this was the highlight in our two years with This Week.”

Another programme which brought praise for the Bennett-Morley partnership from both critics and viewers, was one taking the lid off the unemployment position in Hartlepool and the North East.

“This was the first time the public had really been made aware of the poverty and hard times in that area. The programme had a tremendous impact,” said Morley.

“But” he added, “when one has to produce a topical current afFairs programme once a week, one steps unavoidably on a number of toes.

“We had an altercation with the War Office following our coverage of the British troop skirmishes in the German town of Minden. And we were not too popular with the Polish Embassy after our pro gramme on conditions in their country under the Hammer and Sickle.”

Another programme which raised the prestige of This Week was one pin-pointing violence on TV. Naked City, one of ITV’s own programmes came in for criticism. And no punches were pulled.

In recent weeks, This Week scooped Fleet Street with a revealing pre-arrest interview with Dr. Stephen Ward, the society osteopath and friend of Christine Keeler. The following morning, the world’s top newspapers carried the interview on their front pages. A fitting retirement compliment to Bennett and Morley.

Past successes notched by the partnership include Tyranny (the years of Adolf Hitler), Heartbeat of France, Two Faces of Japan — which has been shown by every television network outside the Iron Curtain — and their famous documentary about British trade unionism called United We Stand.

Peter Morley also directed the only full length opera ever to be shown on independent television, Benjamin Britten’s The Turn of the Screw.

But both of them are justly proud of the part they have played in raising the prestige of independent television in the field of current affairs. They leave This Week in a position of strength and influence.

The post Last week… THIS WEEK… next week appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

The last time I saw President Diem in Saigon he took me aside and said – ‘What programme is this one?’ And when I said ‘This Week’ he considered the words rather carefully and came back: ‘You are lucky to be thinking of this week.’

A few weeks later he was dead. I talked with the priest in Cholon, who saw him go through the process of ‘accidental suicide’; Diem and his brother-in-law, Nhu. The two had worked their way from their palace to the Chinese quarter and the little Roman Catholic church there. I had the impression, from what I was told, that Diem knew that he had come to the end of his particular road.

Diem was dead. The street was empty. People took care not to be around. They were watching but they were not going to get involved. A Vietnamese friend of mine said: ‘You may not have thought much of him. Now wait and see what happens.’ And we have waited, and we have seen. That was my last assignment with ‘This Week’. The producer who asked me to go back to Saigon is now with the BBC; so is the reporter. There may be a moral in this somewhere, but I doubt it. There is a wonderful line from Don Ameche in Silk Stockings.

‘What is your theory?’ asks the Russian girl.

‘My theory is that there is no theory!’

This renders the approach to the world we live in empirical and I suppose that this is a fair assessment of the way we used to and indeed had to organise ourselves when ‘This Week’ started, in 1955.

There were no rules; only ‘Panorama’.

The assignment given us by the then controller, Roland Gillette, was to produce a lively half-hour (minus commercials) for January ’56. There were to be many items, some political, some social, some lighthearted. It was agreed that we would try to end with a short ‘sting’, a one minute semi-sardonic commentary on our ways of life.

Just after the kick-off we had a major accident. Our man in Paris phoned me (in what is now the canteen) to say that he had found a night-club in Paris, already made famous by Time magazine, in which French waiters were dressed as cowboys.

Later, Caryl Doncaster, then producer of all features and I viewed the ‘rushes’ in ITN. These consisted of some 40 minutes of synchronised and beautifully lit extracts from the club’s cabaret. There were girls undoing zips everywhere. It was riveting stuff and I was later to be amazed by the number of people who felt that the film had to be seen. That item was a hard night’s day.

A jolly time was had by some when we took the programme to Paris for our first Eurovision link. Stephen MacCormack, now in Mauritius, was location producer. The programme was sent out from the Palais de Chaillots, into which Stephen cheerfully imported some Bluebell girls. That caused a tableaux with the diplomats. We also learned, on the day of transmission, that the French had views about the use of commercials. This, in turn, had repercussions in our own network. As a result I as editor, was instructed to provide two separate programmes for simultaneous transmission. This turned out to be a record, if not necessarily an achievement.

There can be a lot of fun in a programme if you have to learn as you go along. When we started the staff couldn’t be assembled according to experience in television because there were limits. Some of us came from the BBC, some from films, some from Fleet Street. We had to shake down as best we could.

One transmission day Mrs Alfred Hinds sent us (through Geoffrey Hughes) a taperecording of her husband’s voice. He was currently on the run from gaol. There were no rules. We didn’t know whether we should use it or not. There were risks. Scotland Yard was interested. I consulted the one man who could give us a ‘yes’ or ‘no’. It was ‘yes’ and we were plastered all over the front-pages next morning. That was the first time I met John McMillan. The rules evolved. One particularly exasperating one was the 14-day rule governing comment on things to be dealt with in the Commons. We ran into a blow-torch over this during the Suez affair. Two particularly prominent politicians had to be told that they could not discuss what they had come to discuss. One left. The other one stopped and temporised. He is, at the time of writing, Chancellor of the Exchequer. There have been embarrassing moments with politicians. One such, who has since been a prime minister (and demanded cash as soon as the programme was over) was invited to cross our red carpet into the studio, via, as was intended, one of the five star offices in Television House. I posted ‘sentries’ at both entrances. At one I eventually met the august gentleman. At another my sentry welcomed a coloured gentleman, took him upstairs to the five star area, handed him over. This was, in fact, an Egyptian journalist, destined for another item in the programme. That took some sorting.

The Prime Minister of Australia came in to see the interview we had filmed between President Nasser and Frank Owen. It was a good interview. When it was over we had the impression that the Prime Minister was about to say something fundamental – like ‘thank you’. At that point a voice in the dark said – ‘You can’t trust these politicians can you?’ When the lights went up I noticed that Mr Menzies looked amused.

I went to Athens with Elkan Allan, to interview Archbishop Makarios. Staying in the same hotel were Elizabeth Taylor and the late Mike Todd. It seemed a good idea to try something with him. We were invited to the Todd suite and bedroom in particular, where we found Miss Taylor less than dressed. Her husband was pacing the room using the dialogue from Lady C. ‘Liz,’ he said, ‘here are two English Lady C’s.’

‘Yeh!’

‘How do you do, Mrs Todd.’

‘Hih!’

Says Todd – ‘Sit down on that Lady C bed over there.’

Later that day I was on the roof of the hotel with his beautitude.

Todd comes out on the roof and says, in his not less than megaphonic voice – ‘Who is the Lady C with the hat!’

Such situations are delicate.

All this might suggest that we acted more frivolously than now seems evident. That is not so. Our brief was different. ‘This Week’ has not grown up to be 10 years old: it has grown to be different from what it was. All my ex-companions on the programme can probably top the trivial stories I have told, and they would all have to stop short of some of the truths we could all tell. I refer to Michael Ingrams, Dan Farson, Ludovic Kennedy, Richard Gould Adams, Michael Westmore, Tom Hopkinson, William Hardcastle, Jeremy Thorpe, Rollo Gamble, Cyril Bennett, Elkan Allan, Kenneth Harris, Al Capp, and so on and on. In more than 500 issues there is a lot of heat, some dust, occasionally a lot of fun.

A lot of people cut their wisdom teeth on ‘This Week’, and some got them knocked out. The programme has come a long way from the days when Spike Milligan sang ‘I’m Walking Backwards For Christmas’ and Peter Sellers did time as Professor Smith Grant Hetherington, having seen, heard and secured hairs from the Abominable Snowman. We even once tied ‘This Week’ to ‘Late Extra’, which has its own story. I wrote and spoke the commentary for the yearly report on Noisivelet and a few people spotted how we had found the country.

Serious things happened. We have, after all, been living in the latitude of great events. I think that most were faithfully recorded. So long as you don’t take yourself too seriously you stand a good chance of staying short of a rest-cure.

I remember in the studio, Dr Verwoerd and Sir Roy Welensky, Khrishna Menon and Yehudi Menuhin, Harold Macmillan and Dr Banda, Father Huddleston and so many others.

One event I remember with personal pleasure, since this is only my version of ‘things wot used t’be’ as editor and producer and executive producer and head of features, and all that. I was sent, to my utter delight, to Monte Carlo, to interview the glittery Tina Onassis. The now Duchess will excuse me if I refer to her as a ‘dish’. However, we talked of Grace Kelly and life as lived by those who want for nothing. In my pocket I had a letter from my mother saying that my father was very ill in Canada and needed comfort. I had no idea what to do. I couldn’t afford the air fare to go out and was floundering for an answer when I saw someone at Nice airport whom I thought could help. This particular VIP was first on our plane and, incidentally, occupied the little room to the discomfiture of the other passengers for a very long time.

During the flight home I wrote him a note and asked if he would consider sending my father a word of encouragement, since they knew one another well. A day later I received this letter to send on –

‘My dear Commander Hunt,

I am indeed sorry to hear from your son of your illness. I hope you will accept my earnest good wishes for your recovery. I remember well the good work that you did in the War Room.

Yours sincerely,
Winston Churchill.’

I am grateful to ‘This Week’ for that opportunity. And it helped.

The post This Week is 10 – part 1 appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

It was about three years ago that I arrived on the 6th floor to work with Cyril Bennett who was producing ‘This Week’. And I was apprehensive. Until then, I had worked for Cyril Butcher in admags. ‘This Week’ meant no more to me than a paragraph in the TV Times, occasional glimpses of Brian Connell and a few bars of the Karelia Suite by Sibelius.

Down on the 2nd floor, where my days had revolved round ‘Jim’s Inn’, the world of current affairs programmes was a mystery. I didn’t know how they worked or who worked them. It wasn’t very long before I found out. Looking back, now, I remember very little about the content of the programmes when I first began. I do, however, remember that each week began quietly and ended in a blurr of running feet, harassed faces, raised voices and the latest editions of the Evenings.

I shared an office with Cyril Bennett then. It was small and airless. This had an interesting effect when it was subjected to hour-long production meetings with six chain-smoking programme makers. These meetings at first would fill me with terror because the telephone would always ring, stopping conversation and often heralding a very persuasive P.R.O. trying to sell his client’s programme idea. These ideas were always completely unsuitable for a weekly current affairs programme and their very suggestion would leave me paralysed and nearly speechless. My symptoms must have been taken to mean disinterest for when not faced with the usual barrage of reasons why his idea was hopeless, the poor man would soon ring off.

It is very easy to compare the programmes now with the programmes then – how ulcer-making it was with last minute additions on Thursdays, very little forward planning and two or three items in each half-hour. How comparatively more leisurely it is now, with two or more one-subject film programmes being shot and put together at the same time for forward dates. This means that today, studies can be made in greater depth.

All I remember about what I actually did in those days was typing and circulating the features bulletin twice a week and keeping Cyril supplied with endless cups of coffee and codeine, though I suppose I must also have done something else with my time – perhaps some of it was taken up avoiding the two wolves of the section who I had been told by my predecessor to beware of at all costs. She must have impressed me for I never got past the ‘Good morning’ stage with either of them.

Though it seems now that I worked for Cyril in that office for years, it was only four months later when he told me he had been offered Lord Windlesham’s job as head of features but that until he could find somebody else to take over, he would still produce ‘This Week’ with Peter Morley. I stayed with him as his secretary.

So we moved up to the office of head of features with fitted carpet, armchairs and space for me at the end of a Plan 7 in the next room and our double duties began.

During the next few months, Cyril spent quite a lot of his time interviewing people for the producership of ‘This Week’. I met countless interviewees at the 6th floor lifts and ferried them along to Room 601 and back again afterwards.

‘This Week’ itself seemed to have evolved slightly from less of a battle into more of a steady struggle but never did it become tedious. I cannot remember one moment of boredom for, not only was the business of being with a weekly programme time consuming, but the very fact that it was current affairs, newsy and real made it absorbing. And I was always impressed by the importance of it all, by the people we spoke to on the phone and the people we had in the studio; that Lord Montgomery was actually on the other end of the line and the Archbishop of Canterbury and so many MP’s who up till then had been only names in the papers. And I still have a very vivid memory of Stephen Ward being interviewed in one of the offices and then being hurried out the back way to avoid recognition and the police. And that Prime Ministers should also come to Studio 9…

Jeremy Isaacs arrived as producer of ‘This Week’ seven months after Cyril’s promotion. I moved over to work for him. Jeremy concentrated on racier film reports with the reporter on the story doing any commentary that was needed, obviating the necessity for the studio linkman.

The one and a half years I spent as Jeremy’s secretary I enjoyed enormously. He left more and more of the administrative side for me to do. I remember him beginning very quietly – nobody noticed him, few heard him and his presence was only felt in the department by those working closest to him. But by the time he had settled in, his voice was the most distinct in the front corridors of the 6th floor. Without moving out of his chair, he would summon the current production team into his office, vocally, and also without moving he would pick up the threads of any conversation we were having in the office next door and offer his opinions on the latest dresswear, hairstyles or whatever.

Programmewise, I was scarcely involved in the making of film stories. My job was in the initiating stages and in the commentary writing and editing. Jeremy would decide on Vietnam say, for the next week’s programme and I would check film crew availability, have the travel and hotels booked and generally see that the machine was set in motion. On the Thursday, Jeremy, or the reporter, would write the commentary and I would type it, often several times before it was either down to the length or as he wanted it. As often as not it was only by the skin of our teeth that the commentary would be recorded and dubbed on to the film in time for transmission at 9.10 p.m. Thursdays would mostly develop into a nightmare fight against time – but the nightmare was the producer’s, not mine – the feeling of not having the responsibility was elating.

And then Jeremy Isaacs left in July this year to see what impression he could make on ‘Panorama’ and ‘This Week’ fell back into the overworked lap of Cyril Bennett. At the time of writing, I am now bossless and typewriterless – both Isaacs and Bennett having decided that typing is no longer for me and I have been given some aweinspiring title like programme liaison or programme organiser, I keep forgetting what exactly, but in any case, it just means that I am doing the same job only more so. And that is almost everything to do with ‘This Week’ that is not directly the producer’s or director’s problem, from programme correspondence to chasing film rushes from overseas locations into the labs. No more commentary typing on Thursday evenings – the reporters do their own – but Thursdays often involve the meeting of journalists and Government spokesmen, escorting them to the guest room for drinks, down to the studio for transmission and back to the guest room to recover, leaving us all slightly wilted by 10 o’clock.

But of all the departments for which I have worked in Television House, this has been the most exciting, eye-opening and intriguing and ‘This Week’ itself the most rewarding. It is at the time of writing in the hands of Alasdair Milne, formerly editor of ‘Tonight’. But nothing ever changes – only the names and the faces.

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