The mere suggestion that I should look back in memory over the nine and a half years I have spent with A-R was enough to make my mind blank. When the days, weeks, months and years fly by as they seem to do in television, how does one recall the vital moments? I can’t. Through the mist of time, some things emerge slowly, most of them quite insignificant and ephemeral – probably of no interest to anyone. But it is of such inconsequences that life is made up. So I shall rattle on and hope that moments will generate in a way of their own.

It is always well to begin at the beginning, so I will recall my first day at Stratton House where the first 60 members of A-R were then housed. I entered with trepidation for as far as I knew I was entering a world of strangers. The office I was given contained a desk, a fire escape and nothing else. ‘A chair? So sorry all the chairs were used for a meeting in the Board Room along there. Help yourself.’ I wandered into a sea of chairs where two men were on the same errand as myself. They turned and in a flash we were all hugging one another with joy and relief. Weston Drury, head of casting, with whom I had been associated in the thirties at Elstree Studios and Ernest Gartside, one of the kindest production managers in films, were newcomers like myself.

The early days at Television House can never be forgotten by any of us veterans. The noise of the pneumatic drills thundering on the office walls, the barrow loads of cement trundling up and down the passages and the showers of dust are now all part of the history of ITV. I was reminded lately, on finding a second toilet roll, a box of tissues and a waste bin in the Ladies (but still no light over the mirror!), of those desperate days before the plumbing was completed when, penny clutched in hand, we rushed along Kingsway to the Holborn Tube, or blushingly offered a pink pass in a nearby building where hospitality was available.

Those, indeed, were the days of pioneering. The electricity failed? Magically, we were all issued with hurricane lamps until normal service was resumed. The heating system died on us? Every office had its convector heater. At last the time came when the girls no longer got their 10s. [50p in decimal, about £22 in today’s money allowing for inflation] a month hairdressing allowance and the men could no longer send one suit a month to the cleaners. We were on the air.

Of September 22, 1955 I remember only the first night nerves and wild excitement that possessed us all. This was it! Everyone was at concert pitch and the Mayfair Hotel, from whence came part of the programme, was littered with cables and cameras.

Below ground level at the foot of a short staircase, the ‘control room’ had ingeniously been installed. Never before or since, I wager, has there been such a glamorous control room. In the seat of office sat the director (Kenneth Carter) with his PA, Norma, and his vision mixer and crew. All were in full evening dress – white ties and plunging necklines!

A grand party was held later in the ballroom which was crowded with showbiz celebrities and distinguished guests. My lot was to dash round with photographer Dick Dawson to see how many we could capture for stills. My feet ache at the mere thought of it.

From this time on, my memories are like a mosaic, vari-coloured and of all sizes and shapes. Some are mere fragments such as the turkey that wouldn’t go in the oven. Dionne Lucas, Cordon-Bleu chef, was to demonstrate how to cook a Christmas dinner and a kindly gas cooker company loaned a newer-than-modern stove. Alas, it took all our united efforts, much butter and almost a shoehorn to get the bird in. Our chagrin on knowing that this noble turkey, which we had seen basted with brandy, was to be given away was only tempered by the fact that the WVS took it for an Old People’s Home.

The visitor that wasn’t there – that was on the day that George Cansdale put his head round my door and asked if he could leave a friend with me while he parked his car. ‘Sure’, said I and he opened the door wide and nothing came in. Then I saw standing and looking minute in the doorway – a lion cub a few months old. Actually it was a lioness, so little she was still spotted. She wrinkled her nose in a mighty snarl and out came a tiny ‘Mee-oo’.

A particularly vivid and pale yellow piece of mosaic I recall was in the Club, then rather new to us and catered for by Fullers. The only food they could cook on the spot was an omelette and my guest, taking his on a very hot plate, jerked his hand back so suddenly that the omelette became airborne. It sailed in a graceful parabola across the room and landed on someone’s empty plate. He couldn’t have done it if he’d tried.

Do you remember ‘Gala’ – the first one for which Maria Callas did not arrive for the rehearsal? My feelings on being told to go to Hackney Empire for her eventual recording on the very Saturday that I was due to collect my new bubble car were far from charitable. But oh! when that voice soared up to the roof of the old music hall, all was forgiven. Moreover, bless her, she whisked off to catch a plane and I got to Raymond Way’s in time.

The bubble car, of course, has since then provided Television House with many a giggle. The most famous story is of the day a policeman summoned me to the reception desk to inform me that, according to witnesses (and thank heaven they were there) a Rolls Royce, turning in Drury Lane, had got its bumper caught under mine and all unbeknowingly had towed the bubble away. The driver discovered the appendage in the Aldwych, and no doubt madly embarrassed, had hopped out, freed the bumpers and abandoned the bubble to its fate on a pedestrian crossing. How I miss our good friend Albert who took care of 596WML in Drury Lane until it was made one-way and metered. Now the poor little thing languishes in odd gaps in Bloomsbury and since Christmas has had its right winker light side-swiped six times.

Who could forget that wonderful third year anniversary when we sailed down the river with so many television personalities on board that ITV would have gone out of business if the boat had sunk? The spluttering fireworks before the floodlit lower spelling out A-R (in full of course), the wonderful entertainment and dancing on the deck, the glamour of the Thames on a perfect autumn night as we drifted down to the illuminated Cutty Sark? These are pleasant memories.

And how about those revues so splendidly worked for by the ARTS? I am still blushing over my photographic disasters at the dress rehearsals. So elated was I at being asked to take pictures for Fusion, that I made the mistake of not trusting my gear but on two occasions borrowed electronic flash equipment with dire results. The first one had not been properly charged and I ran out of light before the first interval and for the second I was loaned the very latest thing which developed a short, and packed up in like manner. Doing my best by low key stage lighting, I managed to produce a collection of murky prints as seen through a glass darkly.

During the last nine and a half years there have been many merry meetings and many sad partings. My deepest grief was, of course, the death of Hugh Findlay, an old friend before he joined A-R and a colleague that many have missed as much as I.

And now, all my dear kind friends that I shall miss so much, I must bid you adieu. Before I go, let me counsel the young not to apprehend the passing of the years. The longer you live, the more you live and the more you live, the more memories you can store up. I wouldn’t swap mine to be 30 years younger. So once again adieu, as away I go – ‘I’ve got a lot of living to do!’

The post Thanks for the memory…. appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

When a delivery van draws up at the goods entrance of Television House, clerk Harry Boatman swings into action, opens the doors, checks in the goods, signs for them, enters them neatly in his log, informs the appropriate department and makes sure nothing gets lost until they are safely taken away to their destination.

There is a touch of military precision about the whole procedure which dates back to the days when Harry Boatman used to be a ‘regular’ in the Army – just after the start of this century. In fact, he joined the Royal Regiment of Artillery, R.H. & R.F.A., in 1905 at the age of 20, though his military career came to an abrupt end one day in October, 1914, at Strazelle [Strazeele, in northern France near the Belgian border – Ed] where he was wounded in action. Shrapnel had torn through his body and – while he was bandaged up to stop the flow of blood – a shell burst under the shield of a gun close by, ripping off the majority of his fingers as well as part of his right car.

Totally disabled, he was discharged from the Army after a spell in hospital and almost immediately joined the Civil Service as messenger and caretaker, serving among others such distinguished establishments as No. 10 Downing Street and The Treasury.

He retired from the Civil Service in 1950, aged 65, after 35 years, but only a few years later he was back at work, first with the NAAFI Bakeries and then, since 1956, with Associated-Rediffusion. At 77 he is probably the oldest member on the permanent staff of the company, and he is certainly one of the happiest. Married, with two sons and two daughters and he is not sure how many grandchildren, he lives with his wife in Merton.

Like most soldiers he treasures his memories and is justly proud of his gleaming row of medals, one of which (the DCM for distinguished conduct in the field) brings him a steady 6d. [2½p in decimal, 46p in today’s money, allowing for inflation] a day for life. He has also been awarded the BEM, and the Imperial Service Medal besides other service medals.

But Harry Boatman does not dwell in the past – he has his feet firmly planted in the present, enjoys his job and takes to it with the kind of enthusiasm that puts many a blasé youngster to shame. Maybe he only has a couple of fingers left to write with but his log book is immaculate and he would never dream of leaving his post unless there was someone to relieve him. For one thing, a driver might get into trouble for parking – which is now no longer allowed outside Television House.

Harry is a remarkably fit man. His secret? He firmly believes that there is nothing which ages a man more than the knowledge that he is no longer needed and since he is still very much in demand he feels on top of the world. Besides, being concerned in such a new and exciting 20th century venture as television, obviously helps to keep him young and active. I wondered what his wife thought of his extended working life. Would she not prefer to have him at home. ‘I am a nuisance at home’, he said with a twinkle in his eye, “my wife is glad to have me out of the way.’

Inevitably I had to enquire when he thought he would finally retire.

It was quite a joke to him.

‘When I die,’ he said without hesitation.

However, I can confidently predict that there won’t be a vacancy at the Associated-Rediffusion goods entrance in Television House for a long time to come.

The post Goods inwards looks outwards appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

Bill was young and like many young men he had a keen sense of adventure; a desire to travel. Northern Ireland where he was born and brought up at the beginning of this century held few attractions for him. His Irish father and Scottish mother had not stood in the way of his elder brother when similar thoughts had passed through his mind … when, like many others at that time, his hopes had focused on a new land with new chances – Canada.

And so Bill’s brother sailed away. Bill was not long in joining him in Canada. There he soon found work. First he helped to make chocolate sweets. Then he worked in a Toronto biscuit factory. Bill might have become a prosperous Canadian but in Europe at that time factories in Germany were turning out arms not biscuits.

German troops were marching. War was declared and Bill, like many others who had sought fresh chances in new lands, decided that patriotism was a call he had to answer. He threw up his job, returned to England and volunteered. His brother clung to their newly-found country but also answered the call. He joined the Canadian Ambulance Service.

Soon, by some strange coincidence, the two brothers found themselves near to each other again in France. Bill, instead of packing biscuits into boxes, spent his time packing shells into gun barrels on the Somme not far from Ypres.

Five 100-lb shells screamed off towards the German lines a minute. The Germans replied and instead of 10 men manning each gun there were, more often than not, only four. But still the guns were fired. And still the German shells burst around them. Twice Bill had to be sent home with shell-shock. Twice he went back.

Then an offensive started against the Italians. They retreated and Bill was sent with the 29th Division in a bid to stop the advance. He helped to see that a fair proportion of shells were sent in the right direction before he, too, was injured. Ironically it was not a piece of shrapnel which pierced his leg, nor a stray bullet. A gun fell from its carriage on to him. And that was Blighty and the end of the war for Bill. Like thousands of others he had done his bit.

And so, in 1918, he was demobbed. Canada was a long way away. Bill’s brother went back. But perhaps the shellshock, the dreary days of hospital, had blunted Bill’s enthusiasm for a new country and a new life. Like thousands of others he did not find the transition from the Army to civilian life an easy one. He rejoined the Army.

As an experienced gunner they sent him to Shoeburyness, the Royal Artillery experimental depot. They made him a wine waiter to the 150 officers. He learnt a lot about wine and served many V.I.P.s when they came to see new weapons tested.

And there he met the girl who was to become his wife. She was governess to an Army officer’s children. In her younger days she had been an actress, once appearing as the principal boy in a Leeds pantomime. After their marriage Bill decided to leave the Army. They moved to Southend and Bill became a traveller to a firm which made umbrellas and walking-sticks. He tramped around Westcliff and Southend seeking orders. But his firm was a small one and not very prosperous. One morning Bill found himself out of a job. Luck was with him, however, for a dockers’ strike was on.

The same afternoon he was back in a job – working on the lighters unloading cargo from liners anchored oft Southend.

But that did not last long and soon Bill found new work – doing a milk round in Camden Town. Times were bad. He was forced to sack the boy who helped him. The boy retaliated by stealing the milk which Bill had left on the doorsteps. His pony had a long journey each day and dashed for his stable as soon as the last milk had been delivered. Perhaps there is a, by now, elderly policeman who remembers that pony’s attempt to knock him down in Trafalgar Square.

Bill began to prosper by taking over poor milk rounds, working them up into good ones and selling them. He soon knew Brixton, Victoria and Pimlico extremely well. Then he decided to stay put for a while and took over a dairy in Dorset Road, Clapham. He built it up until a bigger firm bought him up. Then the United Dairies bought up the firm which had taken him over.

Bill worked for United Dairies for a number of years – 400 customers a day, 3,500 stairs to climb each round. He became district manager – seven shops and 16 rounds: 12 shops, 43 rounds.

Then German troops marched into Poland. Bill’s world crumbled around him again much as it had done 15 years earlier and much as it did for thousands of others.

He returned to a milk round, this time in Kensington. Twice his home was blitzed. Once his wife was buried in the wreckage. Twice blast shattered his windows.

Meanwhile his brother’s son had followed their example in the First World War and joined the Canadian Army. Outside Rome Bill’s nephew won the M.C. for gallantry. He died there.

Back in England fate played another trick on Bill. In the First World War a gun had fallen on him. Shortly after the Second World War a crate of milk fell and split open his stomach. Bill still carries the scars. After that he was not quite so good at lifting things. He had to leave his job.

Just over three years ago Bill got another job – with Associated-Rediffusion.

You’ve probably seen him many times and he’s probably smiled at you and said ‘Good morning’ many times. For Bill, now white-haired, always has a cheery smile, much as he did for housewives on their doorsteps in days gone by.

Bill enjoys life as a labourer in Television House, shifting goods and furniture, restocking toilets with towels, soap and toilet rolls, clearing out wastepaper.

He thinks you all are wonderful people. ‘I do honestly believe that. Everybody is so considerate, patient and tolerant. I’m grateful to all I come in contact with.’

It was nice meeting you, too, Bill Shaw.

But Bill nearly always has a companion on his work around Television House, as most of you will know.

He is another Bill – Bill Farrell. Grey-haired and broad faced, this Bill also enjoys working here. For him, too, life here is quite a contrast to previous days.

Many are the times that his hands have been stained red by the Rowley Red Clay from Staffordshire. For Bill Farrell spent 35 years working for the Royal Doulton Potteries at Lambeth as a plaster model maker and a mould maker.

From his moulds were cast the terra-cotta façades for many of the buildings in London. Thousands of Scotch whisky flagons have also passed through his hands – he helped make them, not drink the contents.

Beer is his drink. During the war he was holding a pint of bitter in the ‘Prince of Wales’, Stockwell, when the place was hit by a bomb. Sixty people were in the pub at the time. Six got out alive. That’s about the only pint of bitter Bill Farrell has never finished.

Another time in the war he was going down to the cellar during a raid when a bomb dropped near by. The cellar door came away in his hands.

But that sort of thing does not happen around Television House these days. ‘It’s a change working here, wandering around the building all day, after 35 years shut up in one room at the pottery.’

Bill Shaw and Bill Farrell may not have the most glamorous of jobs in television but it is interesting to reflect that they are probably one of the best-known pairs of people in Television House.

The post Feature billing for a pair of Bills appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

Next month the clouds of obscurity which mushroomed around our future following the ITA announcement about the changes in ITV should begin to clear. The end of a period most people will only want to go through once in their career is near.

It has not been a happy time and it must be stated clearly that for some the future will still bring only worry and indecision. The quart of staff at present working for this company and ABC Television will not go into the pint pot of a new joint company.

Nevertheless there has been a categoric assurance from John McMillan, our general manager, that the first consideration in all the many problems to be thrashed out will go to the staff. One cannot ask for more than that.

As soon as possible next month personal interviews will be held with everybody and those who have been selected to join the new company will be informed. The union shops will be told simultaneously. Then the ITV companies and the unions are to organise a Register upon which the names of those not offered jobs will be placed. A similar Register is to be set up at the same time for nonunion staff.

The aim with both these registers is to ensure that everyone is given the chance of re-employment in the industry at the same basic rate of pay as at present. The unions have their own weapons to see that this is done. The non-union staff must depend on the goodwill of others which surely must be forthcoming.

Both must also rely on Lord Hill’s public statement at the press conference on Sunday, June 11 at which he announced the proposition that ABC Television and Rediffusion Television should form a new company.

In reference to the appointment of the Harlech Consortium in place of TWW he said:

‘It will also be a requirement that, when appointing staff, the new company will give prior consideration to the employment of those now working in Independent Television in Wales and the West. I may say at this point that the Authority will make the observance of this principle a requirement in all cases of change (Fusion‘s italics). The sum of the changes we are making will lead to an increase in overall employment in Independent Television; and there should be no reason to fear general redundancy, though there will be individual cases where goodwill and care will be needed and these will be exercised.’

The demise of TWW made the main press headlines. The merger of Rediffusion Television and ABC Television was a secondary story. Yet, in terms of human predicament, the merger presents far more complex problems than those arising from what will probably be a straight takeover of staff and equipment by the Harlech Consortium from TWW.

There will be ‘an increase in overall employment’ (more jobs) but, the formation of a new company in Leeds is not of much value to those whose homes and lives are centred around London.

So that leaves London Weekend Television, the new London weekend group, as a source of jobs. How far they will wish, or be forced by the unions and, possibly, the ITA, to take on Rediffusion staff not re-employed remains to be seen. John McMillan has told Fusion that in his opinion all unionised ITV workers, except those soon to retire, will get jobs starting July 30, 1968 or before with either the new ABC/Rediffusion company or London Weekend Television. One good thing which will, in Fusion’s opinion, probably arise from all this is a transferable pension scheme between all ITV companies and possibly with the BBC as well.

This is vital in view of the fact that a similar situation involving others, if not ourselves, could arise in another six years’ time – or eight – when new contracts are again handed out.

For the present, however, the immediate concern of everybody must obviously be to see that Rediffusion Television continues to operate at the highest possible standard right up to the time it comes off the air on July 29, 1968. We must do this for the sake of our own personal professional reputations quite apart from loyalty to the company and to the public we have chosen to serve by working in television.

This will not be easy but anyone who has decided to make television a career must have a basic desire to serve the public and this service must not be allowed to deteriorate.

As this edition went to press, detailed discussions were being held to form a new direction and management structure and to agree with ABC Television on the disposition of offices, equipment, transport and all the many other factors involved in the merger. One of the most important, of course, will be a decision on the future use to be made of Studio 9, Television House, Hanover Square, Wembley studios and Teddington studios.

By the time this edition is printed decisions may have been reached and announced. If this has not been done rumours will, no doubt, start to circulate. Again management has stated categorically that, as soon as there is anything to say, the staff will be the first to know. So, if rumours are flying, they can be summarily shot down.

It is obvious that there will be many delicate negotiations to be handled with ABC Television and it would be wrong to expect a day-by-day account of them. Indeed, they would be likely to attract press publicity which could prejudice further negotiations.

So the only reasonable attitude must be to wait patiently knowing that we have been promised information as soon as it can be given. There is one happy side to all this which must not be overlooked. Few people have the opportunity in the middle of their careers to review just what they are doing with their lives and what they wish to do in the future and to be given virtually a whole year to think about it.

Obviously this does not apply to those nearing retirement age and one hopes that some system will be devised to ensure that they do not suffer because of the high level decisions which have been made and over which they had no control.

But for those with some years still to work – and the average age of the ITV industry is low – the situation does present an opportunity to make a reassessment of their careers and the pattern of their lives.

As for the pattern of the industry, this would need a really magical crystal ball to unravel. One thing is clear: we have not seen the last television upheaval. Here, verbatim, are the words spoken by the Postmaster General in the House of Commons last month:

‘There remains … the question of the longer-term organisation of broadcasting in Britain. The recently awarded contracts will run from next July to 1974. Two years later, in 1976, the franchise of the ITA and the BBC’s charter, Licence and Agreement will end together. Recently, I have taken steps to ensure that licences of the relay companies, which make up a very important element in our broadcasting system, will end at the same time. So, nine years from now, an opportunity will arise for a fundamental review of the whole system, because ITA, the BBC and the relay companies will all terminate at the same time.

‘As I have said on a number of occasions since I became involved in the subject, I cannot see the present kind of organisation lasting for very much more than the decade which we have ahead of us before those changes take place. In 1969 the Post Office becomes a public corporation. The residual Minister will then have under his wing the two broadcasting authorities, the Post Office Corporation and a number of other residual activities, but he will be freed of all the day-to-day administrative work of the Post Office – that great mass of administrative work which weighs down the Postmaster General. From that time the residual Minister will be able to devote more of his time to broadcasting, and I hope that, in the spring of 1969, a long, cool look will begin at the whole system of broadcasting in this country.’

What other group of people in the country has to work under these terms? Are long, cool looks and the upheaval of individual lives going to be a continuous reward of working in ITV?

Possibly. And possibly it is right that such an important industry should be the subject of long, cool looks – as long as they are not positively frigid. It is not Fusion‘s job to comment on this.

But what Fusion must do is to point out that such events as the breaking up of companies, the holding of ‘fundamental reviews’ (remember Pilkington?) are not likely to create the most conducive atmosphere in which either companies or individuals can flourish. We have the compensation of working in what we all obviously regard as the most exciting, challenging and interesting industry there is. Perhaps we must expect to forfeit the security which comes from working in a bank or insurance.

But, whatever the reasons for ending Rediffusion Television may have been, it must not be forgotten that very talented and dedicated teams of technicians and programme people, and accounts, advertising, publicity, administrative and secretarial staff are also being broken up.

There is no doubt that those who are picked will recreate similar teamwork in the new company but it will take time.

Further, although Fusion does not want to be accused of chauvinism, we do believe that the spirit of the ‘workers’ in Rediffusion Television is and was second to none. The co-operation between individuals, the help one section gives another, the happy working relationships between people from post-room to management, are all indefinable. But they added up to something pretty considerable. Furthermore in the last three years and more there has never been the faintest whisper of a possible stoppage.

The new company will have a flying start if it inherits only this happy spirit.

Meanwhile there is plenty of work to do until July, 1968 and on the remaining 34 pages of this edition Fusion, too, gets back to normal …

The editor

The post Fused appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

This is the first of several articles to be printed in Fusion” about the engineering side of television broadcasting. Suggestions for future subjects will be welcomed. The word “genlock’ has been frequently used, perhaps far too often by people who do not really know what it means. Here the assistant head of engineering, basil bultitude, explains what it is, why it is used, and the advantages of other forms of generator locking.

To start with, the basic system of television transmission must be understood. A television picture is made up by one small spot of light travelling over the picture screen. It first starts at the top left-hand corner and rapidly travels across the screen in a series of straight lines. With each successive line the spot moves slightly down the screen, and eventually, when 405 lines have been completed, the whole screen has been covered and one picture is said to have been transmitted.

The time taken to transmit one picture is a twenty-fifth of a second. Because of flicker, inherent in this system, two half pictures each of 202½ lines, double spaced, are actually transmitted. Each half picture takes a fiftieth of a second to transmit and is termed ‘one frame’. The light spot varies in intensity related to the brightness of the original scene; although there is only one spot of light on the screen, it is moving so fast that persistence of vision of the eye enables us to ‘see’ a whole picture.

It is obviously necessary for the spots on all television sets to be in exactly the same area of picture at any instant. For this reason, at the end of each line and frame, synchronising pulses are transmitted. These synchronising pulses ensure that the spots in the receivers and in the cameras start a new line or frame at precisely the same time.

Because of interference from the electrical power mains which makes itself felt on the received picture, it is desirable that the frame speed be related to the mains speed (frequency), i.e. fifty per second.

To achieve this, the synchronising pulse generators (SPG for short) at the studio end are locked to the mains. One might think that if several SPGs were locked to the same mains supply, their outputs would be identical. Unfortunately this is not so.

The SPG mains locking system is not rigid but is in fact slightly springy. This means that two such generators locked to the same mains supply will be continuously varying slightly in speed, one with the other, depending upon the fluctuations of mains, and upon the ‘springiness’ of their lock.

Consequently, a picture generated by a camera fed from one SPG may be running at a slightly different speed from the picture of another camera fed from another SPG. This is insufficient to cause any noticeable mains interference, but it is sufficient to prevent superimposition or mixing of these two pictures.

This is, of course, a definite requirement for a television studio, and is achieved by driving all the cameras, etc, within one building from one SPG. At Wembley the SPG is situated in the central control room and at Television House in the master control room.

Sooner or later a situation must occur, when it would be desirable for a picture signal from Wembley to be superimposed upon a picture signal from Television House. The method of achieving this is ‘genlock’. In this system, the SPG at Television House is not locked to the mains but is in fact rigidly locked to the synchronising pulses from the Wembley generator.

Thus the degree of mains lock affecting the Wembley generator will also affect the Television House generator, and in consequence their synchronising pulses should be identical. The pictures from Wembley may then be superimposed on those at Television House. It is obvious that the Television House SPG may be locked to any incoming signal operating on British standards, but only to one at a time.

Thus, it would not be possible to mix pictures from Wembley, Television House and ITN together. If, when a Television House studio or telecine was on the air the SPG was then genlocked, a considerable disturbance would be seen on the pictures. In order to superimpose, one must genlock to a source before ‘taking it’, and because this cannot be done while Television House is on the air, a serious limitation is placed on its use. Attempts have been made to genlock more quickly by a system of automatic genlocking to reduce the picture disturbance. Nevertheless, a picture disturbance of up to four seconds may still take place. Automatic genlocking facilities are now available at Television House. The actual mixing or superimposition may only take place on the station whose SPG is genlocked.

It would be possible for Wembley to genlock its generator to ITN and Television House to genlock to Wembley, thus making a sort of ‘chain genlock’, then all three SPGS. would be running at exactly the same speed. This would mean extending lines from ITN to Wembley in order to carry the locking signal and would mean that ITN could only be mixed at Wembley.

This limitation occurs because of the different path lengths of the signals. The signals travel at roughly the same speed as light, i.e. 300,000,000 meters per second, and quite obviously a synchronising pulse that went from ITN to Wembley and then to Television House would arrive later than the picture signal that went from ITN direct to Television House. Within any television studio centre the path lengths of the various signals are carefully arranged to be the same, and this process is called ‘timing the station’.

From the above it will be seen that the genlocking system, automatic or otherwise, falls far short of the ideal of being able to mix anything anywhere. From our own company’s point of view, this imposes a very serious handicap. Our programmes may come from Wembley, Television House, outside broadcast vans and other programme contractors, all working, of course, on separate synchronising generators. The commercials always come from Television House, thus twice every fifteen minutes a different set of synchronising pulses are fed to the transmitter and of course to the home receivers. The receivers thus have to take up a new sweep speed suddenly, on the cut to and from the commercials and this nearly always results in a ‘frame roll’.

Towards the end of 1958, Associated-Rediffusion engineers attempted to rectify this situation by designing at new form of genlock called Slavelock. In this system the Wembley SPG was locked by a new method to the Television House SPG so that the two stations behaved, electrically, as one. This meant that the Television House SPG could then genlock to other sources, one at a time and the Wembley generator would automatically follow.

The necessary apparatus was built and in June of this year the two stations were locked for the first time by this method. Unfortunately the results were not perfect, the picture verticals from Wembley being slightly ragged. This was due to inaccurate timing. Work had to be stopped on this project because of other commitments, which is sad when we were so near our goal. However, perhaps in the future we may again start melting the solder on this apparatus.

The above is by no means the final answer, it only permitted sources to be mixed or superimposed at Television House and not, say, at Birmingham. Other broadcasting organisations throughout the world are working on the genlock problem. The BBC some months ago suggested that, if instead of locking to the mains, they locked their individual generators to a quartz crystal, they could simplify the problem.

Another idea of achieving a ‘synchronous network’ is that each incoming signal should go through a Standards Converter. A Standards Converter is basically a television camera looking at a television picture monitor. In this system the incoming picture is displayed on the monitor and the camera operated from the local SPG, thus the final picture from the camera is in lock with the rest of the station. This system has undoubtedly much to recommend it. The loss of picture quality in modern Standards Converters of good design is much less than is commonly supposed. However, it is certainly expensive; a Standards Converter costs approximately £20,000.

This is a complex story, and in order to try to explain it I have had to take some technical licence with the explanation, and for this I hope I may be forgiven by my engineering colleagues.

The post How it works… The Problem of Genlock appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

TWO double-decker buses rolled over my head. They were followed by three taxis, two cars and a lorry. I didn’t feel or hear a thing. But then I had just walked from outside Television House to Waterloo Bridge without crossing a road or dodging any traffic.

The answer to these feats is, of course, the ‘Strand Underpass’ which is due to be completed by the end of this year and which will take light traffic from the end of Waterloo Bridge and disgorge it just a little way up Kingsway from Television House after passing under the Strand and Aldwych.

Up above the sun was shining, but down there in the nearly completed tunnel it was cool. In Aldwych the traffic ground through its gears. Underneath a pneumatic drill clattered into the sides of the old tramway tunnel.

Down there a lot has been happening since work first started on September 8 last year. Apart from the ramps at each end and the arrival of the two-storey wooden building for offices in the road outside Television House not much has shown on the surface.

But by now the old tram tunnel from Kingsway to the Embankment (opened in 1908) is nearly ready for modern traffic. One of the biggest problems was tearing out a central wall which split the tunnel into two for the trams and which helped to support the road. This central wall ran under the curve from Kingsway into Aldwych where the tram tunnel follows the bends in the road.

As this supporting wall – 8 ft thick in places – was demolished (see picture), so girders had to be built into the roof and then the gap between them and the ground holding up the road was filled with concrete poured in under pressure. In some places this ground had also to be frozen chemically to prevent any chance of movement.

Meanwhile around 1,000 tons of concrete were used on the ramp in Kingsway alone. This ramp (heated to prevent icing) will bring traffic up from the tunnel to ground level at the corner of Kemble Street – the old tramway tunnel continues up to the top of Kingsway.

The walls of this one-third mile long under-pass will be lined with panels of aluminium with a backing of light grey which can be easily cleaned and which will provide the maximum reflection of light. The roof has been lined with asbestos to reduce fire risk and will have a suspended acoustic ceiling to reduce noise.

At the Waterloo Bridge end the ramp carrying traffic down has a gradient of 1 in 12. This comparatively steep descent (in Kingsway the ramp has a gradient of 1 in 15) is due to the fact that the ramp could not start descending until clear of Waterloo Bridge and it had to pass a few inches under a 4 ft 6 in diameter, main sewer below the Strand. The maximum headroom possible as a result is 12 ft 6 in, so precautions will have to be taken to stop tall lorries or vehicles entering the tunnel. This will be done by installing a photo-electric device. If a vehicle more than 12 ft high tries to enter, a warning light on overhead gantries will go on instructing the driver to rejoin the usual traffic lane.

Nothing of interest was discovered while building the underpass certainly nothing like the bodies which came to light when the original tram tunnel was being excavated. A short way up Kingsway from Television House an old plague pit was discovered where the victims of the plague had been hastily buried.

This story does not appear in the records of the time but was told by one of the two engineers who worked on the original tram tunnel and who came to see it before the walls were hidden by the new underpass.

One – an 84-year-old – came from Dublin especially and the other, who is now 82, came up from Surrey. ‘The younger one nearly cried when he saw the old tunnel walls upon which he had worked,’ recalls Mr R. Godfrey, site inspector for the consulting engineers.

More than 1,000 men worked on the tramway tunnel – practically all the excavation work was done by hand – whereas the conversion has been carried out by a labour force of around 150.

The figures are not quite the same when it comes to costs. The tram tunnel cost about £190,000 but the tender to the LCC for the underpass was £1,025,000.

For this sum London will get a bright, new underpass which should greatly ease the flow of traffic from Waterloo Bridge to Kingsway. At present it is intended that it shall function in this direction only but it will be possible to modify the approaches to allow for a ‘tidal’ flow in the reverse direction or even a two-way flow if necessary, but this will allow very little room between the two lanes of traffic in the tunnel.

But what happens, somebody will probably be thinking, when a grand, modern traffic jam sets in at the top of Kingsway and the whole tunnel snarls up? They’ve thought of that too. When the carbon monoxide level reaches a certain height an automatic detector will cause ‘switch off engines’ signs to be illuminated, the fans will work at maximum capacity and a ‘tunnel closed’ sign will operate.

Acknowledgements:

Thanks are due to the following for their help in compiling this article and for allowing our photographer to take pictures: The LCC; John Mowlem & Co. Ltd, the constructors; Frederick S. Snow and Partners, the consulting engineers.

Photographs by Jack Emerald.

The post T.V. House by-pass appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

At first sight it did not look a very difficult task to find out what people working in TV considered to be good taste in TV, but when I began my tour of TV House, braving the intricacies of PBX, wasting the time of a long-suffering TV Times writer — having a cosy lunch with a member of the Advertising Dept. — maddening (I am sure) harassed secretaries, overworked members of Prg. Correspondence and kindly producers, and being over-awed by a Head of Depts.’ office, well, then I began to realise that I had probably bitten off more than I could chew. For it seems that good taste is almost impossible to define; being a negative quality; nobody watching a good play, dance, or documentary says — “by jove, that was in good taste” — but the moment something offends their personal susceptibility, for taste is after all personal, then they are vocal enough. So it’s bad taste you’re going to read about, and below I give you the opinions of all those I talked to.

I found their thoughts both fascinating and contradictory, one producer put it to me that good taste and good showmanship made uneasy bed-fellows; another, that good taste was too bound up with safety, and the criterion of truly appalling taste was when a programme made you feel uncomfortable, without any sense of guilt, whereas if a programme gave you a sneaking suspicion that your attitude was of the ostrich with head in sand variety, then the subject matter, whether it is homosexuality, prostitution, the H-bomb, or the needling of a politician in the Robin Day manner, is almost certainly permissible bad taste, as it forces you to stop and think about your responsibilities as a citizen, a responsibility it is often more comfortable to ignore.

My friends in PBX objected to some of the dance presentations, which they found too suggestive, and this was as true of ballets as of the modern dances. What interested me particularly was that if they had seen the same thing in a theatre or cinema, they wouldn’t have minded. It was the “intimacy in the home” of TV, which makes this kind of thing offensive. I had the same complaint about the interminable and suggestive apache dances we are subjected to, from the Advertising section.

Back to PBX. Quite a number of comperes come under fire as indulging in orgies of bad taste, being personality pushers with little thought to spare for the programme they compere, and many commit the cardinal sin of talking down to the viewers, something any intelligent person resents.

Quiz programmes also brought a baleful look to the eye of my beholders, on the same grounds of being an insult to the thinking viewer. High on the black list is the spurious type of chumminess of the — What is your name?—Mary Jones.—May I call you Mary? — type of dialogue, and the imbecility of the questions, which would be an insult to the intelligence of a child of six, but by answering them, any adult can win that all-steel kitchen unit, the magnificent chromium plated little family car, with the two spare wheels and extra roomy boot, or that three-piece bedroom suite in light polished oak, picked out with raised facings in darker oak. Who but a Dr. Schweitzer could resist the lure of such glittering rewards for so little brain fag?

Again they object to the often humiliating forfeits competitors are asked to perform, for the supposed amusement of the studio audience and the viewer at home. The sad part is, that they very often do cause immoderate mirth — it is the man slipping on a banana skin mentality which is encouraged in this type of show.

In the Ad-Mag outfit I found a very definite feeling of antipathy towards the Amateur Talent Programmes with their larger-than-life comperes introducing some very amateur amateurs. All those would-be Beverly Sisters [sic] in over-fussy frocks, net nylon mittens and diamanté clips and slides; those raucous Lonnie Donnegans, where only the shirt is similar, the heavy footed Fred Astaires, and those sordid xylophone players whose only talent is to play the damn thing with their feet, can surely only be an embarrassment to their relations and a discomfort to everyone else, even the over-optimistic band leader or hardboiled talent scout — or so think Ad-Mags. By the same token one Head of Dept, felt that a vulgar joke told by an incompetent amateur can only be in the worst of taste, whilst the same joke told by a highly skilled professional will almost surely succeed in being extremely funny.

All those I questioned recoiled visibly when I mentioned the “personal tribute to a living person” epics. All that gooey mass of sugary sentiment, with the well-known personality in well chosen tears, while dear old Nanny Plumwood or dear old Mr. Satherwaite, who taught them to skip, hover above them in badly chosen clothes, produces nothing but a strong feeling of nausea in the stomachs of my viewers.

The mothers among our staff thought it very bad taste to show scenes of viciousness and violence to the young, although one did disagree, saying that it was Robin Hood, Sir Lancelot and the good sheriff of so-and-so city, who caught the imagination of a child and I must admit that among the children I mix with there is always a Robin Hood to pin me to the tree with his mighty bow or a rangy Davy Crockett to shoot me stone dead … come to think of it, excellent as these characters may be, you’re still dead, whether killed by a goody or a baddy! My TV Times writer gave me a long and thoughtful lecture on the evils of the “Top Ten/Twenty Favourites cult”. He explained that the public taste is very malleable and is manipulated quite unscrupulously by the song pluggcrs of Tin Pan Alley, who naturally find it a great deal easier to discover a mass of mediocre songwriters and singers, than it is to discover good ones. So out go the mediocre songs and music, week after week, and down goes public taste.

Everyone I spoke to disliked watching people in obvious mental distress, whose relations perhaps, had been lost in a spectacular disaster, or who might be connected with a much publicised and very unsavoury happening. In both eases, they felt that apart from the person actually appearing, it might quite well cause infinite and unnecessary suffering to someone the other side of the screen. It is a point of view one can’t ignore. On the other hand we want to hear what these people have to say and it is only a matter of presentation.

Well, there you have it. I wonder what you think. Should we have such impeccable programmes, such self-effacing good taste, that none could possibly take exception? What a ghastly thought. Henry VIII was in shocking bad taste, but what a man, how he lived and how he enjoyed life, high and low, and how many treasures he left for posterity to savour and admire. How sad it is to think that many TV Programmes, however brilliant, will never go down to posterity.

The post What is good TV taste? appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

‘Maintaining all the electrical equipment and installations at Wembley and Television House could be compared with the old story of looking after the Forth Bridge: when you finish, you have to go back to the beginning and start all over again’, says Bernie Finch, electrical supervisor. There are 62 electricians, 16 covering maintenance at Wembley and Television House. The other 46 cover all studio production lighting.

To many people the world of electronics, or just plain electricity means no more than being satisfied when the light comes on at the flick of a switch, or the television warms up and presents its picture without problem. Bernie Finch’s world, however, covers far more than just looking after light switches. ‘In the section, we’re responsible for ventilation, air conditioning, supplying power to outside broadcast units, and for all lighting, both for offices and studios. Really, we’re supplying a service to everyone.’

The power which Bernie and his team watch over, totals 2,800 kilowatts – enough to meet the needs of a small town. The intake of studio 5 alone accounts for 1,500 kW, which would supply a medium-sized village with light and heat.

‘When a company such as Rediffusion depends so much on electrical power, you have to be prepared for any emergency. For instance, when a recent power cut blacked out Television House and a large slice of the city, it was only the fact that there is an emergency alternator installed in the basement of Television House that saved the day. Within 40 seconds of the power cut the alternator was switched on, programmes could continue and essential lighting was restored. The alternator itself runs on diesel fuel, and can supply power for two days. Fully loaded, it could run for weeks.’

A little known aspect of the electrical section’s work is the supplying of special effects – especially explosions. Bernie himself has been responsible for many of the explosions that have wrecked cars in some of Rediffusion’s series.

It could be said that where the work of Bernie Finch’s section finishes, Jim Crossley’s begins. Jim Crossley is supervisory engineer (maintenance), and his men service the company’s technical equipment.

Says Jim Crossley: We look after the internal workings of cameras, sound, telecine, and film department equipment, monitors and master controls. We also maintain the outside broadcast equipment.

‘Outside broadcasts are perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of electronic maintenance. During the last general election, we converted a railway carriage on the train bringing Mr. Wilson back from Liverpool into a control room and video taped an interview which was shown during the election programme before the train had arrived in London.

‘The outside broadcast coverage of the World Cup series brought special problems as for Eurovision, all programmes have to go out on the 625 line system. Our equipment is, of course, 405 line, and we had to do a conversion job. I think that it’s to the credit of our people that the coverage went so well.’

Many programme gimmicks are designed and made by electronic maintenance. Requests vary from a simple clapometer (applause level indicator) for ‘Double Your Money’ or cues and communications for creepie-peepie cameras to the very complex. These have included designing and making a whole range of special sound equipment in a month for ‘Ready, Steady, Go!’ and rigging Studio 9 for a general election programme with all the hundreds of extra facilities required.

The main job, however, is to maintain the technical equipment. The company has probably lost less air time and had fewer faults on transmission than anybody else and that is the highest tribute to the work of the maintenance sections.

The post Wired-up for service appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

THIS week, Ready, Steady, Go! — Britain’s most popular pop show — moves from its crowded, informal niche in Television House, Kingsway, to the suburban, wide open spaces of Wembley Studios.

The jam-packed atmosphere of a Mod cellar-club has gone. Replacing it — slicker presentation, more glitter.

Gone, too, the tried-and-trusted record pantomime of most television disc shows. Defying tradition, Ready Steady Goes Live!

Why the changes?

Elkan Allan, executive producer of the show and head of Rediffusion’s light entertainment, said, “Ready, Steady, Go! started to go sour on us six months ago.

“The standard of dancing. The clothes teenagers wore. Every factor had fallen away from its former high point. Something had to be done to reignite interest.” Elkan decided to cut disc miming from the show. Teenagers had written to say they felt it gave a false impression. Nevertheless, a brave decision.

A decision that set Tin Pan Alley and show business generally a-buzz; a decision that will cost money.

It means a 50 per cent increase on the shows weekly budget: for extra musicians, backing singers, and arrangements. Plus a hefty outlay for new electronic equipment.

Producer Francis Hitching positively gloated as he described it: “More than £10,000 has been spent on the most up-to- date apparatus,” he said. “The studio will be littered with echo chambers, limiters, compressors, equalisers… It should be the most advanced sound technique ever used in a television studio.

“We don’t claim to produce an authentic ‘record’ sound. What viewers will see and hear is comparable to a live stage performance… with all its accompanying excitement.”

New sound. New studio, too. More space for dancers. No more elbow-to-elbow jostling. Now there’s room for 250, exhibiting all the intricacies of the latest dance crazes without space restriction.

Room for artists to breathe. To move about without dodging camera booms. Or wires. Or clusters of fans.

One thing Ready Steady Goes Live! must capture is atmosphere. Their old home, however cramped, did have an informal feel about it. The new studio must try to acquire this spirit.

In an effort to do just this, an R.S.G. Club will be formed. About two thousand teenagers will be selected as dancer-members… and work in a rota to appear on the new show.

New sound. New studio. Almost new compere. Until now, 20-year-old Cathy McGowan has been a sort of perky Girl Friday on the programme. Now she will be in charge.

Nervous at the prospect? Certainly. But bubbling over at the prospect of the show’s new image.

Enthusiastically she explained the R.S.G. Club. “The girls will look smashing and all the boys will be so good-looking you won’t believe it,” she said. “And they will ALL wear the very latest clothes.

“If they don’t arrive at the studio looking smart and up-to-the-minute, they won’t be allowed on the show and they will lose their club membership. We want to return to the style of the early days, when teenagers bought a special with-it outfit just because they were appearing on the show.”

Will the actual pop quality of the show change? Yes, it should improve. Lined up to appear on the new show are Gerry and the Pacemakers, Georgie Fame, The Animals and The Rolling Stones.

All-important musical direction for the first month will be handled by Johnny Spence, who has arranged backings on hits for artists like Matt Monro and P. J. Proby.

How do stars feel about Ready Steady Goes Live!? Particularly about the new feature that affects them — the miming ban?

Dionne Warwick and Cliff Bennett are in Friday’s show. Said Dionne: “I’m quite happy to do live performances. This is the way we work back in the States and it suits me fine.” And Cliff Bennett: “Much prefer to sing live. It creates much more atmosphere in the studio and this makes for a better programme.”

Will there really be a big difference in the new show?

Last word from Elkan Allan. His ideas sparked the show off originally. He’s behind the big new moves.

“Change?” he said. “Certainly. It will be far more exciting!”

The post Ready Steady Goes LIVE! appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

The basement of a business establishment compares, of course, unfavourably with the domestic cellar. It lacks the latter’s cosy intimacy, there are no dust-covered souvenirs with memories of the past, and the chance of finding a hidden treasure is about as remote as that of finding water lilies in the desert.

Nevertheless, when the Editor of Fusion asked me to write about Associated-Rediffusion’s ‘basic’ activities I was more than usually ready to oblige, and if you have so far lacked the time or the excuse to go exploring down below, perhaps you’d care to join my conducted tour.

It could be said that both the beginning and the end of Television House are to be found below the level of Kingsway, since its basement floor contains both the first essentials of its elaborate household (supply of water, heat, light) and the very last stage of its function in the transmission of programmes from the two studios. Perhaps the best place to start and get warmed up is the BOILERHOUSE which is approached by a special entrance and a steep stone staircase, so narrow that only boilermen with the lean and hungry look, totally disinclined to obesity can possibly be considered for the job.

The enormous size of the boilerhouse is likely to surprise those who vaguely visualised an enlarged version of the domestic boiler supplying TV House with heat and hot water. There are in fact no fewer than four boilers, three of them so huge that ladders have to be used to reach the top shutters. Two of these are in constant use day and night during the winter to supply our central heating, while the third one is cleaned and kept in readiness for use in case of breakdown in any of the others.

Electric pumps drive the water heated by these boilers into the radiators throughout the building and special booster pumps operate to reach the top storeys.

The fourth boiler, a slightly smaller oil combustion unit, supplies our domestic hot water.

In addition the boilerhouse contains cold and hot water tanks (chlorifyers) the height of an average room and diameters to match, as well as spare pumps in case of break downs, but the most predominant feature is the network of pipes of all sizes up to a foot in diameter, painted in vivid red (for central heating) and green (for domestic water).

They add a touch of unexpected gaiety to the spotless place, while the familiar roar from the fire in the boilers makes you feel quite drowsy….

The boilermen, Mr Coleman, Mr Jones and Mr Poole, who work in day and night shifts on a rota system are also responsible for our impressive VENTILATION PLANT ROOM where air is sucked into the building by a Plenum fan, driven through ventilating shafts and filtered through a panel of water sprays before it is allowed to disperse into the building.

The sprays can be seen in action through large glass panels and the dirt particles collecting in the side tanks are proof of the effectiveness of the filtering process. Stale air is ejected from the building by means of extractor fans.

From the ventilation plant room we also operate a secondary (warm air) heating system, which is supplementary to the central heating for exceptionally cold days.

Twice a day the boilerman on duty takes thermometer readings in all areas from the basement to the roof of TV House. This is not as exhausting as it sounds, since he has at his disposal an up-to-date thermo control unit in the ventilation plant room, and he merely has to move the hand on the dial to whichever area of TV House he wants to check and jot down the temperatures indicated. Outside temperatures are also taken twice a day. These readings govern the setting of the thermostats on the automatic central heating boilers.

Next we come to the domain of Victor O’Brien and his staff of three electricians, Reg Turner, T. Hurley and Peter van Hamme. Usually behind well-locked doors I was allowed to take an ‘Unauthorised Persons’ view of the MAIN SWITCH ROOM which is about 10ft wide and 30ft long and houses the Siemens Supply Company intakes, control box, fuse boxes and long rows of master switches controlling the supply of power to the various areas of TV House.

The main supply to the technical area is fed via the Diesel Control Unit. This unit has two sets of contactors which feed the distribution buzz-bars, one for the London Electricity Board main supplies and the other for supply from Stand-by Diesel.

Should a fire break out in the main switch room -where water cannot be used, the heat will melt the soldered links which in turn causes a chemical solution (CO₂) to be released and automatically ejected into the room to extinguish the fire.

The Stand-by Diesel is housed in what looks very much like a ship’s engine-room complete with vertical metal stairs and the pungent smell of oil, a large Diesel AC Alternator stands ready to cut in automatically in an emergency rather like an understudy waiting in the wings for her chance to take over when the star falls ill.

Only once – two years ago – did the stand-by diesel fail to cut in during a power breakdown and on investigation it was found that a workman who was cementing the switchroom floor had unwittingly touched the tripswitch which is permanently set to bring in the emergency supply.

The electricians put matters right and viewers got their picture back. The guilty workman protested: ‘All I did was this…’ He demonstrated and TV sets went blank again.

A little farther down some pipe-lined corridors I encountered the headquarters of the MAINTENANCE DEPARTMENT which comes under the jurisdiction of Mr Hurley and Mr Chater. It is an enlarged version of the domestic workshop crowded with tins of paint, cans of turps, brushes, tools of all descriptions and broken items of furniture waiting to be mended.

A team of two carpenters, Stan Cracknell and Tom Sanderson, who are the handymen around the house, attend to all minor casualties such as broken window sashes, locks which won’t open, drawers which won’t shut, chairs with missing legs, in fact anything that crops up, while the two painters, Arthur Thompson and Bernard Anns, are permanently engaged in brightening up the place with fresh coats of paint, a job which is never done because by the time they’re through, it’s time to start anew.

A few years ago a minor flood disaster hit the basement of TV House of which we in the upper storeys were blissfully unaware. It was caused by ITN film cuttings being washed down and blocking the waste pipes, with the unpleasant result that waste water mixed with a dark photographic chemical solution came up through the drains from underneath, covering the whole of the basement floor and causing considerable damage.

THE CARPENTER’S SHOP is just round the corner and we briefly call on Phil Holder, our master carpenter, who shows us round the SCENE DOCK where hired scenery is stored in readiness for imminent transmissions. A special hoist with a capacity of 25 tons was built at the back of the garage to transport the often cumbersome items of scenery from the delivery van into the basement scene dock.

Phil and his assistants are responsible for checking in each item, making any necessary adjustments or alterations, fitting and setting up scenery in time for camera rehearsal and for returning everything intact to the hire firm.

But bare scenery is not enough. Props of all kinds and descriptions are needed to give realistic and authentic backgrounds to the programmes. That is where Frank Newson and his five prop men come in. They have just about everything, including the kitchen sink, stored in the five prop rooms at their disposal.

The ARCHIVES, more than any other part of the basement, resemble the traditional cellar in as much as they are used for storage of documents which have long outlived their usefulness. The shelves are laden with out-dated correspondence, files and scripts which have had their moment of glory a long time ago.

Also stationed in the basement are the FILM CAMERA AND SOUND CREWS. They are headed by Ted Lloyd, the senior film cameraman, who discusses filming projects and difficulties with the directors concerned, and Dave Davies who fills in the inevitable forms and is responsible for correct camera allocation.

Among the camera men who have been with the company a number of years are Adrian Cooper, Ricky Briggs, Gilbert Knight, Harry Hart and Ron Osborn, and on the sound crew side we have mixers Stan Clark, Basil Rootes, Bill Welch and Don Alton.

An interesting character attached to the film camera crews is Ernie Beard, the only grip in the company. To the uninitiated the grip is the chap who pushes the dolly or operates the crane on which camera equipment is mounted and if you think there isn’t much to it then you ought to have seen Ernie operate the 40-ft crane for the film shots at the opening of Studio 5 when he had no less than three men on the front and a big camera and 4 tons of weights on the back to balance and manoeuvre about.

Last, but not least, there is the area more directly concerned with the transmission of programmes, the rehearsal rooms, the wardrobe department (where Phillis Crisp makes last minute costume alterations), the rows of makeup and dressing rooms, and finally the studios where the perennial first night atmosphere reaches its climax every time we are on the air.

You’d have to go a long way to find another basement quite like it.

The post Down in the basement… appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

The post The Butchers appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

A Royal occasion? An assassination scare? Visit from an astronaut?

No, the cause is Associated-Rediffusion’s new series starting on Friday, Ready, Steady, Go!, which will bring pop and film stars to Television House, in Kingsway, London.

And the fan-control precautions will be taken as a result of a paragraph in TV Times John Gough column a few weeks ago, asking if any teenagers wished to attend a trial run of the show.

Requests for tickets came in from all over the country!

Ready, Steady, Go! is a “pop-pourri” of records and films, packed with exciting, unconventional ideas. An audience of 200 young people will kick off their weekend watching and listening to and appearing with their favourite stars.

The programme presents problems for the administration staff of Television House, for Ready, Steady, Go! has fan action on three separate fronts. And in this, Associated-Rediffusion are bringing to light entertainment a production policy they have perfected covering big national events — cameras will be at three different spots.

• In the studio, Keith Fordyce will introduce and interview personalities before an audience of 150 that will completely surround him
• In the lobby, David Gell will introduce youngsters who will be dancing to the music of the show, relayed on monitor sets.
• And outside Television House, scores of fans will throng to watch proceedings in the lobby and perhaps catch a glimpse of their idols arriving or leaving.

Said director Bill Turner: “We want to capture the immediacy, the pace of modern show business. And we want to be informal and have an audience that will participate actively.

“The audience will have a chance to meet performers, get an autograph, maybe even dance with them.

“For instance, David Gell will ask individuals for their Top Fifty pop requests which we will play at once. He’ll ask why they like it and if they’ve bought it.

“There’s an amateur disc jockey spot. Another member of the audience will take all the Top Fifty records home, play them and return the following week with the record he or she considers best. We will try to discover exactly what appeal that particular record has.

“Three audience members will be blindfolded each week and asked to identify a pop record and artist as we superimpose the name of the record and artist on a monitor set.”

Ready, Steady, Go! will be staged in the heart of London at 7 p.m. so it will give stars a chance to drop in between matinees and evening performances.

Besides music and film clips, Keith and David have a quick-fire, American-style news-spot, bringing all the latest information from the world of show business.

Keith told me: “We shall try to keep pace with teenage trends by working on the Top Fifty records. That chart is the barometer of teenage musical taste. But it’s not only youngsters we’re aiming to please. I firmly believe all the family enjoy pop music in some form or other.”

Canadian David Gell’s main task is selecting and interviewing members of the audience.

He told me: “There will be no special way of selection. I shall rely on my own judgment to pick fans who appear lively and bright. Hair styles, jewels or flashy clothes won’t attract me.

“My main problem will be disentangling the microphone lead from all the legs around me!”

The post Stand by for take-off: Ready, Steady, Go! appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

‘The newest and exactest Mapp of the most famous Citties London and Westminster, with their suburbs, and the manner of their streets’, published in 1654 shows houses sprouting out from St Clement’s Church towards the Strand. The gardens of a circle of houses appear to occupy the land on which Television House and its surrounding buildings now stand. Lincoln’s Inn Fields are still enclosed but Butcher’s Row and Clare Street have appeared in the area.

Butcher’s Row came into existence during the reign of Queen Elizabeth on the site of a meat market between the bottom of what is now Kingsway and St Clement Danes Church.

The houses were mostly built of wood and plaster with overhanging storeys. Here in the stench-laden streets the plague ‘frowned destruction on the miserable inhabitants’ each summer.

Here, too, in one of the multitude of houses was later hatched the Gunpowder Plot by Messrs Catesby, Percy Wright, Winter and Guy Vaux.

Near to the present site of Television House once also stood Clare Market, built and opened by John, Earl of Clare, in 1656 in what was a spacious field to the west of Lincoln’s Inn Fields. The streets which grew up around the market all bore the family names of Clare, Denzil, Holies and Vere.

The Earl of Clare himself built a large and stately mansion, which he shut in with a high wall no doubt due to the fact that Charles I had, in 1640, granted a licence to Thomas York to erect as many buildings as he thought fit upon St Clement’s Inn Field ‘to be of stone or brick’.

The market was held there three times weekly and the Earl enjoyed ‘all the emoluments thereunto appertaining’. It quickly became noted as one of the best markets in London for all kinds of provisions, both flesh and fish.

At one time there were 26 butchers there who slaughtered from 350 to 400 sheep weekly and 50 to 60 bullocks. Near the market was a tripe house and in a separate yard the Jews slaughtered their cattle according to their religion.

The butchers were a rough lot, taking a deep and lively interest in two theatres near by … ‘cramming the galleries, and with their sweet breaths applauding or damning a piece; they were a factor to be reckoned with in theatrical management.’

The galleries were empty, however, in 1664 when the Great Plague of London swept through the population in the autumn of 1664. It started not far from the present site of Television House in the upper end of Drury Lane.

A cargo vessel had carried it from Holland, where 20,000 people had died in Amsterdam. Rapidly it spread through London. A frost for three months from December, 1664, stopped it for a while, then as the warmer weather arrived it broke out in full force. In August and September 1665, 50,000 died, 12,000 in one week. During the whole year the plague claimed 100,000 victims.

Grass grew in the main streets, churchyards were choked and large pits had to be dug. Carts rumbled through the streets to the cry ‘Bring out your dead’.

One survivor was Nell Gwynn, who was living in the fashionable part of Drury Lane in 1667.

On May 1 of that year, Pepys records:

‘To Westminster; in the way meeting milk maids with their garlands upon their pails, dancing with a fiddler before them; and saw pretty Nelly standing at her lodgings’ door in Drury Lane, in her smock sleeves and bodice, looking upon one: she seemed a mighty pretty creature.’

Violence was always around the corner. On July 21, 1683, Lincoln’s Inn Fields saw the execution of Lord William Russell, it being the nearest open space to Newgate. Crowds flocked to the fields for the occasion.

Lord Russell sang psalms for most of the way there, then ‘he laid his head on the block, without the least change of countenance; and it was cut off at two strokes.’

By 1706 the whole district had been built over as is shown by ‘A New Mapp of the Citty of London, much enlarged since the Great Fire in 1666, in which are several Streets, Places and Buildings of Note, which hath been added since any other Mapps of London hath been published.’

Lincoln’s Inn Fields is now enclosed, probably with wooden palings; the Strand has a maypole at its eastern end; Wych Street and Clements Street occupy ground now covered by the Aldwych and the bottom of Kings-way; the King’s Theatre stands on a site nearly in the same place as the present Drury Lane Theatre.

Lincoln’s Inn Fields had been used as a dump for rubbish, besides executions. This graphic description of the place # was written at the beginning of the eighteenth century:

‘Great mischiefs have happened to many of His Majesty’s subjects going about their lawful occasions, several of whom have been killed… many wicked and disorderly persons have frequented and met together therein, using unlawful sports and games, and drawing in and enticing young persons into gaming, idleness and other vicious courses; and vagabonds, common beggars, and other disorderly persons resort therein, where many robberies, assaults, outrages and enormities have been, and continually are committed.’

No wonder the area was levelled, laid out and iron railing erected around it in 1735… more than 100 years after a Commission from the King had laid down that Inigo Jones should be responsible for laying the area out, thus disproving the fable that Inigo Jones planned the size of Lincoln’s Inn Fields to equal the base of the Great Pyramid.

Not far away from the fields public houses and eating houses abounded in the Clare Market area during the eighteenth century. It was in one of the eating houses near Television House that Boswell probably found Johnson. The historian Oldys reports having seen Johnson at Clifton’s eating house in Butcher’s Row. He records that Johnson and an Irish gentleman started arguing about why part of mankind was black.

‘Why Sir, [said Johnson], it has been accounted for in three ways: either by supposing that they are the posterity of Ham, who was cursed; or that God at first created two kinds of men, one black and another white; or that by the heat of the sun, the skin is scorched, and so acquires a sooty hue. The matter has been much canvassed among naturalists, but has never been brought to any certain issue.’

Apparently the argument became somewhat heated, ending with Johnson stalking away. Afterwards the Irishman was heard to say: ‘He has a most ungainly figure, and an affectation of pomposity unworthy of a man of genius’.

The houses around were also ungainly, as this report in a publication of the time shows: ‘The following melancholy accident happened yesterday morning in Houghton Street, Clare Market: two houses suddenly gave way and buried their 16 unfortunate inhabitants. At noon, 13 were got out, and conveyed to the parish workhouse in Portugal Street. Of these, three had been dug out, shockingly mangled, without the least symptoms of life: two children, apparently dead, were restored to life by the means prescribed by the Humane Society in cases of suffocation; the rest received, some of them slight and others severe, contusions… The landlord of one of the houses, it is reported, received notice of the insecurity of his house two days ago, but did not apprise the lodgers of their danger, for fear of losing them.’

Also in the neighbourhood in Blackmoor Street (running westwards almost opposite Television House) at one time was the Hope Tavern Concert. Here appeared the top singing stars of the day. ‘The noted Miss Toplis, and the scion of Comus, Bill Percy, here delighted auditors with their mirth-provoking, side-cracking comic duets and humorous mimicry. Here Miss Frazier James, the fascinating Queen of Song, poured forth her native wood notes wild.’

Here, too, the young bucks entertained their lady friends at ‘the famed chanting saloon’.

This was the beginning of the music hall in this country, for it was from these taverns (within a stone’s throw of Television House) that the halls developed.

By the 1820s another public house in the area-the Black Horse in Old Boswell Court – had taken over the mantle of the Hope Tavern. There was even a raised stage. It was one of the most popular entertainment places of its kind in London.

In 1868, when music halls had arrived, one historian wrote: ‘Considering the style of the building, and class of entertainment of the period, in many respects it is doubtful if our gorgeous and expensive music halls are much of an improvement upon the Boswell Court Concert room, except in affording greater scope, and giving greater facilities for intrigue, and the exuberances of masculine and feminine “fast life”.’

Life was by no means slow at the ‘Black Horse’. The celebrated Miss James used to perform in her favourite character of the Dashing White Sergeant.

‘Such was the attraction of this fascinating vocalist, that she drew to this Concert Room, nightly, a number of the fast men of her day… Occasionally the room would be visited by some sparkling, rollicking sporting men about town, upon whose entry additional devilry and life would be thrown into the scene.’

As another writer reports: ‘The visits of noble bloods were but the foretaste of future frolics, and but a slight sip at pleasure’s fountain; for were there not, in this neighbourhood, deep and dangerous wells, overflowing with enticing charms, ever attended by beauteous, but fallen nymphs, whose voluptuous attractions gathered around them the noble and wealthy, the poet and the painter, the swell and the rogue; and all fast London life assembled here to make a night of it.’

Down in the basement of the pub was another room in which thieves, pickpockets and cracksmen used to meet. They had a kind of club towards which each used to contribute so that funds should be available to pay for legal assistance if any member needed it.

They lived life to the full in those days. Perhaps it was because the threat of a sudden death was never far away. Today we live under the cloud of atomic extermination. A century or so ago disease was the fear.

Epidemics mushroomed through the dirty, overcrowded streets. One such epidemic in 1849 resulted in strong complaints against the use of St Clement Danes as a burial ground. A vault, known as the Rector’s vault, was the cause of many of these complaints.

Steps led down into it from the aisle of the church and when opened the gases from the decomposition of the bodies was so strong that lighted candles were put out. Nobody could go down into it until two to three days after the door had been lifted.

This overcrowding applied to most of the churches of London in the forties of the last century. Action was taken in 1853 when St Clement Danes and other churchyards were closed as burial grounds under a Nuisance Removal Act.

One source of pollution had been removed. Others remained.

Not far away, Newcastle Court (off Newcastle Street leading up to the present Aldwych) was labelled ‘a den of iniquity’.

This is how one writer described it:

‘It consisted entirely of houses of ill-fame of the worst description, stored with the foulest moral pollution. …The scenes enacted at night were of the most horrible description and at last its abominable notoriety became so glaring the parish authorities were compelled to indict the occupiers which they did and the vicious inhabitants were turned out, but only for some of them to resume |heir shocking mode of living in Wyck St.’ (The upper portion of this street is now covered by Australia House.)

The post A den of iniquity appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

But how do the rest of the staff at Television House feel about their food? On the general assumption that they buy what they like best, we did some research into the best sellers.

From Fusion 31, published August 1963

Cold weather is the time for more substantial meals, but sausages are always the best seller at lunchtime, and even more so in the evening.

(This sausage addiction is not just confined to Television House. I quote from a May edition of the ‘Daily Mirror’: ‘Although “sausages are losing their individuality”, and only one butcher in ten makes his own, Britons eat 9,000 million of them a year. Housewives spend £3 out of £100 housekeeping on sausages.”)

All cheese dishes (egg mornay, macaroni cheese and variations) are very popular, generally selling about 60 portions when they are served at lunch. (When it is not known whether anything from 200 to 400 will use the canteen, a sale of 60 portions rates as a ‘best seller’.)

A recent arrival – Quiche Lorraine -after a slow start at 24 has now been judged ‘non-poisonous’ and rocketed to the 50 mark. ‘It takes time before people trust a new dish,’ says Miss Ellis. People are always in a hurry; mixed grill when it is featured is usually a top seller (about 50), but the ‘Grilled Lamb Chop (to order)’ only sells about two a week. In the evening, people cannot be bothered to wait for omelettes, except for odd evenings when everybody seems to want them. Another fairly new arrival, which is climbing in popularity, is Chili con carne – about 30 sold at its last appearance.

Salads are a best seller. With the warmer weather and the club no longer serving food, they often top the 60 mark. All these figure-conscious girls?
Not at all. It is the men. Yoghourt also usually sells out. Once upon a time, men asked for chips to be piled on their plates and then went on to collect some steamed pudding; now they go easy on the chips, or simply avoid both – ‘have to watch the figure you know’.

The sight of ‘soup so rich and green, steaming in a hot tureen’ was obviously too much for the staff last winter – the daily consumption averaged six gallons. The ‘green’ soup, or ‘green pea’ soup, is the least popular – tomato, minestrone and lentil are much better sellers. But now the summer soup consumption has dropped to an average of two and a half gallons a day.

Biscuits and cheese are the most popular second course. Steamed puddings always go well, often hitting the 60 mark. Apparently the post boys are good, reliable customers on that section. All milk puddings are very popular except semolina, but there is little sale of fruit juices.

Imagine the washing up all this entails. Eight people are employed in Television House who do nothing but wash up. After morning coffee there are no less than 1,000 cups, saucers and spoons to be washed, and this is repeated after the afternoon tea . . . lunchtime washing-up is inestimable.

At Wembley, the canteen menu works on a different system from Television House. They have an extensive ‘à la carte’ menu which never changes plus a shorter menu which changes every day; the latter includes one ‘composite’ meal and about three ‘à la carte’ dishes. The best seller by far is steak and kidney pudding. The second favourite is escalope of pork, which usually sells about 60. This is also a favourite with Fanny and Johnnie Cradock, but they do not like the spaghetti with which it is usually served.

The chef’s (yes, a real male chef) speciality – chicken risotto – is very popular, normally selling about 40 portions. Other favourites given to Wembley clientele, though not too often for them to become bored with, are ‘chicken supreme’, which sells about 40 and ‘braised ham California style’ (i.e. with peach), at about 55. Curry Madras is very popular in winter, but sales drop in the summer. Pudding popularity also varies with the season. The top winter pudding by a long way is Dutch apple tart, which sells about 120. Steamed and milk puddings also sell well, but jellies and cold puddings do not reach the top until the summer. Girls are the more figure conscious sex at Wembley, though a few of the men from telecine and sound who do not get so much exercise, also watch the calories. They go for grilled fish or egg dishes without rice. The actors apparently have enough exercise. The face of the Television House club-room has changed vastly over the last few months. The queues waiting for the ever-popular sausages and ‘coleslaw’ have disappeared and nothing has replaced them. Nor, incidentally, has anything replaced the four dozen wooden trays which gradually, mysteriously vanished, and it is a fairly common sight to see flowers in sugar containers around offices. What remains of the club, namely Betty and her bar, are still thriving. She does a tremendous trade in wine, closely followed by bitter draught beer.

The arrival of the humming monster whose fragrant aroma graces the sixth floor has started a new trend in drinking – hot chocolate. The chocolate sales far exceed all the black/white/with/without sugar coffee sales combined. During the week, this machine has a turn-over of about 800 cups, and an added 200 at the week-end (presumably ITN likes hot chocolate as well).

Cigarette machines vary with their best sellers, although the weekly takings usually amount to around £60. Staff have a choice of nine cigarette brands, but Senior Service seems to hold the steadiest high market.

The friendly British ‘banger’ once again wins on the trolley stakes – this time in the form of a sausage roll. Cheese and its various compounds are very popular in roll form, but the customers vary. On the second floor, the trolley can barely nose its way through the tea-point door before it is besieged by hosts of hungry post-boys who consume vast quantities of rolls every day. The fourth floor trolley does not do very good trade, partly because there are fewer people per square office and partly, as Miss Ellis puts it: ‘You can’t imagine those people sitting at their desk in the morning, munching sausage rolls.’ (Perhaps ‘they’ are also figure conscious.)

At Wembley, there is no need for machines as the canteen is open from 8.30 a.m. until 10.00 p.m. However, they do operate a sixpenny slot machine which sells two bars of Kit Kat for every one of Cadbury Snack. (Cadbury Snacks are the most popular at Television House, closely followed by Dairy Bar.) Everyone goes to the Wembley canteen for the morning and afternoon tea breaks (or coffee if they prefer it). Hot toast and butter is served and sells about four times as well as all the filled rolls combined. At tea-time, there are homemade cakes, but way, way above anything else, the favourite is bread pudding. This is described as being as ‘solid as rock’ – in popularity not necessarily in composition.

From time to time, odd waiters carrying rare things like silver coffee pots can be seen around Television House. That probably means there is a Board luncheon on that day. About this subject, Miss Ellis says: ‘Mr Adorian is one of the most appreciative gourmets for whom you could ever cook.’

This was the menu at the last one:

Cream of Mushroom Soup

–

Fresh Scotch Salmon with Hollandaise sauce, garden peas, new potatoes

–

Pavlova*

–

Selection of fresh fruit

–

* (For non-ballet connoisseurs, this is described as a ‘Meringue affair de luxe with whipped cream, laced with Kirsch’.)

Incidentally members of staff may be interested to know that the general manager’s room has exactly the same food as the canteen.

The catering firm at Television House is even used as a general store if the shops are shut when people want eggs and bread. Michael Miles has the longest list of odd requests: a chicken carcass ; a sardine tin and one currant (no prizes for guessing the reason). Other requests trolley girls have learnt to take in their stride on day-to-day rounds include things like a fruit salad for a baboon, a milk pudding and even some old bones.

Are you a constructive criticiser? If so, both catering firms (Wembley and Television House) are open to suggestions for new, practical and economical recipes. But please on paper, stating ingredients, time involved and method – no telephone calls. The ideas should be sent to the canteen manager at Wembley or Miss Ellis, Room 330a at Television House.

Drawings by Geraldine Spence

The post Board banquets and bangers appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

From Fusion 19, the Associated-Rediffusion house staff magazine, published June 1961

Why, only the other day in the lift, I distinctly overheard a shorthand-typist remark to a sales executive, ‘I suppose they must fetch the elephants and things in at the Aldwych end.’ Well, really!

Obviously, this is a state of affairs which must be remedied without delay. It would be quite impossible, within the confines of a short article such as this, to attempt to explain to the Great Uninformed everything that goes on down at the works, but I can at least try to throw a little much-needed light on some aspects of Wembley life.

The prime reason for the existence of the Wembley Studios is, as the name may suggest, studios. There are at present five operational in the block, namely Studios One, Two and Four, and two lesser stages, Five A and Five B, which for some reason best known to themselves the company prefer to keep rather quiet about.

Immediately you will ask, ‘What about Studio Three, then?’ What indeed! Answers to this interesting poser vary, but I have it on reliable authority, that it was the victim of a successful take-over bid by Telerecording some years ago.

Each studio will very probably house two, or even three, different programmes in a week; for instance, Studio One may be a mass of Ancient Greek pillars and steps for the school-children on a Monday, represent one of those ultracosy, ultra-chummy village shopping haunts on a Tuesday, and by Thursday have taken on an entirely new aspect to support Messrs Lockhart and Baxter as yet another villain is brought to justice. That the geography of each studio can change so completely, so rapidly, and so often has never ceased to amaze me; the story of the Second Palace Guard who popped out of Studio Four to wash his hands, and returned a few moments later to be handed the Key to Box 13, still raises a grim smile in Wembley circles.

I do not intend to deal individually with all the people connected with getting a show on the air studio-wise, nor to mention specific personalities. However, a brief summary may be made under the following headings:

(a) STUDIO-HANDS – they wear buff overalls

(b) WARDROBE – they wear blue overalls

(c) MAKE-UP – they wear pink overalls

(d) TECHNICAL PERSONNEL – they wear surprisingly well

(e) DIRECTORS – they wear out the Floor Manager

(f) FLOOR MANAGERS – they wear out everybody else

All these will I imagine, be self-explanatory, with the exception perhaps of (d) TECHNICAL PERSONNEL. Under this heading are to be found, on the first floor, camera control operators or racks, sound balancers and gramophone operators, and vision mixers or smooth operators. On the ground floor we encounter cameramen or videoperators, and boom operators or microphone operators. All in all, you will note, quite an operation. In addition, hovering somewhere in between the two levels, are the electricians or sparks, on whose work I confess I am completely in the dark.

Naturally in an organisation which employs all the aforementioned, as well as sundry administration staff, cleaners, livestock and actors, food and drink are a major consideration. The canteen at Wembley caters admirably for its variegated clientele, and only rarely comes up with such eccentricities of diet as ‘Faggots Lyonnaise’, ‘Lover and Bacon’, or ‘Place on the Bone’. (Originals may be seen in the Office on request.)

A popular pastime at meal breaks is to play ‘Get the Set Meal for the Set Price’, a highly fascinating game which I admit I am unable to master.

Normally the canteen service is swift and efficient, except of course, on a ‘Hippodrome’ day; then it is by no means unusual to queue for an hour, while a troupe of little Chinese tumblers, a round dozen dancing girls often disturbingly attired, the entire Norrie Paramor orchestra, three inarticulate trampoline experts from Zagreb, and a performing seal, vie with each other to obtain fish and chips, from flushed, rushed but ever well-meaning counterhands.

‘A boilerhouse attendant to Studio Five immediately, please!’ yells the loudspeaker: a reminder that we must get back to work.

As well as the studios from whence live productions originate, there are, scattered throughout the building, a variety of isolated departments, all in their different ways equally important to the smooth running of programmes.

Departments such as telecine, telerecording, maintenance, VTR – it was here that the expression ‘Someone isn’t rolling Ampex’ was first used – schedules and props.

From the last-named one can obtain anything from a signed line-drawing of the Emperor Haile Selassie to a 1 concrete replica of the Taj Mahal by moonlight, but often, funnily enough, not a dining-room chair. That’s, as someone once said, Show Business.

That’s Show Business – a phrase which sums up perfectly all that is Wembley. Enshrined in the vast hulk of, TV House, you might just as well be employed by a company manufacturing chair castors or strained vegetables, as television programmes. (In the interests of free speech I allow this gross exaggeration and travesty of the truth to be printed – Editor, TV House.)

But here at the Studios, things are very different: the smell of the greasepaint – or is it those Faggots Lyonnaise again? – is strong, you rub shoulders with household names: whether you operate a camera or an everlasting hand towel, a boom or a broom, you know from the word ‘Go’ that you’re in Show Business.

Having read so far I am certain that most of you will be eager to drop those typewriters, adding machines and promising clients, that you may find out for yourselves more of what occurs in this throbbing, vital heart of London’s Television.

If this be the case, then my labour has not been wasted: I suggest the Metropolitan Line from Baker Street – there is a fast service of the latest LT rolling stock – to Wembley Park. Turn right outside the station, proceed onwards for some two or three hundred yards, and you will arrive at the main entrance to the Studios. You can’t miss it-it’s right opposite the Wimpy.

The post Meanwhile back in TV House appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

They said they wanted a television service to operate five days a week, to put out 4 1/2 hours a day; and we said we had better get on with it then, as there wasn’t much time. So on January 3rd 1955, Bill (Roland Gillett, first Controller of Programmes, Associated-Rediffusion, Ltd., later in the Jack Hylton TV Organization) and I sat down with a plain sheet of paper and started reckoning on what we would want to get on the air in the September of the year.Then we reckoned what we would want to stay on the air.

We put the word round among a few old TV chums that we were in business, and one or two of them came to see us – not many at first, only the ones who could smell adventure and the excitement of starting up a new industry.

Cecil (Cecil Lewis, then Deputy Controller of Programmes, Associated Rediffusion, Ltd.) had joined us, and the three of us sat them down in chairs and tried to tell them about our plans. There would be a great chance for those who really wanted to work, to pit their skill against the rest, to forget security and expose their talents in fierce competition and so on. Most of them went out with their heads high and eyes shining; some we sent back to whence they came.

So, after two months, we assessed how many we were likely to get who knew about television, and who might think our way. It wasn’t enough. We would have to train 200 to cover our minimum requirements. Then a High Person rang up and said, “Chum, we want seven hours a day from you – not four-and-a-half.” I said, “That makes things a little difficult”; and he rang off rather quickly.

Training, training, training. How on earth could we train people with nothing to train them with? And so we talked to a lot of people about this and it seemed as if they were all busy, too. Then we met George Kelsey of Marconi’s, and somehow the situation changed. Perhaps they had foreseen the problem. Perhaps they caught some of our enthusiasm. We don’t know – maybe it was a combination of both, but by the beginning of May training was in full swing at a tiny studio in Kensington. Tiny, but how valuable! George made it a priority job, and his engineers fitted this little place out as their own television studios, the first in the country.

Over 2,000 people applied for 200 jobs; and came the interviewing, letter-writing, and the feeling of excitement. Four months before programmes must start we had 160 on the staff, and there came the word to move H.Q. to the former Adastral House in Kingsway. Renamed Television House, it was to be the centre of ITV, with its own studios and modern offices.

And the week before we moved in, the builders moved in, too, with steam shovels, cement mixers and several hundred pneumatic drills: an orchestra that was to provide a non-stop accompaniment to our programme planning that will live with most of us forever. When, with a shattering roar, the blade of the drill appeared through the office wall, we gathered our dust-laden plans and moved to the next office – and so on.

At Wembley, where the old film studios were being rebuilt, deadlines were going by the board, and it seemed as if we would never be able to get away on September 22nd. So to insure against lack of TV studio space at the outset, we started filming in April at Shepperton. New methods of quick filming for television. New treatment of stories, new ideas. A production line of programme product to sustain our air time.

By July 30th the first part of the training scheme had been completed, and now we were to start operational advanced training at the old Granville Theatre, at Walham Green, where conversion for television had been going on for three months. The schedule for training had to be maintained, and everything depended on the Granville being ready. Seventy trainees were ready to move over from Kensington, eager to get into the first operational ITV studio; 70 more were ready to move into Kensington.

Then came the blow. Walham Green just wasn’t ready. And there was nothing ready at Wembley. They said they wanted another 14 days, so we said we had to have it in seven days, otherwise the training scheme would collapse, and it could affect our opening date. They said it was impossible, but they would try. So we called 70 disappointed people together in the chaos of Television House and we told them the position. We felt as if we had let them down, and we told them so. Then we sent them all away on a week’s leave.

We recast the schedule, and advanced training started at the Granville seven days later, but with a difference. Double shifts now: one batch from nine a.m. to four p.m., then the next from five to ten p.m. Meanwhile our Remote (outside broadcast) vans were out around London on dummy runs, setting up a complete outside-broadcast organization.

By August 29th we got into a studio at Wembley and started full-scale programme rehearsals. Only three weeks to go, before we would show ourselves to the public who would judge us side by side with a service that had been operating for 13 years.

Studio directors, lighting men, camera and sound operators, vision mixers and floor managers came straight off the training course to plan their first shows. The first of our sets off the scenery supply line arrived and were hastily stacked in the open with a tarpaulin thrown over. Actors and orchestras, make-up and wardrobe girls, scene men, engineers and production planners moved into Wembley and elbowed indignant builders’ men out.

On September 14th we called all the programme people together in Studio 1 at Wembley, and told them how we felt about it all with one week to go, and then we said that it was now largely up to them. And we came away feeling that nowhere before had we felt such confidence in the people with us.

The morning of September 22nd brought the first of the “good luck” messages that came from all over the world, and with them the realization that a lot of people we had never seen wanted us to do well, and that in the evening the eyes of the world would be on us.

At 7.10 that night we stood in the improvised Control Room in Kingsway and our service went on the air. And no one can know who wasn’t there just how that felt. When we were safely launched we left the room and Bill, the engineer-in-charge (Bill Cheevers, Head of Engineering, Associated-Rediffusion, Ltd.) turned to say something to us and couldn’t say it, and we couldn’t see him very well, anyway, so we turned away and walked along the corridor. It seemed strange that the only noise now was the noise of our service being on the air – but it was good music to us.

Reprinted from The Television Annual for 1957, published by Odhams

The post ‘Just Start A Five-Day TV Service’ They Said! appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

The former office of the Air Ministry in Holborn, Adastral House on Kingsway, was purchased and renamed ‘Television House’ – though the Rediffusion symbol, a starburst, was almost immediately dubbed the ‘Adastral’ by staff members, thus continuing the name.

The first move was to gut the ornate office block internally and create offices for the company, two studios, film processing laboratories, editing suites, dubbing studios, a local newsroom, an office and studio space for Independent Television’s news company ITN, and, late in the day, provide office and production space for the temporarily homeless weekend contractor ATV.

Bovis Limited began work early in 1955, working vast amounts of overtime whilst staff attempted to create a whole company around them. A fascinating – if probably apocryphal – story involves a departmental secretary finding herself bricked up in her office and spending some time shouting for help before Bovis workers demolished the wall, rescued the secretary and rebuilt the wall, all in a matter of minutes.

To supplement the two studios at Television House, Associated-Rediffusion purchased a plot in Wembley to house four more studios, and took options on space at the Granville Theatre in Walham Green and a sound stage at Viking Film Studios.

In less then six months, A-R recruited 1000 staff members – from secretaries to Roland Gillett, the programme controller of the new company.

Despite the hurried nature of the build-up of the service, A-R were ready for launch in good time, and set their minds to the gala opening of the service on a date in late September to be set by the ITA. The transmitter began test broadcasts on 13 September, and A-R were given the final go-ahead by the Authority.

Launch date would be 22 September 1955.

The post London Calling appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.