The phone rang … suddenly … shrilly. P.S. stretched out his hand and hesitated – was this a trap? What fiendish question was he now to be asked ? He overcame his fear and picked up the phone, hand trembling slightly. ‘Hello, production office’ he said. No one answered, but he could hear heavy breathing through his earpiece. He glanced at his colleague T.H. and his eyes indicated the extension, which T.H. slowly lifted to his ear.

‘Hello’ said P.S. again. The muscles of his jaw twitched and his steel-blue eyes narrowed through the thick cigar smoke that filled the office. Both men were still, tense. The phone had not rung for at least two minutes and now – this. The tension became unbearable and beads of perspiration trickled slowly down his temples, dropping from his chin and staining the blotter on his desk. He could still hear the breathing of his adversary and faintly in the distance, revolver shots – one! two!! Immediately a voice at the other end – metallic, authoritative – called: ‘Hold it there – don’t move’. P.S. tensed. It was not the first time this situation had arisen. Twice before this very day he had heard those shots, and the cold command to stay still. He glanced quickly at T.H. on his left. T.H. sat still, relaxed, but ready to move instantly to back up his colleague in any emergency. The pencil drummed lightly on the ash tray before him. Both men were experienced operators and had passed through these crises many times before. There had been that time with the lions and panthers when only feet had separated them from a terrible mauling – and they were still in action: and again, when all seemed lost, and they had fought their way through the Russian mob and beaten the crime – and punishment. But this – this, was different. P.S. glanced swiftly at the schedule hanging by his side. Nothing sinister – all should have been quiet. But it was always in these moments of apparent calm that the greatest danger came. Although it seemed like hours, in fact only a few seconds had elapsed since that first terrifying ring.

Suddenly the door was flung open and D.N. stood framed in the opening. His sharp eye took in the situation at a glance. ‘What now?’ he gritted and took one sharp, nervous pace into the room. P.S. held up his free hand in a gesture of silence. D.N. stood stock still, his eyes never leaving the telephone in P.S.’s hand.

In an instant the tension broke as a sharp, incisive voice said ‘Is that the production office? Oh! Studio 5 here – will it be all right if we go to lunch five minutes early?’ The air whistled through P.S.’s lips in a surge of relief. ‘O.K.’ he said. Slowly he replaced the receiver, slumped back in his chair and lit a cigarette. Another crisis over. He smiled: ‘How about a quick jug in the club before lunch?’ There was a quick flurry, the slam of a door and – silence.

I must confess that the above is a slight exaggeration, but sometimes this is how it appears to us on extension 207 in the production office at Wembley. It is not a large office, but every day from early morn until half an hour after the last studio closes, these is always a duty manager on hand to answer queries on studio technical requirements, dressing room allocation, special effects, staff problems, hygiene, safety first, and 100 other subjects of a production, whether it be of a personal or domestic nature.

On average, about 15 productions are transmitted, telerecorded or videotaped every week at Wembley, and four or five at Television House.

Those of you who read articles on ‘Hippodrome’ and ‘The Informer’ in Fusion will have realised the enormous problems facing members of the production teams, and these are but TWO series. Apart from these two there are also other series such as ‘The Rat Catchers’, ‘No Hiding Place’, ‘Orlando’ plus drama, science, schools, features, light entertainment, children’s and religious programmes, all of which have their own (and equally important) administrative problems and, in all of which, somewhere along the line, the production office is involved.

For example, while ‘Hippodrome’ was in production, the production office team were responsible for the housing, feeding (and bedding) of 12 elephants, 12 lions, six tigers, two pumas, and five leopards, plus assorted dogs and trainers – not to mention the acts – Mexican, French, Spanish, and German – who required facilities for cars, caravans and cages and the laying on of electricity, water and heating.

During ‘Ready, Steady, Go!’ every week cloakrooms are set up to take care of the coats and handbags of up to 150 teenagers and while ‘Five o’Clock Club’ is transmitting and recording parents must be accommodated and facilities for them to view the programmes laid on – somewhere. We have in our time, dealt with a fire in dressing room 26, flood in Studio 2, a ‘punch-up’ in Studio 5 and a robbery (and arrest) in dressing room 513.

The post The 007 men on 207 appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

‘It’s lucky I wrote my biography in 1959,’ said Eric Maschwitz. ‘Now I can use it as a reference book whenever I want to remember something.’

He added: ‘You know, the one fact that I needed recently that wasn’t in it was the date of my second marriage. Neither my wife nor I could remember it, and in the end we had to prise her wedding ring off and look at the inscription. Now we’ve found out the date, we can celebrate it.’

At 65, Eric Maschwitz, executive producer special projects, is endearingly mild, humorous and vague. His eye for a pretty girl is as keen as ever it was when he ‘launched’ Jean Carson in ‘Love from Judy’, the West End musical. His career, which appears to have been as undisciplined as a Mongolian lamb rug and as colourful as a Persian carpet, has provided him with an unending stream of amusing stories. He sheds anecdotes among his listeners as easily as other people scatter crumbs to pigeons.

He is the writer of several musicals and more than 300 lyrics, including ‘These Foolish Things’ and ‘A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square’. (‘I feel a great joy whenever I hear them being played at the thought that they’re still earning me money,’ he says). As director of variety for BBC sound, he originated ‘In Town Tonight’, still going strong. In Hollywood he wrote the screen version of ‘Goodbye, Mr. Chips’. In his five years as head of BBC television’s light entertainment from 1958, he started up ‘The Black and White Minstrel Show’, ‘Juke Box Jury’, ‘Compact’, ‘Steptoe’ and many other series.

Joining Rediffusion in 1963 ‘at the request of my old friend John McMillan’, his first production was ‘Our Man at St. Mark’s’.

Later he brought Stella Richman into the company and with Cyril Coke devised ‘The Rat Catchers’.

Moreover, this brief outline mentions nothing of his exciting wartime career – during which a certain Major John McMillan was under his command – nor of his two marriages, the first to comedy star Hermione Gingold.

With a man like this, where does one begin when asked, as I have been by the editor of Fusion, to write a ‘short profile’?

In fact, I began by reading Eric’s autobiography, published in 1959, and called ‘No Chip on my Shoulder’. It is a fascinating book crammed with well-known names, entertaining stories and, incidentally, too many exclamation marks!

It seemed that the best way to give readers an idea of the adventures in Eric’s life would be to print – with his permission – some extracts from the book, along with a potted biography. Born in Birmingham, Eric went to Repton School with a classical scholarship, then to Caius College, Cambridge, where he read modern languages. At Repton he wrote his first lyrics for a school operetta and at Cambridge he became a ‘leading lady’, playing Vittoria Corombona in ‘The White Divel’ for the Marlowe Society.

After this he tried several careers-journalist, novelist, repertory actor, peanut vendor in a french travelling circus, waiter in a French café, and principal of a correspondence course in short-story writing. During this time – he packed a lot into five years – he married Hermione Gingold.

When he was literally down to his last pair of shoes – dancing shoes – Eric joined the BBC at Savoy Hill, where for six months his job as assistant director of outside broadcasting brought him in £300 a year [£15,500 in today’s money, allowing for inflation – Ed]. Specialisation seems to have been unheard of then and he mucked in on everything from writing to broadcasting himself.

From this, he became editor of the ‘Radio Times’, one of his assistants being Val Gielgud. In his seven years as editor he found time to take up writing for radio drama, beginning with an adaptation of Compton Mackenzie’s novel ‘Carnival’, for which, in spite of many revivals, he never received a penny extra.

Soon after this he was introduced to George Posford, a jazz enthusiast who had graduated from the Royal College of Music, and together they wrote ‘Good Night, Vienna’, for the radio. Film rights were bought by Herbert Wilcox for a mere £200 [£12,000], and it was made into one of the first ‘talkies’ in this country, with Jack Buchanan and Anna Neagle starring.

In 1933, Eric Maschwitz was offered the post of variety director for the BBC with the job of doubling the output of ‘light’ programmes. ‘In Town Tonight’ was thought up by him as a means for filling one of the ‘peak’ hours – 6.30 pm on Saturday.

‘With a little fast talking I got the title accepted by the planners, though I had in truth only the sketchiest notion as to what form the feature would eventually take,’ he recalls. ‘There was no script until on the morning of the first performance I sat down at the typewriter and hastily thought up “the roar of London’s traffic” and the flower-girl murmuring “sweet violets”to be interrupted by the stentorian shout of “Stop”.’

The words for ‘These Foolish Things’ were written one Sunday morning when Eric, pyjama-clad, unshaven and suffering from lack of rest, was sipping coffee and vodka.

By lunchtime the words had been dictated over the telephone to Jack Strachey, and that evening a melody had been composed.

‘I was, I must shyly confess, bitterly disappointed in it,’ reveals Eric. ‘Nor did Jack care for the title; he wanted to call the song “These Little Things”.’

Surprisingly, the song aroused no special interest. ‘No publisher would oblige (even the firm of Keith Prowse, to which I was under contract at the time, gladly gave me a letter releasing it). We put it into a West End revue; still it failed to set the musical Thames on fire.’ However, one day Leslie Hutchinson (‘Hutch’), the West Indian singer, found the manuscript on top of Eric’s office piano, played it, liked it and recorded it. The song was an immediate success, and so was Eric. He was interviewed in New York, in his column Walter Winchell reproduced the lyrics in full, and ‘the pretty ladies with whom I danced wanted alas! no more of me than that I should breathe those lyrics into their shell-like ears!’ The song has earned Eric altogether more than £30,000 [£480,000], he estimates.

Two amusing tales from his days as variety director point up Eric’s inventiveness. Asked to be the commentator for the arrival of Amy Johnson, on her return from her recordbreaking flight to Australia, Eric was faced with 40 empty minutes, because the aeroplane was delayed. ‘I filled up the time by giving the listeners a Short History of Flying, taken from a sixpenny booklet which somebody had thoughtfully purchased from the airport bookstall!’

On the night of the Jubilee Ball from the Albert Hall, the BBC had ‘elected to broadcast the first half-hour of just the sort of occasion at which the majority of the guests arrive late’. When Eric got to the hall it was completely empty, except for the orchestra. He could find no trace of the OB official who was supposed to be in charge. So, with the broadcast ‘hooked up’ to all parts of the Empire, something had to be done. ‘As the red light began to blink, I gathered together the waiters who had been hanging around the edges of the floor and made them waltz with each other so that we might have at least the sound of dancing feet.’ The orchestra played and Eric drew upon his considerable imagination to describe a vivid scene of princes, potentates and famous beauties arriving at the ball.

Even the award to Eric of the OBE in recognition of his services to broadcasting, was not quite straightforward. For although he was in one of the first Honours Lists after the death of King George V, he did not actually receive his decoration until after the Abdication. The document starts, therefore: ‘We Edward the Eighth etc.’ At the investiture, Eric, having neglected to wear gloves, had to borrow a cotton pair ‘slightly disfigured by iron-mould’ from one of the Royal Servants. But he was elated when the King, with whom 17 years before he had made up a four at tennis a few times, remarked: ‘It seems a long time since we used to play tennis together at Cambridge!’ Returning from the Palace, Eric learned that the musical spectacular play ‘Balalaika’, which he had written and produced, had been bought by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for a six-figure sum. This led to an offer of a writing contract with the company, and in 1937 Eric joined the Hollywood studios at £350 a week [£20,000].

In spite of the money, the climate, and a Mexican-style bungalow in Beverly Hills, in spite of parties galore, Eric was dissatisfied. There was no work for him to do. Although he had been engaged primarily to work on the screen version of ‘Balalaika’, three other writers were assigned to it instead. (The result of their work Eric describes as ‘a piece of cheese’, but adds ‘it made a fortune’).

He decided to return to London. ‘So far the studio had paid me over $30,000 for doing almost precisely nothing; only madmen, I thought, would wish to keep me there any longer.’ But the studios, he found, liked to keep talent in reserve, and it was not so easy to escape. When he became really restless, he was asked to re-write someone else’s screen version of ‘Goodbye, Mr. Chips’. This he did, enjoying the work, but trying nevertheless to complete it by the time his six months’ contract expired, and before his option could be renewed. He managed it – with a few hours to spare.

When the 1939 war came, Eric volunteered, and eventually found himself with M.I.6, working from a suite in the Adelphi Hotel, Liverpool.

‘Our “cover” in the hotel was that my colleagues were interested in the production of a new revue of which I was to be the writer; to lend colour to this perhaps improbable story they gave one theatrical party after another. To add plausibility to the set-up I actually began to write a revue.’ The result was the hit show ‘New Faces’ in which Judy Campbell introduced ‘A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square’ to a delighted audience.

At a later stage in the war he was appointed liaison officer between the War Office and Broadcasting House to ensure that radio programmes heard by the troops were morale-boosting.

Eric’s book tells of many of his other wartime exploits – which included a period in New York with the military staff of ‘British Security Co-ordination’ and a mission to Lisbon, as well as the production of several more musicals. He also, while in the Broadcasting Section of Army Welfare, devised a scheme for making recorded programmes in London and shipping them out to stations overseas to be heard by British troops.

This brought into existence the ORBS (Overseas Recorded Broadcasting Service) in which the Navy and the Air Force also helped.

It was while with the Psychological Warfare Branch of SHAEF [Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force] that Eric obtained a divorce and married Phyllis Gordon, his present wife, a girl he had known for 10 years. Eric, as a lieutenant-colonel, renewed a prewar acquaintance with John McMillan when he took charge of broadcasting for the War Office.

‘My new job was a very interesting one. With the armies as they fought their way towards Germany went three mobile radio-transmitters from which programmes were broadcast to the troops. This Field Broadcasting Unit was under the command of Major “Johnny” McMillan, a taciturn, poker-faced Australian whom I had known as a producer for commercial radio before the war. He ruled a rather turbulent assembly of broadcasters and technicians with a rod of iron.’

As part of his task of setting up a British Forces Network in Germany – it was obvious that the enemy would soon surrender and entertainment was needed for British troops who would no longer be occupied with fighting – he drove with John McMillan into Hamburg. There they requisitioned the Musikhalle, a vast concert hall, as a new headquarters. A transmitter was taken over at Norden; an entire staff of German technicians recruited; and ‘within a few days the admirable McMillan who possessed a miraculous gift for getting things done, had the German post office engineers busy linking our new station with Hamburg by land-line’. Events moved quickly and soon test programmes were being transmitted.

‘Once more in Brussels where I had gone to listen to the tests and incidentally catch up with the paper-work in my office, I was alarmed to receive a signal from Hamburg to the effect that in view of the excellent performance of the transmitter it was proposed to put a regular programme service into operation as from the next day. On learning of this the Brigadier, who had all along been a little doubtful of our enthusiasm, dictated a signal ordering Major McMillan to postpone his intentions until such time as proper consideration could be given to them. This ukase [Russian: a proclamation by the Tzar] went astray or was conveniently “lost” at the receiving end; the following morning when we tuned in as usual to the tests, we were greeted by the voice of one of our sergeant-announcers proudly proclaiming the birth of the British Forces Network in Germany! The transmission was so good and official congratulation so general that nothing more was ever heard about the missing signal.’

Eric also recalls that he enjoyed staying at ‘Johnny’s mess’. The house of a Hamburg banker, it was situated just outside Osnabruck, and ‘contained bedrooms designed, it seemed, to house Madame Pompadour’ and two Bechstein concert grand pianos. ‘My resourceful subordinate,’ this chapter of the book notes, ‘had further added to the amenities of the establishment by recruiting a first-class German chef and a head waiter who, before the war, had served at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York. Both cooking and service were so Lucullan that the Brigadier, upon one of his occasional visits of inspection, drew me aside with the words: “I say, don’t you think that fellow McMillan’s going a bit too far?”’ (I was amused to see that Eric has mis-spelt his present general manager’s name in every reference to him – but of course, that was in 1959, when Eric Maschwitz was still unconnected with television and able to write in his book apropos the theatre ‘And over all looms the sinister shadow of Television’!)

After the war came a revue produced on a shoestring, then ‘Carissima’ in 1948 with music by Hans May, a terrific success in spite of bad notices from the critics. While he was working on this, Val Parnell asked Eric to collaborate on a revue to be produced at the Hippodrome, ‘Starlight Roof’. In the cast was a child coloratura the then unknown Julie Andrews, who was nearly taken out of the show by the producer who called her performance ‘a circus act’.

‘Serenade’ followed, then ‘Belinda Fair’, after which Eric formed his first connection with television, writing a series of comedies called ‘Family Affairs’ for the BBC. Then there was a television version of ‘Carissima’ starring Barbara Kelly, which was ‘the most elaborate and costly musical production so far attempted by the BBC” and written in 82 scenes.

‘Zip Goes a Million’ came next, ‘Love from Judy’ (starring Jean Carson who had been admired by Eric in ‘Starlight Roof’ and ‘pushed’ into this part by him), ‘Romance in Candlelight’ and ‘Summer Song’.

In 1958 Eric was made head of light entertainment for BBC television, rejoining the BBC fold after an absence of 19 years. On his retirement at the age of 62 came the invitation to join Rediffusion, for whom he had already produced as a freelance.

‘I had provided a package deal of script, cast and music for a 26-part adventure serial called “Destination Downing Street” for only £600 [£12,300] an episode,’ he recalls. His records show that Susan Hampshire, then unknown, was paid £14 [£285] for an appearance and Stratford Johns £21 [£430]. He also remembers casting Richard Harris for 17 guineas [£17 17s, £17.85 in decimal, £365 today], and Fenella Fielding (as a belly dancer) for £23 [£470].

What of the present? Eric is working only part-time now for the company. He also produces a monthly news bulletin about ITV for circulation in Europe and the Far East.

Ahome in Marylebone he has just produced a new version of Franz Lehar’s ‘The Count of Luxembourg’ and is in the middle of revising ‘The Chocolate Soldier’, both for performance by amateur operatic societies. (He has always taken an immense interest in the amateur societies and has made many adaptations, and even written a new work, for them.)

He is looking for a composer for the new stage musical he is working on and which he won’t talk about yet. ‘The Press are all pestering me to know about it, but I’m not saying anything.’ With the agreement of the company, he is compèring a weekly record series on the radio and he is, and has been for the past 14 years, on the Council of the Performing Rights Society. (In 1962 he won the Ivor Novello Award for his services to popular music).

With such a full life, I asked him the other day, is there anything he regrets not having done?

‘I’d like to have gone into the Church or education,’ he replied. Then, turning to his secretary June Wisden, who has been with him now for six years, he said: ‘Did I ever tell you about the time when …’

Eric was off on another of his reminiscences…

⦿ Albert Eric Maschwitz OBE was born on 10 June 1901 in Birmingham and died on 27 October 1969 in Berkshire

The post The amazing Eric Maschwitz !!! appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

The year 1966 started with political praise being heaped on the head of ‘This Week’ when the programme celebrated its 10th anniversary on January 6. A publication to mark the event carried messages of goodwill from the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and the Leader of the Liberals. Later that night a programme title ventured into the realm of the astrologer with what at that time seemed an amazingly rash prediction… The World Cup – England to Win?’ Then on January 31 the first of a new series called ‘The Rat Catchers’ started to win predictably high ratings.

In between, however, had come the death of a member of the board of directors – Sir Bracewell Smith, a former Lord Mayor of London, chairman of Wembley Stadium and an honorary vice-president of the Football Association. February brought yet another award to the company when ‘Children of Revolution’, the Intertel production on young people growing up in Czechoslovakia, won a Silver Dove from the International Catholic Organisation for Radio and Television (UNDA) at the sixth Monte Carlo International Television Festival. Another award came the next month when Hughie Green and Michael Miles received a joint special award from the Variety Club of Great Britain at the Show Business lunch on March 8 for the continuing popularity of their programmes.

March 31 once again saw Studio 9 as the hub of the ITV network when everybody went into action to cover the General Election.

Mr Wilson was given ‘A View from the Bridge’ shortly after on April 4 with the transmission of Arthur Miller’s play. Meanwhile the ITA announced that its present three-year contracts with the programme companies would be extended until the end of July, 1968, as no decision had been taken on whether to extend the ITV service.

A flurry which was to extend for quite a few weeks hit the Wembley studios when the first of the colour ‘Hippodrome’ series went on the floor on April 19.

In the business world, company chairman John Spencer Wills became the chairman of The British Electric Traction Co. Ltd, on April 21, following the death of Harley Drayton.

On May 9 the first of the ‘Seven Deadly Sins’ series was transmitted. Pride, gluttony, sloth, avarice, lust, envy and wrath subsequently achieved the distinction of all getting into TAM’s Top Ten.

Three days later the first of the adult education series ‘Royalist and Roundhead’ was screened. While not hitting the Top Ten, it rose high in the opinion of educationalists.

May also saw the drama section of the club take over Studio 9 to stage ‘Ring Round the Moon’ and achieve high audience ratings. Meanwhile Fusion made its own dent in the award stakes by receiving a certificate of merit in the British Association of Industrial Editors’ contest, a top award of excellence in the International Council of Industrial Editors’ competition and the Block and Anderson Cup from the British Direct Mail and Advertising Association.

The International Television Federation – Intertel – reached the fifth anniversary of its foundation on June 14. Behind it were 34 programmes and a coveted 1965 Peabody Award for making ‘the first continuing contribution towards international understanding through television.’

Also in June came an award for ‘Stage One Contest – Caroline’. This children’s programme won the Munich Prix Jeunesse.

The Mountbatten series also made news in June when it was announced that this exclusive story of the life and times of Lord Mount-batten would be made in colour.

July started with the news that the first episode of the ‘Hippodrome’ series on July 5 had gone straight to the top of Neilsen coast-to-coast ratings when screened by CBS in colour.

This was the month of the World Cup which England won on July 30 and which stretched the joint resources of BBC and ITV in providing coverage for the world. Rediffusion contributed its share of equipment and executives.

The day after the final at Wembley historians gathered at Television House for a conference with ‘History on TV’ as its theme.

August 1 brought the first programme in ‘The Informer’ series which regularly knocked on the doors of the Top Ten during its run.

The month was shadowed by the death of Bernard Rickatson-Hatt on August 7. He had been on the board of the company since July, 1958. A former Guards officer, he had been editor-in-chief of Reuters, adviser to the governor of the Bank of England and to the Bank of London and South America on public relations.

In September came two club events. On the 10th there was the annual sunlit sports day for the children of club members at Shepperton and on the 17th the football team took part in the TV Cup knock-out competition. For the second year running the Rediffusion XI lost to Scottish, the eventual winners.

On September 21 it was announced that Sir Richard Thompson was joining the board. A former M.P., he has held various government appointments.

A conference for educationalists was held at Wembley on September 22 at which, for the first time, teachers were allowed to produce their own programmes in a television studio. September 26 saw the start of the new autumn schedules with 15 new programme presentations, the sequel being six out of TAM’s Top Ten for the week. As part of this schedule the first production of the new Rediffusion Films Ltd was transmitted on September 28 – ‘Dare I Weep, Dare I Mourn’ with James Mason and Jill Bennett. The Frost Programme’ series also started later that night.

Appointments in features came in October. First there was the announcement of the appointment of Barry Westwood as producer of the networked Thursday edition of ‘This Week’. Then, on October 27, it was announced that James Butler had been appointed head of features from November 1.

During October and November, three joint Rediffusion/Talent Association productions under David Susskind passed through Wembley to be recorded in black-and-white and colour for America.

On November 8, it was announced that the present series of ‘Ready, Steady, Go!’ would end on December 23.

On November 11, the announcement came that managing director Paul Adorian had been appointed managing director of Rediffusion Ltd. John Spencer Wills, chairman of both companies, relinquished his managing directorship following his appointment as chairman of The British Electric Traction Co. Ltd upon the death of Harley Drayton.

The annual general meeting of the company was held at Wembley on November 28 and at it, the winners of the 1965-66 Golden Stars were presented with their awards. Independent Television presented ‘A Royal Gala’ before the Duke of Edinburgh at the Palladium on November 29 in aid of the CTBF and the Bowles Rocks Trust.

From December 7-16, an exhibition of the work of graphic designers was held at the Upper Grosvenor Galleries.

Finally – and still to come – is ‘The Royal Palaces of Britain’, the joint Independent Television and BBC production on December 25.

The post Tele marks of 1966 appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

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

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

I’ve changed. How about you?

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

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

The answer is 252 – Editor.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The work of putting in the foundations went on continuously.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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But none of these things seemed to happen. Instead I found myself padding down all the same old jungle tracks that I had been padding down since 1955. The outline idea of the series had been born. Now I was frantic to find really first-class writers and excellent actors. Could we be assured of adequate rehearsal time and could we get all the equipment and crews we wanted? Would enough money to do the job properly come pouring out of the cornucopia that general manager John McMillan keeps under his desk? In fact I had exactly the same longings and hysterical anxieties that I had experienced during the direction of more than 50 plays over the past ten years.

This is heresy, I thought. You are not a director any longer. You are a producer. God has said so. You must stop thinking about all those unimportant things and think only about money and not spending it. So I thought a lot about money – and frightened myself. What I needed was a yardstick, something I could rely on to guide me through these new and uncharted waters – a sort of Gamekeeper’s Lode Star.

Parallel to all this mental agony the plan went ahead – writers were commissioned. Actors were approached and everyone liked the idea. An overall shape and ‘smell’ was emerging. We began to get excited. I found myself cornering directors in corridors and selling the idea like mad. Eric Maschwitz got visibly more and more excited and cigarette ash was piling up a foot high all round him. Gerald Flood, Glyn Owen and Philip Stone were to be our stars and I could not have been happier. Things were rolling.

Then, suddenly, along came the Budget. Like one has a sudden attack of shingles, so we had a sudden attack of Budget. I realised that the figure suggested was not nearly enough – enough for a couple of ‘Small Times’ and an outdoor broadcast of a fishing contest on the Ouse perhaps; but for a series of 13 terrific stories ranging all over Europe that would pulse and throb entertainment from the screen, no. Definitely no. We’d be lucky if we managed to go on location at Bognor Regis for a Thursday afternoon, let alone filming in Lisbon, Madrid, Stockholm and Ireland as the writers and I were planning. So we sent the skinny, sickly little budget figure back for a sort of rest cure with a polite note to the Doctor. After a while it came back just a little fatter and looking a tiny bit more healthy. If I took very, very great care of it, it might just have a chance. But it really did look awfully wan and pathetic lying there in its Blyton cot.

Now things were really happening. Raymond Bowers was in Madrid writing the first four stories. Paul Lee was visiting Stockholm to get the atmosphere for his three episodes while Jeremy Paul was in Lisbon sorting out his. Victor Canning, whose stories were to be set in Southern Ireland, was well under way. But I still hadn’t found my yardstick – my Lode Star. By mid-July all 13 scripts had been delivered. All the meetings and planning with our writers were now paying off. Fred Pusey, who was to be in charge of design for the series, and I went on a detailed reconnaissance to all the locations. James Ormerod accompanied us to Madrid since he was to do his own filming there while I was to take care of the filming in Lisbon and Stockholm.

Back home, a lot of behind-the-scenes work by Eric was now beginning to bear fruit and the incomparable Stella Ashley was legitimising us with studio management and scheduling. Bill Hitchcock and Don Gale were going to be able to direct the remaining stories. I was in good hands. And then suddenly we hurtled off on three weeks’ filming in Portugal, Spain and Sweden. Under Nick Hague’s expert and Machiavellian management we carved our merry way through acres of filming. But, right from the start, I was haunted, haunted by the everlasting question: how much is it all costing? Who was paying for those drinks on the aircraft? Surely we don’t n$ed all that transport? Colour film for the stills man? I hope we’re not paying all those drivers in that traffic jam that the police are engineering for us in the middle of Madrid? Who are all those people over there? Not extras I hope. (Nick: ‘Calm down, Cyril! Have a drink – an orange juice.’) ‘But Nick four guineas for 12 coffees and pastries in Stockholm?’

I was certain that all the money for the entire series would be completely spent long before we’d even got back to England. Early call after early call, late wrap-up after late wrap-up (and all costing money mind you), day after day. Thank Heaven everyone was too exhausted to spend much of the company’s money at night just eating. The sound recordist’s tummy trouble certainly saved us a lot of money on food – and I was glad to see symptoms developing in some of the more voracious members of the unit. Under budget we had to be, even if we all went home skeletons. But everyone was magnificent. Not only did we manage to achieve exactly what we had set out to do, but what was even more staggering, we actually finished well under budget. I breathed again.

One day after we had returned to England I was sitting in my office thinking about the whole project, when suddenly I realised how much I would like to direct the whole damn series myself – all 13 episodes. I felt a sneaking jealousy of Messrs. Ormerod, Hitchcock and Gale. Lucky fellows, I thought. And then it happened. I found my Producer’s Lode Star. This was the secret – for me at least, to make every effort, to get 13 fine scripts, first-class actors, ample time and money, and the feeling that I hated to part with every single story. Then to get them all polished and neatly dressed to be handed over, a little reluctantly perhaps, but with a paternal smile. As I said before, they were all going into good hands.

P.S. Oh, didn’t I tell you what the series is all about? Well, they say it’s going to start on February 1. It’s called ‘The Rat Catchers’.

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