About the ��̳ Feed

History is written by the victors: The inspiration behind Viceroy's House

2017-03-01T08:15:59+00:00

This Friday (3 March) will see the cinema release of new ��̳ Films co-production 'Viceroy's House'. Here writer and director Gurinder Chadha, OBE (Bhaji On The Beach, Bend It Like Beckham and Bride & Prejudice) talks about how her upbringing and featuring in an episode of 'Who Do You Think You Are' influenced her approach to the film.

When I was growing up in Southall, West London, my family almost never spoke about Partition - the decision in 1947 to divide India into India & Pakistan. My grandmother was still scarred by the experience of being made a refugee overnight. It was a painful subject and the little I learned about it at school made me feel as if Partition was our fault - Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus could no longer live together and therefore Viceroy Mountbatten had no choice but to divide India.

After doing Development Studies at UEA, I became a journalist because I wanted to tell stories about people like me - to take characters who were often on the margins and put them at the centre of the frame. I started out working at ��̳ Radio West Midlands in Birmingham and soon realised that telling your own stories in the newsroom could be a battle in itself. I was fortunate to do a Directing scheme at the British Film Institute which led to me finding my cinematic voice with films like Bhaji On The Beach, Bend It Like Beckham and Bride And Prejudice.

In 2005, I was the subject of the ��̳’s series, Who Do You Think You Are. I travelled back to my ancestral home near Jhelum, which is now part of Pakistan. I found my grandparent’s home where several Muslim families now reside. They greeted me in familiar Punjabi as their daughter returning home and their warmth and generosity touched me deeply. I realised that like my own family, these families were displaced and had fled the opposite direction across the border with nothing. This gave me the strength to make Viceroy's House - my own perspective on the human cost of Partition, the people’s Partition.

Gurinder directing scenes from 'Viceroy's House'

I had grown up loving British epics on the Raj and I knew if I was going to add my take on the genre, the first thing I would do was make certain that Indian characters who had been extras - seen as part of the furniture in most Raj movies - would have voices and dignity. It has been 35 years since Attenborough’s Gandhi hit our screens and it felt like Partition had vanished from our screens. It was a huge responsibility to tell the story with balance in a manner which wouldn’t point fingers at black and white villains and stoke up more violence between India and Pakistan.

Seven years ago when I was researching Viceroy's House I discovered Top Secret British documents in the British Library which tell a very different story about why India was divided. These government documents showed that Partition was not about communal violence between neighbours who had lived together for centuries. It was a political act by the British Government, a strategic geopolitical decision about the world map after World War II and the role Britain would play in global affairs.

Hugh Bonneville as Lord Mountbatten and Gillian Anderson as his wife Edwina in 'Viceroy's House'

Viceroy's House opens with the quote ‘History is written by the victors’, which is often attributed to Churchill. I did this because this film is my opportunity to tell my own history - a British Asian perspective which will be lost if we don’t document it. My film shows that the lives of ordinary workers downstairs at Viceroy’s House are just as important as the politicians upstairs. When I watch the film now in this current climate of building walls and creating new borders, it feels like a warning for what can happen when the politics of hate and division go unchallenged. My aim was to make a human, healing film so that all families can talk openly about Partition and hopefully future generations will never experience a tragedy like it again.

Gurinder Chadha, OBE is a writer and film director and ��̳ Alumni member.

Find out more about Viceroy's House on the ��̳ Films website.

Save your memories of the ��̳

2017-01-24T15:14:58+00:00

Former ��̳ producers and ��̳ Alumni members David Allen and George Auckland have developed a website especially for ex-��̳ people to bank their memories of the ��̳. It’s called (unsurprisingly) the Memory Bank. Here David talks us through what it is and how the ��̳ alumni can contribute.

An exciting new website called the Memory Bank is now open for contributions from ��̳ alumni. It’s a place where former ��̳ employees can document the achievements of a whole career or just record a single anecdote about our time working for the Corporation. It’s open to anyone who has worked for the ��̳ in any capacity – whether staff or contract - and at any time. It could be as artist, producer, engineer, cleaner, DG or doorkeeper. Do give it a go: whatever your job, your contribution is welcome.

The purpose of the project is to capture the things that official histories don’t. Where else could we record those experiences from the studio floor, or how we learned to make programmes, or the behind-the-scenes story of a near OB disaster saved by the gaffer or even by gaffer tape?

When published, entries to the Memory Bank look very much like Wikipedia and can be seen by anyone. However, contributions are strictly limited to ex-��̳ employees. You simply need to go to the website, register and accept a few terms and conditions, then you can contribute whatever you want.

Memory Bank developers - former ��̳ producers George Auckland (left) and David Allen (right)

The background

For many years my former colleague, George Auckland and I have thought that there should be somewhere for people like us to record our personal histories. We are both ex-producers from ��̳ Education and members of the committee of the Pensioners’ Association and were keen to make something happen.

With advice from ��̳ Research and Development and working with an ex-��̳ interactive designer, we’ve created a relatively friendly online input form to allow you to put in as little or as much as you like about your experiences. It’s mainly text based but photographs, sound recordings or links to YouTube videos can be included. It also has links to the ��̳’s Genome Radio Times online database so you can check an exact transmission date for a programme-related story.

The beauty of the system is that since it’s based on Wikimedia software, once an entry is published it looks and behaves like Wikipedia; it’s robust and searchable (very useful for future historians) and has an almost infinite capacity (so write as much as you like about yourself). If you create an entry using our form, you can choose to save it, publish it, remove it, edit it or come back to go on writing it at any time.

To start all you need is a bona fide email address (this will not be published), a memorable date or word as a password and the name you were known by when you worked at or with the ��̳. After that it’s up to you. You can create specific periods of years and the entries will be sorted into chronological order.

What’s in an entry?

Screen grab showing George Auckland’s own Memory Bank entry

For George and I, memories of working during the ‘three-day week’ when film editors had to get special permission to use electricity, or remembering that in the 1970s the ��̳ Club had two French house wines - the white called Sans Fil (wire-less) and the red Tantine (Auntie) are buried in our own entries, as are working on Blue Peter, or singing with the Symphony Chorus at the Last Night of the Proms in 2001, just four days after 9/11.

Our own experience working with the Pensioners Association (which funded the development of the Memory Bank) is that whenever we get groups of ex-��̳ staff in a room, priceless anecdotes come pouring out. It’s your personal ��̳ career and programme-making memories that we want to capture before they (and we) disappear from memory.

David Allen and George Auckland are former ��̳ producers and ��̳ Alumni members.

Visit the Memory Bank website to have a go and enter your recollections

Funny that: The highs and lows of comedy production

2016-11-25T15:51:26+00:00

Former ��̳ Comedy Producer and ��̳ Alumni member Diane Messias is now a comedy writer. Here she reflects upon the joys and the pitfalls of comedy production and it isn’t always funny…

Mine was a bit of a circuitous route to a career in comedy. Briefly, it was music college, then subsequent engagement as a music director for Newsrevue, a topical satirical stage show for which I also wrote sketches, before becoming the show's script editor. After directing several productions including two consecutive sell-out runs at the Edinburgh Festival, ��̳ Comedy took me on and the following five years were spent filling my CV with such schedule staples as One Foot In The Grave and The News Quiz, along with myriad shows across the entire gamut of what was then known as ‘Light Entertainment’.

Richard Wilson as Victor Meldrew in One Foot in the Grave

Life as a producer/director is maddening; demanding; frustrating; exhausting; exasperating; head-banging; incessant. We are feisty and bolshy, passionate about pulling a perfect rabbit out of an ill-fitting hat for a deadline of yesterday, with never enough money. We're workaholic problem-solvers, bit-in-teeth determined wizards, lip-smacking, nit-picking, indomitable big-picture seers. And the truth is that you have no idea what's going to be thrown at you on any given day. As the saying goes, “We make plans, God laughs.” (I have that on good authority - check out the surname.).

Here comes the science bit:

1) The bottom line is that you ARE the bottom line

The very first thing you need to grasp when you embark on a career directing or producing is that everything that goes wrong is your fault and everything brilliant is down to somebody else. If your PA distributes the script with 87 pages of page 87 and 0 pages of pages 1–86 and 88–119, it's your fault.

Meanwhile, when your lead actor wins an award for his compelling portrayal of a doctor mostly based on his fluent pronunciation of the word 'plethysmograph' - which is entirely down to you having worked with him for 72 hours straight acquainting him with the syllables on an individual basis - it's totally due to his brilliance in the role. Get used to it, buck stopper.

2) As a producer or director, there's nothing you don't know, OK?

I made one radio series with a very well-known English actor* as one of the leads. Over Champagne at the Langham Hotel, paid for by The Actor I hasten to add, **Licence Fee payers breathe a sigh of relief** we discussed absolutely every single intricate aspect of his character, from background to foreground. It took hours and by the end of the process I was exhausted. This is not the typical way actors behave when booked for a not-that-brilliantly-paid radio job, involving barely more than reading from a script in front of a mic, with no live audience and ample time for as many retakes as necessary. But I left our meeting safe in the knowledge that Sir John Gielgud couldn't have put more effort into what would become his definitive portrayal of Hamlet.

Quite late on the evening before the recording, my home phone rang. I answered it to find The Actor on the other end of the line. “Diane,” he breathed silkily, “Just to confirm I'll be at the recording studios in good time tomorrow. Also to ask something I forgot the other night.” [THERE WAS NOTHING YOU FORGOT TO ASK THE OTHER NIGHT, APART FROM THE CHARACTER'S SHOE SIZE I didn't say.] “What do you want me to wear?” I advised something monochrome since radio was still in its black and white infancy.

3) Comedy’s a serious business

Another notable experience included producing Week Ending throughout the entire run of the first Gulf War which in itself made history, since in such times most broadcasting networks typically cancel anything remotely satirical. But Radio 4 rather bravely stuck its neck out and I’m delighted to report that the series won much acclaim.

However, such was the import of the decision, each week I had to run the pre-broadcast playback in the office of the Radio 4 Controller, Michael Green, with the Head of Comedy, Jonathan James Moore also in attendance.

Former Radio 4 Controller Michael Green and former Head of Comedy, the late Jonathan James Moore

Nobody laughed at any of the jokes but the only thing in the whole series that I had to amend was a sketch featuring the discovery that Saddam Hussein’s famous SCUD missile launchers were actually made out of cardboard; one of the writers had written a beautifully-constructed Blue Peter skit, in which instruction for making a SCUD missile launcher was given, using nothing more than 36,784 toilet roll inserts and a roll of sticky back plastic. I was asked to remove all allusion to Blue Peter, as “it might encourage young people to make their own SCUD missile launchers”.

What did my time at the ��̳ teach me? Well, obviously it’s now a personal mission of mine to inform, educate and entertain and, whilst I’m still working on the last of those, if anyone wants a blueprint for a SCUD missile launcher along with a cardboard badge with some sails on it, just drop me a line with an SAE…

*Not his real name

Visit Diane's comedy blog.
Follow ��̳ Comedy on Twitter

Sir Terry Wogan Remembered

2016-10-19T09:00:00+00:00

Terry Wogan on Come Dancing

Paul Balmer was a sound engineer on Come Dancing in the 1970s and reflects on his experiences working with Sir Terry Wogan.

It was a privilege last month to attend Terry Wogan’s ‘Service of Thanksgiving’ in Westminster Abbey. To hear his wonderful voice reverberating around the building – Terry would have demurred!

Self-effacement was his stock in trade. He described himself as ‘a humble jobbing broadcaster’. As a nation we all felt we knew Terry and in a way we did. What you saw on the television or heard on the radio was what you met in the studio, tempered perhaps by ever slightly more irreverence.

Terry Wogan on Radio 2 1976

For Wogan’s World in the 1970s he sat outside Studio 1 Pebble Mill and tried to mumble his planned introduction from Jock Gallagher’s script. He soon realised he couldn’t do it. He ad-libbed and became the master of spontaneous broadcasting.

Other days he would slump exhausted outside Pebble Mill’s Studio A and sip ��̳ tea from a polystyrene cup. “It’s fine” he’d assure me, “just don’t get it on yer skin”. His exhaustion was from the third gig of that repeating 24- hour cycle: up at dawn, present the breakfast show, then motor down to Blackpool and finish Come Dancing at 11pm. He’d still be smiling and politely attentive to the whims of ‘Miss England’, her tiara flashing in competition with his Irish smile.

In the 1980s and as an aspiring producer, Jock sent me to London to put together the ‘strips’ for Wake Up with Wogan. It was a thankless task. Terry played what he liked and if he didn’t like it, he played something else. In doing so he became a star-maker, spotting talent we had missed and giving due air play to artists that touched his heart and ours. The record company ‘pluggers’ could go and run.

Paul Balmer and colleagues at Pebble Mill in the 1980s

I would regularly be dazzled by his virtuosity in the radio studio. He’d happily chat to the cleaner, asking after a sick child or a missing cat, while a record played quietly in the background. When the record ended and silence descended on the studio, quietly and unhurried he’d raise a fader and smile. “I suppose you thought I’d gone? No, sadly still here.”

As I sat in the Abbey, awed by its splendour and blanketed in the warmth of some gorgeous music, I nodded at Chris Evan’s advice from Terry; “They either like you or they don’t!”

We liked Sir Terry Wogan and we shall miss him.

Read also Ste Softley, producer on Weekend Wogan from 2012-2015, blog remembering to Wogan
and Tributes to Sir Terry

From Albert Square to real life warfare

2016-05-06T09:00:48+00:00

News and Current Affairs reporter, Rani Singh. Photo credit Vera Bardo.

��̳ Alumni contributor Rani Singh reports for the ��̳ as well as numerous other media organisations and platforms. She started her ��̳ career as an actor in EastEnders but soon realised that there was a wider world outside Albert Square that needed investigating.

When I joined EastEnders as a regular character and Asian storyline advisor, the soap opera had audiences of 20 million viewers a week. Getting thrust into popular culture was a sharp learning curve. They were heady days: roughly one in four people might recognise us as cast members whenever we stepped outside our front doors. My minimarket owner character Sufia Karim had lots of family problems, so viewers were sympathetic and often gave me unsolicited advice. Playing the part I became more aware of the media’s place in public life and discovered the power of working with a big audience.

In addition to acting, I am a writer-presenter-producer; it’s a role that I still love. I started in television as a children’s presenter and writer, determined to work across as a many different media platforms and in as many areas as I could, until I discovered where I felt most fulfilled. I loved presenting “as live,” (recording the whole show in one take) on programmes like Play School.

Broadcasting on national television is a nerve-racking but invaluable experience and continuing drama series like EastEnders are fast-paced so you need to be word-perfect even for rehearsals. All great experiences from which I learnt a great deal.

When my on-screen EastEnders family was given a storyline break, I explored other areas at the ��̳. It was on the Radio 4 Producer Training Scheme that I learnt about creating pictures in sound – that was a voyage of discovery. Fascinated by the medium, I originated documentaries and drama series.

The formal training structures that the ��̳ offered me then were vitally important to my development. Apart from being rigorously trained in the detail of making programmes, the ��̳ made tutors available to me who taught me interview techniques and introduced me to presenting. One of my ��̳ trainers instructed me to “ask the questions that no-one else does, dig deep and be original.” That piece of advice follows me through my career as my watchwords.

Rani on a UN peace-keeping training operation just outside Dhaka

I started going to various countries in South Asia more regularly and had fun producing the great ��̳ correspondent Mark Tully for an investigation in India. Needless to say, he became a role model.

Before one documentary visit to Pakistan to interview the late Benazir Bhutto, the then World Tonight Editor, Alistair Burnett commissioned a series on ethnic violence in Karachi with Shaun Waterman producing me from London. Meeting the challenge of that assignment was very exciting. I was taken into no-go areas of the port city where drugs, gun running, car-jacking and ethnic tension form the backdrop to daily life. There was no fully prepared script, no cosy hour in make- up, no warm trailer for shelter and relaxation, or team of production staff assisting my every move. I was on my own in Karachi armed only with a recording machine, a plan and a mission.

I’d found what I was looking for in terms of career development, I was hooked on the thrilling genres of factual, news and current affairs. I realised that above all I had to remain neutral at all times. I needed a blank canvas on which to write my stories. And, to succeed in News, I had to stifle my soap actor image and steer clear of the tabloids! I decided to pay my dues to broadcasting with humility and prove my ability as a reporter-producer by working all hours recording, cutting and editing in sometimes deserted studios. I began filing for English language news and current affairs shows on various ��̳ radio networks.

My acting and writing background came in useful in helping me to empathise with people like Pakistanis I might meet in a remote border village, so that they felt comfortable talking with me. I had no difficulty in merging with the local scenes and had Asian languages to draw upon, enabling me to communicate with the subjects of my broadcasts. It was all storytelling, after all, the common thread of my career. That’s why writing for radio programmes like From Our Own Correspondent and its outgoing editor Tony Grant are always a joy; Tony taught me that FOOCs are about capturing a moment as if it were a film scene. Great advice that continues to resonate.

I rode pillion into a remote part of Srinagar to expose the plight of orphan boys in the Kashmir valley, the first time that story had been examined. Listeners who were affected by the story sent parcels and clothes to the ��̳ to forward on to the young boys. I also went undercover into Srinagar’s most notorious jail to interview fearsome militant ringleaders who had started an insurgency against India. I appreciated - then and now - the opportunity to influence the agenda of news programmes.

Later, and having been adequately trained for ‘category one hostile environments’, Alistair commissioned a series of reports from Bangladesh during its last general election. My experience enabled me to get the world exclusive interview with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for The World Tonight.

On my return to London, Alistair decided to invest in my development by commissioning further training for me from the College of Journalism at the ��̳ Academy. I was privileged to have senior trainer and former news producer Samantha Upton spend several days with me explaining the fine points of digital recording, mixing, editing and how to ‘file to traffic’ (sending reports directly into the newsroom). Sam was patient and methodical, teaching me tasks by gentle repetition. She inspired by introducing me to incredible reports by esteemed correspondents such as Matthew Price, Hugh Sykes and Jonny Diamond, and I felt my synapses firing. She explained in detail how each used different techniques and how each was effective. I absorbed every word as though it were liquid gold and discovered the truth behind the often unlauded fact that ��̳ training is among the best in the world.

TV is still my first love, but these days my on-screen presenting or producing is more about fact than fiction. I’m currently viewing the rushes from a shoot in India commissioned by Virgin Media, in which I interview the Dalai Lama and investigate an untold part of his story. A book has been commissioned too. I regularly contribute to the Forbes Asia channel at Forbes.com, write regular columns for the Asian Voice and Virgin.com as well as providing analysis for Sky News and Al Jazeera English. These different wings of my work coalesce and strengthen my current ��̳ reporting.

I’ve found my passion: field reporting, telling stories. Bringing breaking news and scoops to audiences - be it an exclusive interview with a convicted terrorist for Newsnight, or insights from the fast-moving global political and social scene - is still utterly thrilling.

The ��̳ News website says I’ve ‘retired’ – so it must be true!

2016-03-04T10:26:49+00:00

Have you seen what’s happening to Television Centre? It’s being transformed into a new complex of 950 homes, offices, TV studios and restaurants, not to mention a hotel and a Soho House members club.

Television Centre

I’d not been back for almost a year and things have moved on apace. From the outside you can see cranes and bulldozers, and blue sky through the gaping gap between the historic heart of the building – the listed “doughnut” – and the glass-fronted newsroom. Inside, where I spent many years working for ��̳ News, the transformation is equally dramatic – and it’s hard to remember what it used to look like.

As you go in to the entrance hall on Wood Lane, you now find a cafe in place of the old reception desk and the revolving glass security doors.

To get my bearings, I poked my head through a door on the right and recognised one of the numerous offices I had worked in over the years, as the arts and entertainment news team was moved from floor to floor – and building to building. This one was on the ground floor, facing onto Wood Lane, and right in the firing line on the day that the IRA bomb went off in a car outside the building.

Fortunately it was a quiet Saturday night and we weren’t working (though other journalists were, upstairs in the main newsroom). When we were finally allowed back in, days later, I had assumed it would look like a bomb site. But not even a book had fallen off a shelf. The building’s invisible bombproofing had worked remarkably well.

This part of Television Centre is now the headquarters of ��̳ Worldwide, the Corporation’s sales arm and I was there to have coffee with one of the six participants on the director-general’s senior leadership development programme. The scheme – for people from a black, Asian or minority ethnic background – arranges year-long placements with members of the ��̳’s executive board. It is run in association with the Clore Leadership Foundation, which trains talented young leaders in the cultural and creative sectors.

The person I was meeting had contacted me after taking part in a Clore media training day which I help run – one of several projects I’m now involved in, since leaving the ��̳ almost three years ago. The ��̳ News website says I’ve ‘retired’ – so it must be true – but like many ��̳ Alumni I never intended to stop work altogether.

These days I speak, write and chair events for a range of media, cultural and academic organisations.

My most enjoyable new assignment came directly out of the Clore course, where I met a member of the National Theatre’s development team. She asked if I’d like to interview some of the actors and directors, after performances, for the National’s corporate patrons. A hard offer to turn down!

I’ve also just started a monthly column for the MediaTel website, looking back 30 years to 1986 – the year when everything changed for the media.

In January that year, Rupert Murdoch moved his four national newspapers to a new printing plant in Wapping, breaking the stranglehold of the print unions and revolutionising the economics of newspapers. The Independent was launched in October to huge acclaim - and its decision last month to cease printing and publish only online has helped make the column very topical.

1986 was a game-changing year for broadcasters too. The eagerly-awaited Peacock Report on ��̳ funding dismissed proposals to replace the licence fee with advertising but recommended that ITV franchises should be awarded by competitive tender. British Satellite Broadcasting won the UK's Direct Broadcast by Satellite licence, beating a bid from Murdoch.

And there were multiple crises at the ��̳, as it crossed swords with Norman Tebbit and the Tory government and acquired Duke Hussey as its chairman, culminating in the departure of the director-general Alastair Milne - all lovingly recounted in Michael Leapman's book of that year, The Last Days of the Beeb.

In 1986, I was writing about the media for national newspapers and business magazines and presenting a weekly programme on LBC Radio. Three years later I joined the ��̳ as the media correspondent for radio news. It is fair to say that I was not welcomed with open arms, being seen by many in ��̳ News as one of John Birt’s unnecessary new cadre of social affairs specialists.

On my first day at the Corporation, I was shown round the programmes that I would be working for. In the Today office, I was introduced to the legendary Brian Redhead as the ��̳’s new media correspondent. “Oh well, I hope you get a proper job one day” he said.

24 years later, as I left the ��̳, I wrote a farewell piece about my time. After covering the early departures of several ��̳ director-generals, chairmen and channel controllers; royal crises; the press and privacy, from paparazzi to phone-hacking; and the satellite and digital revolutions, I hope even Brian Redhead might have accepted there was a proper job to be done.

My last ��̳ crisis involved Jimmy Savile and the departure – after 54 days as director-general – of George Entwistle. I wrote about covering the affair for the ��̳ in the book Is the ��̳ in Crisis?, including why I had to read a two-minute piece for the 10pm Radio 4 bulletin live off my iPhone.

A few weeks ago I was back at New Broadcasting House, for a much more enjoyable occasion - the ��̳ Alumni event on the future for children’s broadcasting, a topic I’ve often covered over the years. It was a chance for former members of the department to catch up with each other and hear from James Purnell and the Director of ��̳ Children’s, Alice Webb, about the latest plans - and to ask searching questions and give them the benefit of their wisdom and experience!

I hope there’ll be more – so if you’d like to suggest other ��̳ Alumni events, let Natasha Maclean know.

Torin Douglas is former media correspondent and ��̳ Alumni member.

Retired ��̳ Books PR man turns tables to become thriller author

2016-02-26T14:35:25+00:00

Harry worked as a Senior Publications Representative at the ��̳ in Birmingham, Newcastle and Leeds before moving to London’s Marylebone High Street. In this post, he explains how years of accompanying TV celebrities on book tours in the 70’s and 80’s led to him sitting on the other side of the signing table.

I was working at The Scotsman newspaper when I saw an advertisement for a position with the ��̳ in Glasgow. The ��̳ job paid £200 more per year! I never saw Glasgow but my ��̳ career did eventually start in Birmingham in Publications. Pebble Mill hadn’t yet been built and our offices were in Edgbaston. Back then the Radio Times was the UK magazine king, selling over three million copies every week, the book business was in its infancy. I remember the first Delia Smith recipe books; they were thin, A5-sized paperbacks selling for 45p. Last week I bought two from an antique shop in Hampshire and paid £5 each for them!

As the ��̳’s book business rapidly expanded in the early 70’s, I found myself organising and accompanying TV celebrities on UK book tours. I travelled with Delia Smith, Keith Floyd and Ken Hom, amongst others, and there was never a dull moment. For the most part the tours were tiring with early starts, late finishes and itineraries packed with TV, radio and bookshop appearances.

As the popularity of each celebrity grew, so the crowds increased and daily schedules came under pressure. There were no mobile phones in those days to help smooth out problems and if we were running late (again) it meant a stop to use a payphone at a motorway service station. I always carried plenty of change in the car.

I recall a 6am start one bitterly cold November morning, filming with Keith Floyd at North Shields fish market. We’d had a ‘robust’ meal the night before which continued into the wee small hours as stories were swapped. Thankfully everyone arrived at the fish market on time and the fish buyers were in good spirit at the thought of meeting Keith. One of them threw a large cod towards Keith who caught it rather adroitly although it ruined his newly dry-cleaned coat. He quickly threw it back at the fish buyer who dropped it. We all howled with laughter as the fish slithered into the harbour giving the seagulls a feast. It set the scene for a great shoot and afterwards everyone finished up in the harbour cafe for a welcome breakfast of bacon and eggs.

The success of the promotional tours was a bit hit-and-miss. Once I arrived with Keith Floyd at a bookshop in Preston where crowd barriers were in place to help manage the fans; no one turned up. A disaster, but Keith took it extremely well. Similarly I met Freddie Trueman one summer’s day in Leeds and we arrived at a suitably decked out WHSmith shop in the City Centre. We waited and waited. Apart from one young lad who wanted Freddie’s autograph on the back of a fag packet, we sold two copies of Arlott and Trueman on Cricket. As we left the shop he turned to me and said, ‘Never mind lad, let’s go for a pint.’

Back in the day, spending many weeks on the road, my reading genre of choice was crime fiction. Keith often said, ‘You know enough about it, you should write a novel yourself’. So, on retirement ten years ago, I thought ‘why not?’ I opened my desk drawer, took out the few chapters I’d tentatively scribbled during the 80’s and set about realising that dream. I picked my genre, joined a writing group, read a lot (Stephen King’s On Writing is a mine of useful tips for the writer just setting out) and begun to understand how novels are constructed. Once I’d convinced myself that it was possible to write my own book I sat down and wrote until I’d finished. Finishing is important as most first-timers never do! After eighteen months and 80,000 words, typing ‘The End’ was an exhilarating and very satisfying moment. I would say to anyone finding their retirement a little dull, remember it’s not too late to try something entirely different and maybe something you never thought was within your capabilities.

These days, as a ��̳ alumnus, viewer and listener, I find there are lots of things I miss. Iconic series like Fawlty Towers, Black Adder and Porridge were courageous and innovative and might never have been made if it weren’t for the ��̳. Today I’m pleased I can still find programmes of substance particularly on ��̳ Three, ��̳ Four and, of course, Radio 4 which is a friend to so many of us.

As long as the Licence Fee exists the ��̳ will strive to satisfy all viewer and listener interests. In such a changing world it’s a difficult ask but while the ��̳ remains in the hearts of the British public it stands a decent chance.

Harry’s novels ‘Smile of the Viper’ and ‘Forever Evil’ are published by Caffeine Nights and can be bought in paperback from all good bookshops and online, or in Kindle format from Amazon.
Find out more about the ��̳ Alumni
Read more posts written by members of the ��̳ Alumni

My path via the ��̳ to Stelios Award for Disabled Entrepreneurs 2015

2015-10-30T11:44:00+00:00

Andy Gilbert, whose company Gilbey Films makes the ��̳ diversity showreels, has just made it to the final three of the Stelios Award for Disabled Entrepreneurs 2015. Andy was formerly of this parish, as series producer of Match of the Day.

I’m extremely flattered to have made it to the last three of this award, but I don’t really think of myself as an entrepreneur. I’m not at all like the people you see on The Apprentice – loud, extrovert, teeming with self-confidence. But being disabled has given me a certain inner strength and quiet resolve which has helped me at every turn. The biggest issue you have to overcome is negative expectations. Like many disabled people, you find you have to work harder than everyone else to get noticed for what you can do, rather than for your disability.

I contracted polio as a baby and when I was growing up I used swimming as rehab, and I loved it. Encouraged by my parents I trained every day and worked my way up to international level. Selected for Team GB, I swam at the Paralympics in New York and Seoul, peaking with a silver and two bronze medals at the latter.

Andy with his parents at the 1988 Paralympics in Seoul

My disability and the Paralympics have had a profound effect on my life. After retiring from sport and finishing university I had – what was then - a job for life working in insurance. I took some holiday to go with my girlfriend (now wife) to the Barcelona Paralympics in 1992. She was working as a reporter for the World Service and I offered to help out with research. There was so much demand, with different outlets wanting material at the same time, that I ended up doing live interviews with the African Service. It was so exciting, I was hooked – enough of insurance, it was time to try to carve out a career in broadcasting. The wonderful Claire Prosser, a woman who gave so many people a helping hand, was managing Ceefax at the time. She gave me my first break, a three-month attachment at Ceefax, and so began my ��̳ career...

I was heart-broken when, after 16 years working for ��̳ Sport, the department moved to Salford. I know it’s a cliché, but being the series producer of Match of the Day was a childhood dream come true. They say that dream jobs can turn out to be a disappointment, but not this one. The team was incredible, combining knowledge and expertise with humour and comradery, and I had never been happier. We would work hard during the week to get everything in place for Saturday. The commentators, the reporters, the outside broadcast units, the ISDN lines, VT suites, editors, assistant producers - all coming together to produce an hour and a half of live TV.

On Saturday, I would arrive and head for the Green tea bar, which was often a surreal experience. Queueing up for a bacon buttie behind Moira Stuart, Vic Reeves and someone dressed up as a hotdog was, for me, Television Centre at its very best. And then there was TC5, home of Football Focus, Final Score and Match of the Day, with the fantastic production office resplendent with a bank of monitors with feeds from every ground. From my desk I could speak to the producers and commentators at each match as well as the VT suites in Stage 5. On the sofas in front of me, Gary Lineker, Alan Hansen, Alan Shearer or Lawro would sit watching the footballing narrative unfold. Gary and the programme editor would decide how to tell the story later that night - the running order, the talking points, the length of each match edit – and I would organise the logistics. Being in TVC added to the excitement. I loved the fact that when Robbie Savage was on Strictly Come Dancing, he’d pop into the production office to check out the scores and show off his sequins at the same time.

Andy in the TC5 gallery directing Match of the Day

There is nothing quite as thrilling as taking control and directing a live programme – coming on air, cueing presenters, running VT and handing back to network. Outwardly calm, inside your heart is pumping, adrenaline coursing through your veins. I didn’t make the move to Salford, and so directed the last football shows from Television Centre. I remember how sad I felt wandering down onto the studio floor and sitting on the sofa, having quite literally turned the lights off on MOTD from London.

When I took redundancy I decided to move away from broadcasting and set up my own production company. There was one small bit of unfinished business though, London 2012, the biggest Paralympics ever and on my home turf. I was thrilled to be asked to direct Channel 4’s main Paralympic show with Clare Balding and Ade Adepitan. It was a great way to end my TV directing career.

And now my story continues with Gilbey Films – ‘Gilbey’ being my ��̳ Sport nickname. We make short films for businesses, venues and attractions - from the Houses of Parliament to London Zoo - showcasing their disability access provision. So many places have invested extraordinary amounts of money into making their places accessible, but very few have been shrewd enough to market themselves effectively to disabled people. It’s a massive market and makes great business sense. And knowing the value of disabled talent we employ disabled people in front of and behind camera.

Andy filming in the Houses of Parliament for Gilbey Films

I was so happy when we were asked to make diversity showreels for ��̳ TV. These films are a snapshot of some of the ways that producers have chosen to represent the diversity of modern Britain. We’ve been making them for a few years now and I’ve noticed a change with different voices, stories and perspectives emerging. And of course I’m particularly pleased to see new pundits on the Sport team, and the way that women’s football has been elevated in the public consciousness is fantastic. As well as great improvements on-screen, it’s good to know the ��̳ is aiming to diversify its workforce. Diverse people in production is crucial to making portrayal authentic.

I’m delighted, but rather surprised, to have made it to the Stelios Award final and feel nervous about the Dragon’s Den-style grilling that awaits me. I may not be the typical entrepreneur, but I know that being disabled has given me resolve, sharpened my gut instincts and helped me along the way. And of course, having dreams and daring to follow them has been key.

Andy Gilbert is Company Founder, Gilbey Films

Find out the results of the Stelios Award for Disabled Entrepreneurs 2015

From the ��̳ to Berlin

2015-10-09T16:45:39+00:00

When I was a young girl (long before I even dreamt of working for the ��̳), my grandmother used to take me to a patisserie opposite Harrods and reminisce, over coffee and cakes she could barely afford, about her grand lifestyle in pre-war Berlin. She told me that there was a building, a mere two blocks from Checkpoint Charlie, just inside what was then East Germany, which rightly belonged to the family but was out of legal reach. She longed to recover it. I never thought I would one day try to fulfill her wish. When she died in 1977 she left no documents or proof that the building had ever once belonged to the family.

Many years later I was able to apply the skills I had honed, during my career at the ��̳ as an investigative journalist, to discover whether her stories were true.

I joined the Corporation in 1981 to work on the Radio 4 Checkpoint programme. Initially, as I came to the team from the Investors Chronicle, I was brought in to work on financial stories. Company law was such that villains were able to “Change the Name and Do the Same” i.e. run a scam under one limited company name, defraud the public, shut down the company and start up a new one doing exactly the same. I exposed quite a few such scams.

But it was not long before I was allowed to cover any topic that came in. Most stories originated from members of the public, as Checkpoint had a loyal fan base, but often we would be tipped off about stories by professionals such as trading standards officers, local council employees, tax officials and, yes, even the police.

It was pretty tough. Having doors slammed in my face, being sworn at on the telephone, posing as a prospective cosmetic surgery patient, finding myself locked inside a warehouse with a villain being sought by the authorities on fraud charges, winning hundreds of thousands of pounds compensation for the victim of medical negligence, and getting the case of a man imprisoned for arson and fraud back to the Court of Appeal where he was exonerated – these were typical of my work as a member of the Checkpoint team. At one point I even had a pack of Dobermans run at me in a remote Welsh hillside farmhouse when I turned up to ask about fraudulent hire purchase agreements on farm equipment.

Being a woman did not mean I didn’t get the dangerous assignments – but I was luckier than the men on the team. Some of them were punched but somehow, even the nastiest of villains never stooped so low as to attack me physically.

It is no exaggeration to say this was my dream job. I had been an avid fan of the programme for years. The editor had decided the office was too testosterone charged and he wanted a woman to join the all-male team. And I was that lucky woman. We travelled around Britain with presenter Roger Cook recording interviews and confronting crooks.

Dina with Checkpoint presenter Roger Cook

After three years in Broadcasting House, I joined ��̳ One’s Watchdog, first as a reporter and then a producer. It was more of the same, this time with pictures. Again, I learned never to underestimate the value of public feedback – ordinary people were our principal source. One of my contacts in a local trading standards office tipped me off about a firm of plumbers in south London seriously overcharging customers. It was off to see John Wilson, then head of Editorial Policy and the man who gave permission for secret recordings.

We put a hidden radio microphone on a cooperative plumber and sent him in for a training session as a would-be employee. We could barely believe our ears when, sitting in a car up the road, we heard the tutor tell the assembled plumbers “The customer is always wrong” and then go on to detail precisely how to overcharge.

One of the most fun stories of all involved an elderly woman whose much-loved mini had been stolen. We were tipped off that there had been a rash of car thefts in northern England and vehicles were being sold, along with forged log books, to unsuspecting purchasers many miles away. I managed to track down this lady’s car and the programme bought it for a song off the new owner. We invited the lady to the studio under the guise of wanting Nick Ross, who was then presenting the show, to pre record an interview with her about car thefts. As she sat being interviewed, I drove the car onto the set. She was totally overcome and began openly weeping.

Nick Ross and Dina on the studio floor reuniting owner with her stolen mini

All this work involved examining company documents, persuading officials to divulge information, developing sources and being persistent. I learnt all the necessary tricks: for example that voting registers are public documents and can identify precisely who lives where.

Then, via The Money Programme, I arrived at News Events. I was sent off to Prague to cover the first free Czech elections since the war and not long after to Bonn for the newly unified German elections after the fall of Communism. David Dimbleby anchored from the studio while I was dispatched with Fred Emery covering the proceedings from the CDU headquarters.

CDU Headquarters

We were broadcasting live inserts into the programme when Chancellor Helmut Kohl arrived triumphantly to greet his supporters. Back in the green room I sat chatting with former Prime Minister Jim Callaghan between his live contributions in the studio.

Dina with former Prime Minister Jim Callaghan

Next it was the Editorial Complaints Unit, where I was “poacher turned gamekeeper.” Now I was responding to allegations from the public of wrongdoing by the ��̳.

In 2001 I was invited by the head of the Racial and Violent Crime Squad at New Scotland Yard to come on attachment for six months to advise on improved complaint handling. My ��̳ managers agreed - but fate intervened. I started just six days after the terror attacks of 9/11 and instead found myself setting up a hotline for distressed relatives of those affected and liaising with leaders of various communities, such as Afghans, that might come under revenge attacks.

I also spent a month at Hammersmith police station on Shepherds Bush Road because I wanted to experience first hand everyday police work on a borough. On one occasion, I was in the back of a police car responding to a 999 call as it raced down the wrong side of the Goldhawk Road with sirens blaring. Scary! My attachment to the Metropolitan Police was extended when I was asked by the head of the Directorate of Professional Standards, the unit that investigates allegations of wrongdoing by the police, to conduct a study on how their systems could be improved. My report was presented to the Metropolitan Police Authority.

After I moved on, I kept in contact with Chief Superintendent Anthony Wills, who was Borough Commander of Hammersmith and Fulham during my time at his station. One day he got in touch and asked me if I could help him. He was planning a ceremony in the Conference room in White City honoring the officers who had been on duty on the night of March 4, 2001 when a bomb, left by the Real IRA in a parked taxi, exploded outside TVC. Anthony wanted a "star" to present the awards. Peter Sissons was only too happy to oblige and gave a tremendous speech of thanks for the officers’ bravery, presented the certificates and posed for photos. Everyone was absolutely thrilled.

Peter Sissons (left) and Chief Superintendent Anthony Wills (right) with Dina at the Commendation Ceremony in November 2002

My year out completed, it was back to my former position in the Editorial Complaints Unit. If you were a programme-maker you probably didn’t want to hear from me, or one of my colleagues, as it almost always meant that a complaint had been received about some aspect of a broadcast.

In 2008 I emigrated to the USA as my husband, a former ��̳ News Trainee who had gone on to work for the Financial Times, was offered a job (and, crucially, a Green Card) at a Washington think-tank.

Finally I found the time to sit down and write a book about my grandmother’s stories – and the building she had always told me had been seized by the Nazis. After the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, I used all my training as an investigative journalist to dig deep into the archives in Germany and Britain and discovered the truth.

Dina Gold is a journalist and author and member of the ��̳ Alumni.

Find out more about Dina’s book ‘Stolen Legacy: Nazi Theft and the Quest for Justice at Krausenstrasse 17/18, Berlin’

That's 'Lifers' reunited for Dame Esther Rantzen's birthday

2015-06-26T12:05:24+00:00

On June 14th, 2015, members of the That's Life! team gathered to celebrate the show's host, Dame Esther Rantzen's 75th birthday.

The magazine-style show was light hearted but tackled serious issues and was a regular feature in the weekend schedules from May 1973 until June 1994. Here some of the team share their fond memories of working on the show.

Stephen Stewart, Director That’s Life!

Esther has an amazing contacts list, always knowing the best person to call if you want a problem sorted, and that could be anyone from the person who delivers the best sandwiches in Shepherd’s Bush to the British Secretary of State. She knows them all, and they know her.

I directed over 50 episodes of That’s Life! and loved every minute of it; the show and the team.

But when I first took over the studio, fresh in from working in ��̳ Northern Ireland, there was an inconsistency with the allocation of our floor managers. The studio days were often quite “hairy”, and we normally recorded as-live but occasionally even transmitted live, sometimes discussions about legal issues knocked our rehearsals off track, so the floor manager issue was beginning to cause problems. I mentioned this to Esther one day who immediately advised me to, “Put a call into a chap called Paul Fox, say I said to call him and I’m sure he’ll sort it”.

So I called the switchboard, got an extension number and within minutes was talking to Paul, who I assumed was something to do with the studio bookings office. He seemed very nice, listened to my issue and advised that he probably wasn’t the best to sort it out but said to call another person; Norman somebody. I had noticed Paul chuckle slightly when he heard the problem, but he was very friendly, very helpful, and said to give Esther his best wishes. I called Norman informing him that Paul had given me his name. The problem went away immediately and we never had a floor manager allocation problem again.

I discovered quite some time later that at the time, Paul Fox was Managing Director ��̳ television.

The lesson Esther taught me without even knowing she had done it was, if you want something fixed properly and quickly, go straight to the organ grinder. It has held me in good stead ever since.

Sue Agland (Barr) - Assistant Producer That's Life!

Sue Agland with husband Peter on their wedding day

My husband, Peter Agland, and I, met whilst working together on That's Life! Peter and Esther were the only people to have worked on every episode of the programme and had previously worked together on Braden's Week.

Our wedding on 1st October, 1990 was the first wedding of two "Lifers" as Esther likes to call us and they gave us a lovely pre-wedding surprise party. The wedding was documented in Ariel, the ��̳'s in-house magazine after the event.

Elaine Hackett, Director That’s Life!

I remember Esther being very generous with her screen time. So much so that she insisted I screen test for the role as an on-screen reporter. As a director I was used to being on the other side of the camera and thought the ‘on camera’ stuff seemed a breeze. Little did I know.

Despite the camera boys and girls being my mates and me knowing their all too familiar faces, in my many screen tests every time the red light went on, I froze, jabbered, went puce and acted like someone/something else! It didn’t matter how much cajoling, waves and smiles of encouragement came from behind the camera - I just couldn’t do it. The red light went on and I fell to pieces.

So apart from teaching me that my role was behind the camera, it also meant that I have a continued and long lasting respect for the all too ‘simple’ art of presenting.

Ron Neil, Editor That’s Life!

My first week as the new Editor of That's Life!.......

Me: "Esther you can't possibly put that tomato on ��̳ 1 on a Sunday night..... there are 14 million people watching"

Esther: "Why on Earth not?"

Me: "You know perfectly well why not... that tomato has grown a penis... it's a very rude tomato ."

Esther: "No Ronald it's just a confused tomato."

Me: "What do you mean it's a confused tomato?"

Esther: "It's just a tomato that wants to become a cucumber."

Tomato duly appears. My annual appraisal that year says that under my stewardship the programme had become distinctly more vulgar. Such was the lot of an editor in the serious world of cerebral television current affairs.

Adrian Mills, Presenter That’s Life!

At my audition in 1985 Esther asked why my hair was so short compared to my photo. I explained that I was playing a policeman in a Channel 4 comedy. Then taking my life in my hands I told her what my direction had been whilst on set, during the shooting of an arrest scene: the director was concerned we were being a little too soft, and suggested that we “give her a good kicking, pretend it's Esther Rantzen." Thankfully for me she saw the funny side and I got the job!

Certainly she got her own back by sending me filming with every pet known to man including, on one occasion, pretending to be Elvis at the HMV auditions to replace “Nipper” the small dog sat by the gramophone. As soon as I started singing the dogs went berserk and attacked me resulting in a rushed visit to the ��̳ doctor for an emergency tetanus jab.

Also never believe Esther when she tells you what you are doing is fantastic as I did when volunteering to read the autocue in a Spanish accent for an overseas company’s spokesperson who were conning the British public. As I veered into Japanese Esther can be seen howling with laughter at my pathetic attempts in what became that week’s most requested item on 'Points of View' . To think three years at drama school?!

Great broadcaster, great laughs, some of the best memories I have are of working at the ��̳.

Richard Woolfe, Producer That’s Life!

I can still remember growing up as a youngster in Brighton and discovering That's Life! It was always on past my bedtime but I was fascinated by TV and got a black and white portable in my bedroom. It didn't have a proper aerial and the picture quality was shocking. But I used to watch That's Life! every Sunday when I should have been sleeping - I got used to having the sound on low level as I listened out for my parents who would check up on us (and to make sure I wasn't watching TV!).

When I was 16 I got myself a ticket to see the show being taped an hour before transmission. I can still vividly remember taking my seat in the 2nd row of the circle at the TV Theatre. I loved every minute of it and vowed to myself that I wanted to be part of the show one day.

I got my chance after starting at ��̳ Radio Sussex when I landed my dream job as a researcher. I'm proud to be part of TV history - the series and it's achievements are a matter of public record. We exposed paedophile teachers and changed the law to protect children in so many important ways, we campaigned for the introduction of safe playground surfaces, we changed public opinion about cycle helmets and we warned the public about loan sharks. And of course there was Bai Li Tea the bogus slimming drink that gave us dozens of items.

We worked very hard - for the 6 months the series was on air we worked 7 days a week - the team became your family. Everyone pulled together to make a difference for the audience - and they loved it. It taught me so much that I continue to use today - and not a week goes by where I don't tell a That's Life! anecdote.

I still cannot believe that the boy from Brighton went on to produce one of the best shows in the world. Friendships that were forged on my very first day in E206, Lime Grove remain even stronger today. And how do you know if people worked on That's Life!? Put two of them together and within 1 minute you will hear shrieks of laughter. Happy happy days

Michal Porecki – Film Director That’s Life! on Doc Cox

I had the massive pleasure of working with Doc Cox for seven years and directing all of his comedy and music films, as well as his appearances on the Great Britain Singing strand.

He was an exceptionally funny man, on, and off camera. Whenever I directed Doc, all I can remember is laughing all day long with tears streaming down my face and my sides literally aching.

We turned Torquay into the south of France for a film about overseas foods with odd names. We hired the wonderful Cleo Rocos to be Doc's 'TV wife' in a film about neighbours filling up road skips. At a big department store he was made up as Mrs Slocombe from Are You Being Served? but his best lines weren't broadcastable!

At Kew Gardens, Doc was an 8 foot high talking cactus leaping out and singing with people. At Esther's 75th birthday, Doc reminded me that filming in a working hothouse in a thick foam costume was hell as he kept having to wring the sweat out of his costume. The clip of Doc singing the first bar of Gershwin's Summertime and chasing a terrified passer-by has been shown globally hundreds of times.

Michal Porecki on Stuart McDonald

Stuart is a man of great charm and humour and not prone to outbursts. One of my favourite Stuart recollections is the Sunday when Esther was late for the dress rehearsal. A researcher stood in and read Autocue for the first half of the show. I was watching from the ��̳ TV Theatre balcony (us film directors were always in the circle as we wanted to hear whether the studio audience laughed at the jokes in our films!) as Esther attempted to quietly and gingerly creep onto the set.

As she slinked in like a naughty cat, Stuart spotted her from the gallery and - breaking normal polite protocol - bellowed the following words using the studio's many loudspeakers: "Bring on the Rantzen creature!!!!". She was never late again.

Find out more about the ��̳ Alumni

Bush House Newsroom - The Great Dictators

2015-05-29T10:30:52+00:00

Imagine swirls of foul-smelling tobacco smoke. A fug, like a London pea-souper enveloping a long, narrow room. Windows flanking one side of the curved room crammed with desks.

Hear the sounds: the noisy rattle of a duplicating machine; hand-cranked; the buzzing of a dozen agency tape machines; spitting paper every thirty seconds; and, the occasional ping of a bell to signify the arrival of an ‘urgent.’ On top of it all, the clatter of typewriter keys. Twenty ancient upright Imperials being hammered at great speed. The descant to this melody - a chorus of voices, Oxbridge-accented, northern, North American, middle-European. “The President of the United States, comma, Mr Richard Nixon, comma…”

“The popular American entertainer, comma, Mr Elvis Presley, comma, has died, full stop.”

And all too often, “Scrap that. We’ll start again.”

This was the Bush House Newsroom when I first knew it in the early seventies. I don’t think the atmosphere had changed much since its inception. And the voices? They were the journalists, dictating their stories to typists.

It was an absolute tenet of the newsroom in those days that stories for radio must be dictated. In a place where most had started their careers on newspapers, this was an essential. The art of crafting a news story for radio is very different from writing one for print. Most importantly, a listener can’t reread a sentence if it’s unclear. Hearing it out loud gave the writer - and the typist - a chance to catch words which might make it difficult either for the announcer in English or for the translator.

Dictating didn’t come easily to everyone. Many former print journalists needed to see things on paper. One quoted E.M.Forster, “How do I know what I think till I see what I write?” But those who mastered the art delivered some of the simplest, clearest and purest prose to be heard on radio.

The mechanics of getting a story out were complex. In those days, before computers, a draft was submitted to the Duty Editor, and usually returned covered in edits. The corrected version was then typed onto what was always referred to as a ‘sandwich’ consisting of a stencil top copy and about four or five ‘flimsies’ interspersed with carbon paper. Mistakes could not be fixed at this point, and wasting a stencil was a heinous crime. The people in ‘Distribution’ printed the stories then trailed around the desks placing hard-copies in trays. And if they liked you, they might be able to insert a comma or a full-stop with the aid of a thin scalpel.

Stories for the language services were stamped with their name ‘Thai’, ‘German’ ‘Hausa,’ rolled up, fastened with an elastic band, placed in a glass tube and fired through a series of Lamson Tubes – a pneumatic delivery service stretching across the building. They were delivered to a place in the Centre Block called ‘the Outpost’ where they were collected by translators. The frequent blockages of the tube were as serious and damaging as a computer crash today. (Someone once fired a lot of hard-boiled eggs up there, which wasn’t helpful.)

It was altogether a very male-dominated atmosphere and very few of the women there were journalists. On my first day, I was sitting quietly in what was called ‘the pool’ when one of the fiercer Duty Editors flung himself into a seat next to me, shouted “Snap!” and started to dictate. I think it was something to do with the Vietnam War.

Not being familiar with the routine I began to type in a fumbling way, until he yelled, “What is the matter with you?”

“Sorry,” I said, “but I’m not a typist.”

“No, you certainly are not!” he barked, flinging away to find someone who could actually take dictation.

It wasn’t all perfect. Dictation could usually be relied upon to pick up verbal errors but it didn’t stop the notorious ‘Seventy-six dissident Soviet physicists’ getting on air. When new technology arrived in the shape of computers we went on working in our scruffy old newsroom, while upstairs, shiny new VDUs and carpeted pillars awaited us. After negotiations with the unions, we moved upstairs. But such was the unease with the introduction of new technology that for a few years we lived in a strange limbo where journalists dictated to typists sitting at computers.

Gradually, cuts and economies caught up with us and the support staff disappeared. Eventually there were no voices raised in dictation, and no clacking of typewriter keys. Cigarettes had gone, alcohol was banned. As someone said, the newsroom had become like a slightly scruffy insurance office.

What we lost was that magical ability to hear what a story would sound like on air, to have a second pair of ears listen even before the second pair of eyes read the draft. But, what we gained was autonomy - the ability to write on our own, to think things through.

Sally-Anne Thomas is a former newsroom editor at ��̳ World Service and ��̳ Alumni member.

W1A: ��̳ Alumni reaction to series 2

2015-05-07T14:14:30+00:00

The cast of W1A pictured in the foyer of New Broadcasting House

W1A is officially back. But watching it at home was nothing compared to the experience I had on Tuesday 21 April when I attended the ��̳ Alumni screening of the first episode alongside 220 former ��̳ employees. The raucous laughter was infectious and enlightening. As a trainee (insert your own Will joke here, believe me I’ve said/heard them all) I’ve witnessed a number of ‘W1Aisms’ over the past 11 months.

Waiting to greet the Alumni audience, also in the NBH foyer

But seeing the ��̳ Alumni members react to the elaborate jargon, eccentric characters and sometimes ridiculous situations made me truly appreciate just how acutely John Morton has captured certain aspects of corporate culture in organisations like the ��̳.

The Alumni audience fill the Radio Theatre for the W1A screening

I was so intrigued that I cornered a few Alumni after the event to get their thoughts on the programme and what it was that was so familiar.

Andy Popperwell and Benny Ammar’s tenure at the ��̳ spanned 30 years, and they had some great stories to share about royal visits and the ��̳’s dress code:

Andy Popperwell

Andy Popperwell: “I loved it… I remember when Princess Alexandra came to visit she got stuck in a lift with a member of staff, and his strong aftershave.”

Benny Ammar: “I remember during royal visits we all had to wear a tie, something we never did. The management director came round and said you must wear a tie, you will wear a tie, you will wear a tie. And it was so similar to what we saw in the programme.”

Former ��̳ Cameramen Roger Bunce and Stephen Rogers shared their stories too:

Roger Bunce, Stephen Rogers and Graham Bunce prop up the Doctor's TARDIS

Roger Bunce: “The screening was fabulous. I could relate to almost all of it.”

Stephen Rogers: “I remember being one of the cameramen when the Queen opened the new digital Broadcasting House and they had to run an analogue mixing desk in because they couldn’t quite get the technology working. That’s how it’s true to life - it’s so common in organisations of the size of the ��̳.”

And a number of ��̳ Alumni members talked about how W1A is relevant to all large organisations:

Phil Glenister

Phil Glenister: “Siobhan from Perfect Curve PR is my favourite part of the whole programme. I recognise many of those characteristics.”

Allan Burr: “I like the characters in W1A. Having worked in broadcasting there are things that happen in the show which bring back memories - it’s like I’ve seen it all before!”

Shona Milton: “The characters are wonderful and it’s just so true to the ��̳ and other organisations that we know. I especially recognise the behaviour in meetings when everyone is trying to look like they’ve said something when really they haven’t said anything at all.”

Victor Glynn: “Hugh Bonneville is insanely brilliant, the whole thing is just fantastic, understated and so incredibly familiar. The writer (John Morton) was saying that if you work outside the ��̳ you’ll recognise it, and he’s right, it’s just the same.”

W1A writer John Morton and ��̳ Alumni Relations Manager Natasha Maclean

One of the scenes from episode one which particularly stands out for me is when Will’s pass doesn’t work at the doors into New Broadcasting House. This is a situation I personally struggled with during my first few weeks at the ��̳ - my pass would not let me into any of the buildings and when it did it took me just as long to master the appropriate timing of swiping your pass after the person before you, to avoid getting stuck in the doors.

I was reassured when Roger Bunce told me I was not alone in this struggle. “When Reception at TV Centre opened, they actually issued a booklet explaining how to get through a revolving door. The rotating bit was complete glass, there was no glazing bar so you couldn’t actually see the doors when they turned. And the timing was such that if you pressed the button and stepped forward at a normal pace you would walk edge-on into the door. You either had to press it, run and get into the first compartment or step back and get into the second compartment.”

Helen Mitchell is a ��̳ Communications trainee.

Episode three of W1A is broadcast on ��̳ Two on Thursday 7 May at 10pm.
All photographs of the ��̳ Alumni event courtesy of George Gimber

So that's all good: W1A preview for ��̳ Alumni

2015-04-23T14:43:00+00:00

On Tuesday (21 April) 220 members of the ��̳ Alumni were treated to a preview of the first episode of the second series of W1A, the ��̳ based sitcom written by John Morton, which will air this evening on ��̳ Two. Alumni member and former ��̳ producer Gordon Lamont reviews the evening's entertainment.

W1A is hilarious, stuffed full of eccentric characters with their stock phrases, their specialised ‘in the know’ jargon and their loose grip on reality. The show named after the postcode isn’t bad either…

It was a treat to be back at the Radio Theatre for this sneak peek of the new series and especially to have the whole thing introduced by writer and director John Morton. He revealed that one of the most common questions he’s asked is about how much is improvised. The answer: none. Just like Morecambe and Wise who ‘just thought of it’, or in the case of W1A, ‘just grasping for the thought’ or ‘speaking before I think’ dialogue is all scripted.

John paid tribute to a brilliant cast who spend hours getting those conference scenes just right. Take after take they hone the interjections, looks of bewilderment and moments of insane invention until it’s so perfect it looks like no effort at all; apart that is, from the effort of Head of Values Ian Fletcher (Hugh Bonneville) to convince himself to keep swimming through the mud. In the edit, John would sometimes have to get out rather than watch his team go through it all again and again. There’s art and then there’s art that hides itself behind a desire to bring us joy. W1A is collaborative art at its humble best.

What did I make of the show itself? First, it was brilliant to watch with an audience, especially this ‘in the know’ audience. The laughter and applause were testament to the enduring appeal of the series but to my mind there was something new as well, an inventive ratcheting up of the farcical elements. There’s a mad dash through BH old and new, all against the ticking clock of a VIP arrival and technological meltdown. At one point Ian Fletcher and colleagues ran through the very Radio Theatre we were sitting in and the laughter became joyous. The new series more than sustains the premise and promise of the old, revealing that the ��̳ of W1A is unashamedly Marxist in the Harpo, Chico and Groucho mould with a rich mix of verbal and visual humour.

As ever, one of the great things about any ��̳ Alumni event is the opportunity to see old friends and colleagues and meet new people. There’s something even better about doing it at the ��̳ which, like Hogwarts, has its own reality. It’s like the rest of the world, but tilted sideways by a degree or two. As soon as my wife and I were through the door I spotted our old friend Jo. ‘Dahling…’ I shouted across the space. Not my usual language at all. I didn’t need to catch my wife’s eye to imagine what she was thinking. W1A was in the air already…

Before the show I got chatting to the couple sitting next to me. It turned out that he and I were in the same division (or was it a ‘petal’ in those Greg Dyke days?). He started a year after I left. His partner’s father worked in radio so that was another bond as that’s where I started. As we chatted she asked me when I’d retired and I rather balked at the question. ‘I’m not’, I retorted quoting freelance jobs for Discovery and writing for ��̳ Schools.

I’m happy to be an alumnus, but retired? Never! I think that’s the thing about all these Alumni events and newsletters: once you’ve been to Hogwarts you can’t shake off the spell.

Gordon Lamont is a former ��̳ Producer and ��̳ Alumni member.

The second series of W1A begins tonight at 9pm on ��̳ Two.
Read more from members of the ��̳ Alumni.

Recalling Rwanda

2015-03-27T15:56:00+00:00

Former Today producer Geoff Adams-Spink recalls life-changing events in Rwanda in 1994 and the role it led to five years later.

How had I come to this? Lying in a ditch in the sweaty, tropical heat staring at the red mud-stained soles of Andy Kershaw’s shoes? It was a question I would ask myself repeatedly in the next few hours.

It was May 1994. I had just begun an attachment as a producer on the Today programme. My frequent scanning of the foreign pages of the papers and of the wires told me that we were missing a story. Nelson Mandela was about to be inaugurated as the first black president of South Africa. In the UK, the Major government was in meltdown as the Cabinet fought fratricidal battles over the UK’s future in Europe. John Smith had just died and a four way race was underway to replace him as Labour leader.

I had been alerted to the bloody volatility of the Great Lakes region during my spell looking after From Our Own Correspondent – one of the best jobs in radio. Burundi had seen its own share of bloodletting in 1993 but in 1994 events in Rwanda put Burundi’s troubles into the shade.

I told Today’s editor, Roger Mosey, that a huge crime against humanity was taking place and that we needed to report it properly. To his credit, Roger listened and readily accepted my suggestion that Kershaw would be the ideal person to explain the crisis to a Radio 4 audience.

“You can go, but report the crisis from the periphery, look at refugees in Burundi, Tanzania, Zaire and Uganda. Stay out of Rwanda and, for God’s sake be careful.”

Over evening drinks in the Burundian capital, Bujumbura, the lure of Rwanda had proved too strong: we had met a group of Rwandan political activists who had offered us a meeting across the border with the RPF rebels. I okayed it with London and we made a hazardous journey in a hired 4x4 to rendez-vous with an active unit.

They showed us empty villages, one in which several bodies had been put down a well. Andy described the scene and I lowered a microphone into the hole to capture thousands of flies busy at their work. The smell was enough to make us want to part company with our breakfast. We were shown a church into which dozens of civilians had been herded and then hand grenades thrown inside. We were en route to see a vantage point overlooking the capital, Kigali, from which the RPF were shelling the murderous government forces who still had hold of Rwanda's principal city.

We had stopped to take some photos at a bridge beneath which flowed a muddy river and along which – every 20 seconds or so – a fresh corpse floated past. Our little convoy had just resumed its journey when the vehicle, two ahead of us in the line, hit a landmine and flipped over. Much scratching of heads, much shouting between the RPF soldiers. Andy and I sat in the back of our 4x4 and started to identify clips to be used in a package. Suddenly, there was an almighty flash: the vehicle in front had inched forward and hit another landmine. Debris rained down upon our car and then the shooting started from the other side of a deep valley.

Andy and I decamped in great haste and lay in the ditch – the only safe cover from the machine gun bullets that were fizzing through the vegetation. We decided – in consultation with our platoon leader, Captain Innocent Kabandana - that the only safe exit was on foot. When I asked if we couldn’t just turn back he just laughed and said, “they are already behind us – that would mean certain death for all of us.”

We walked 11 km in the advancing gloom through villages that reeked of death. The boy soldiers in front and behind us cocked their weapons frequently as any twig snapping or tree branch creaking set everyone on edge. By the end of our hike it was completely dark.

Kershaw has documented the episode in his usual earthy prose in his splendid autobiography, No Off Switch. If we hadn’t lived to tell the tale you wouldn’t be reading this article now.

Rwanda stayed with me, haunted my dreams, made my mood irascible. During one Today morning meeting I all but let fly at a colleague who had become so fatigued with the events in Rwanda that she pronounced the story ‘boring’.

Fast forward five years, and my then wife, Caroline, rang me on her way into the ��̳ – one of the most positive things about my time on Today had been meeting her. She had been reading Ariel and told me of a job opportunity that almost had my name written on it. World Service Training was looking for a project director to run media training and capacity building in Rwanda – part of the British government’s post-genocide assistance programme. The ideal candidate needed knowledge of the Great Lakes region, experience as a project manager and trainer and fluency in French or Kinyarwanda. I imagine that the candidate list was fairly small. Unsurprisingly given my CV, I landed the job.

For me, revisiting the country in peace time, playing some small part in helping the country to get back on its feet, assisting with the long and painful process of reconciliation, was necessary closure. Probably against her better judgement, Caroline agreed to move to Kigali with me, we found a rambling house opposite the army chief of staff’s residence and I set to work.

We spent two extremely rewarding years boosting the confidence of local journalists and attempting – often unsuccessfully – to encourage managers at the state broadcaster, ORINFOR, to embrace a brighter, public service broadcasting future. We were almost constantly ill with gastric infections of one sort or another. In the end, our kindly, London-based gastroenterologist told us that we would never shake off what he termed ‘tropical sprue’ and that we had better tell the ��̳ that we needed to come home.

Many friends promised to pay us a visit in Rwanda – only Andy was as good as his word. One sunny afternoon we piled into my Toyota Rav4 and retraced our steps. We identified the exact location of the ambush and pressed on over the bridge to the church in Nyamata.

Andy had come equipped with a small video camera which he turned upon himself and said:

“I’m bloody glad to be alive, and happy to be here with you again my little friend.”

The life-affirming feeling was enhanced by the happy children who ran to keep pace with the Toyota and the busy villages along the route where life had unbelievably managed to return to something resembling normality.

Geoff Adams-Spink is an independent disability equality consultant and former producer of the Today programme.

Read more from Geoff, who is currently writing his autobiography, on his blog.

Getting in to ��̳ Coventry and Warwickshire Radio

2015-02-26T11:00:00+00:00

Students visit ��̳ Coventry and Warwickshire Radio

Claire Simmons was a newspaper journalist when she joined ��̳ Coventry and Warwickshire Radio in 1989. The team were given five months off air to train before going 'live' in January 1990. Claire left the ��̳ in 1998 and now works in the media department at Coventry University, helping students become the next generation of journalists.

A member of ��̳ Alumni, in this post shares her experience of working at ��̳ CWR and considers how professional life will be different her journalism students.

What goes around, comes around they say, and I've had two reasons to reflect on this recently. The first came with a talk I was giving to journalism students at Coventry University about potential mishaps when working in radio.

I found myself saying what had once been said to me by a ��̳ trainer, 'check your sound levels before you leave the location'. And it doesn't matter how many times it's said, someone always gets back to base to find there's nothing on their recorder.

Twenty-five years ago, that someone was me. As I congratulated myself on getting back to the office just in time to get a clip on the midday bully, I found I had forgotten to put some tape in that old stalwart of engineering, the Uher.

My interview had been with the (then) North Warwickshire MP, Francis Maude, who let me return and re-do the interview after I pleaded that there was 'something wrong' with the recorder.

Tsk, technology, eh? Always breaking down and embarrassing people… and now I hear students using the same excuses that I did. Different technology for sure, but the same old tall stories.

Our students now pop their lap books and FlashMics into their handbags or man bags and send the stuff back using wifi with time to spare for a fancy coffee in their smart student café. It’s all so sophisticated, yet nothing much has changed in the basics of how people interact.

Which brings me onto my second reflection in recent days, which came from a 25-year reunion with former ��̳ colleagues who looked and sounded so exactly the same, I could have been convinced I was in some weird time warp.

There ought to be a collective noun for people who work in radio (answers on a… um… tweet?) because there we all were, making sound waves in the centre of Coventry to celebrate a quarter of a century since the opening of the ��̳'s 39th local radio station, CWR - now ��̳ Coventry and Warwickshire Radio.

Trying not to get too nostalgic now (because I'm really not that old), it was fantastic to see so many familiar faces and while some had retired, many are still in the broadcast industry, including a fair few who have stayed with the ��̳. I'd name names, but then they might want to kill me.

And we all agreed, particularly after a few drinks, that ��̳ CWR was a grand place to work and how lucky we were to be the last station to have the luxury of being trained up for several months before going on air. Back then, 20 of us had a whole week at ��̳ training in London. These days, there are training modules you can do on the ��̳'s intranet produced by the ��̳ Academy.

The managing editor back then was a ��̳ hardy perennial, Mike Marsh. He could be irascible but he was always fair, carrying a strong sense of justice like an overcoat. If you did the Christmas Day rota, you got New Year's Day off.

His mantra was that everyone had a voice and could put forward news stories and programme ideas. It didn't matter who you were, you were expected to integrate and do your bit. We all lived locally and we all chipped in.

Since then, ��̳ CWR has seen quite a few changes in faces and also moved buildings three times. Its present position sits on the site of one of the old Ribbon factories which used to create a large part of the city's wealth from the 1700s until the middle of the 19th century.

The new ��̳ CWR building is a glass-covered affair where passers-by can peek into the studios to see presenters live on air. Attached to the studios is the main production area, laid out much like the one we worked in all those years ago half a mile up the road. Some things, including a tried and tested production office layout, are universal.

Chatting to one colleague at the reunion who now produces trails, among other things, at Broadcasting House, we reminisced about the youth programme, PDQ, which was made up of student volunteers who were willing to produce a programme, for free, in the graveyard hours. While it was all done on a wing and a prayer - Mike Marsh used to proudly tell us how the students could make an hour's worth of programming for only 25 quid - the reward of giving those young people a try-out paid off handsomely for the ��̳. Many of those bright young things are now slightly older bright things who still produce for Auntie. And experience is priceless, isn't it?

Coming full circle, I now help students from our city campus get work experience with ��̳ Coventry and Warwickshire radio. The students can't just turn up and sweet talk their way in anymore. They have to apply using a centralised web system now because competition for placements is fierce.

The students who are successful in getting work experience at ��̳ CWR may get to use different kit to the stuff we had (chinagraph, anyone?) and they may also have split-screen editing facilities at their fingertips, but yes - what goes around, comes around - and I just know that at some stage someone in the newsroom will take them to one side and remind them to check their sound levels before they leave the location!

Claire Simmons is an academic at Coventry University, formerly part of the team at ��̳ Coventry and Warwickshire Radio

About the ������̳ Feed

History is written by the victors: The inspiration behind Viceroy's House

Save your memories of the ������̳

Funny that: The highs and lows of comedy production

Sir Terry Wogan Remembered

From Albert Square to real life warfare

The ������̳ News website says I’ve ‘retired’ – so it must be true!

Retired ������̳ Books PR man turns tables to become thriller author

My path via the ������̳ to Stelios Award for Disabled Entrepreneurs 2015

From the ������̳ to Berlin