• Last time we told how Val Parnell brought modern quick-fire variety to the London Palladium for the first time and then, after the war, started a season of international variety . . .

FIRST American to top the bill under the new regime at the London Palladium was Mickey Rooney. But Mr Rooney failed to please either the public or the critics. Yet, if he had heeded “The Guv’nor’s” advice the story might have been very different.

At the Monday morning run through, showman Val sat in the empty stalls and watched Rooney run through his act. He crammed in everything—singing, dancing, playing drums and a few impressions.

“You’re doing too much”, Val Parnell told him. “Your act lacks cohesion. It’s too scrappy, much better to slow it down”.

But the star from Hollywood thought he knew better . . .

Another American artist who didn’t do too well was the comedian Jack Carson. His opening night was hardly a success. This was largely due to his insistence on including comedy material which Mr Parnell told him would have little appeal to London audiences. Afterwards he changed it and had a much better reception.

CHARLES HENRY’S PUSH

After congratulating Danny the Marquis said he thought his cousins would also like to see the show. Danny, not realising who they were, said “Sure, bring them along”.

And they came, too — Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret. They brought their parents along as well — the King and Queen. Val Parnell was there to welcome them, the first time a reigning monarch had ever been to an ordinary music-hall performance and the first time Royalty had sat in the stalls with the paying public.

But Val Parnell not only brought vaudeville back to London, but according to Jack Benny he did the same for New York too.

Writing about Val Parnell in “The Hollywood Reporter”, Mr Benny has pointed out that the fabulous success of the variety seasons at the London Palladium were also responsible for the reopening of the Palace Theatre, New York, as a vaudeville house with Judy Garland topping the bill and Max Bygraves in support.

MAX’S CHANCE

Judy Garland was the most nervous star. She was so frightened on her opening night that Charles Henry, Val Parnell’s production manager who still assists him in our “Sunday Night at the London Palladium” series, had to push her on the stage from the wings.

Another nervous performer — Danny Kaye.

“A great worrier beforehand”, says Mr Parnell, “and until he got started, a bundle of nerves. But from that moment on he was terrific”.

Danny Kaye was Val Parnell’s biggest success. He followed Mickey Rooney into the London Palladium in the summer of 1948 and certainly did more than any other performer to establish the London Palladium as the great Mecca of international vaudeville.

On the second night of his opening, Vai Parnell took the Marquis of Milford Haven back stage to meet the American star. The theatre had been packed and the Marquis had seen the show standing at the back of the circle.

It was “V.P.” who gave Max his first big chance too, putting him into the Palladium to deputise for Ted Ray. And he found Ted Ray at the Palace, Luton, giving him a free pass for the Palladium so that he could watch other performers, improve his style.

Peggy Mount came down from Wolverhampton Rep. to audition for the role of the witch in a Palladium pantomine. She was so good that Vai Parnell gave her the job on the spot—after the dress rehearsal increased her salary. It was her first West End part.

LAS VEGAS

The fame of the Palladium bills even reached Las Vegas. The year before ITV started “The Guv’nor” took a party of British performers for a six weeks season at the Desert Inn. They were billed as “Palladium Varieties” and offered a typical London Palladium show — slick and fast moving with twelve acts on the bill.

On opening night, the manager of the Desert Inn took Mr Parnell aside.

“You’ve too many acts, you’ll run overtime” he told him.

“How much do you bet?” Val Parnell replied.

“I bet you 200 bucks [$2,300 in today’s money, allowing for inflation – Ed] you don’t get through the show under ninety minutes”, said the manager.

WITH A SMILE

The two men shook hands and when Val’s “Palladium Varieties” closed in seventy-five minutes the American paid up with a smile. He didn’t want his customers kept away too long from those gaming tables.

This, then, is something of the show business background to ATV’s Val Parnell.

In the world of British entertainment, his position is unique.

And it was only natural that when Lew Grade — then a variety agent — foresaw the possibilities of commercial television he should seek the help of the man for whom he had supplied so many of the star acts for the London Palladium and the Moss circuit.

“Val” he told him over the phone “You’re in commercial television”.

“But — what’s all this Lew?” asked Val.

“Don’t argue” said Lew “Leslie (his brother) and I are forming a company to apply for a TV licence … and we want you in with us”.

Val Parnell asked for more details — and agreed. But a few minutes later he was back on the phone … to Lew.

“Lew, there’s a snag in this” he told him “I’ve an exclusive contract with Moss Empires and I’ll have to get an okay from that Board”.

This was obtained and it followed that when Moss Empires finally entered the commercial television field in 1953 through its shareholding in ATV, Val Parnell was put on the TV Board. A few months later he was asked by the Board to take over the managing directorship of the company with Lew Grade as his deputy. Things remained this way until last year when he resigned as Managing Director.

But, as he has already indicated, Val Parnell will still be with us … as executive producer of his “Sunday Night at the London Palladium” series and he also retains his seat on ATV’s Board.

Writing in the Daily Mirror at the time his resignation was announced, Clifford Davis called Mr Parnell “The Last of the Great Showmen”.

I can’t think of a better description … or a finer tribute.

The post The Val Parnell Story: When Judy Garland had to be pushed on… appeared first on THIS IS ATV NETWORK from Transdiffusion.

Last time we described how Val Parnell rose from 5s-a-week office boy to become General Manager of the vast Moss Empires theatrical concern.

Since then, right up to the time he joined ATV as full time Managing Director five years ago, he booked every act for the Palladium and he built up Moss Empires into the world’s biggest chain of live theatres controlling not only the Palladium but 30 other theatres and music halls.

At that time, the Palladium was a cinema — and losing money. Parnell persuaded his board to let him bring his Birmingham policy to the London Palladium.

At the start, it was far from easy. Parnell’s biggest competitor was the Stoll circuit. As well as his provincial theatres. Sir Oswald Stoll [his granddaughter, Yvonne, works in ATV’s Press Office] also ran the London Coliseum and the Alhambra in Leicester Square (the latter site is now filled by the Odeon).

Sir Oswald presented the cream of the international variety talent available. And again he operated barring clauses to prevent Parnell from booking their acts.

TO SMASH STOLL

Parnell set out to smash the Stoll circuit’s grip on the West End music-hall – and he did. He found his own acts and whenever a Stoll artist was available he booked him for Moss Empires.

Gradually the Palladium bills began to outshine those of the Coliseum and Alhambra. Acts that Stoll booked to top the Coliseum bill on their own appeared at the Palladium in support of other performers.

Parnell used the same techniques he had used at Birmingham. He booked many more acts per programme. And the performers had to cut their material, streamline their routines. In most cases Parnell did it for them.

The West End was offered modern, quick fire variety at the London Palladium for the first time. And you could get a reserved scat in the back of the ground floor for only 2/6 [12½p in decimal, about £7 in today’s money, allowing for inflation – Ed] and up in the top balcony a reserved numbered seat for 1/- [5p in decimal, about £3 in today’s money, allowing for inflation – Ed].

He found new stars too. Older music-hall patrons will remember Billy Bennett. “The Guv’nor”, as Parnell was called, gave him his bill matter of “Almost A Gentleman”. He also wrote some of his songs. He found and brought to stardom Layton and Johnstone; Sid Field and Max Miller and many more.

NO HOLIDAY

And the same judgment which was in later years to launch Bruce Forsyth and Norman Vaughan also brought the Crazy Gang into being. This was in 1931 and “V.P.”, busy booking weekly variety bills, found he hadn’t time for a holiday.

So he had the idea of putting a show into the Palladium which could run for more than one week — to enable him to get away to the seaside.

The first Crazy Show featured Nervo and Knox, Naughton and Gold and a husband and wife comedy team Billy Caryll and Hilda Mundy.

Parnell had some trouble persuading Nervo and Knox to appear with Naughton and Gold – there had been a row between them over “stealing” material. At the Monday morning band call the trouble flared up again and Parnell had to go down to the theatre to make peace between them.

Parnell gave the comics a free hand to get laughs. They were joined by the comedy juggler Eddie Gray (Parnell also gave him his “Monsewer” title) and later Flanagan and Allen were added to the team.

FLANAGAN & ALLEN

Parnell brought Bud Flanagan and Chesney Allen as unknown comics to the Holborn Empire where they were an immediate and sensational hit—he later added them to the Crazy Gang and Bud Flanagan (Allen having retired) stayed with the Gang until its recent break up.

One of Parnell’s first Palladium revues after the war was “High Time” with Tessie O’Shea. Jewell and Warris and Nat Jackley.

Tessie O’Shea made her entrance on an elephant but at a matinee performance she was thrown into the orchestra pit. This put Tessie out of the revue for three months — an accident which never would have happened if its trainer had realised the elephant was 12 months pregnant. Six months later she gave birth.

After “High Time”, Val Parnell put in another revue “Here There and Everywhere”. In between he ran five week’s variety — George Formby topping one bill; Laurel and Hardy the other.

JERRY ALLEN’S START

He also turned his attention to the Prince of Wales Theatre — presenting Sid Field in a revue there. This was “Piccadilly Hayride” and it gave a whole crowd of talented newcomers their first West End break—among them Terry-Thomas, Derek Roy and swing organist Jerry Allen, now resident with his trio in our Midlands “Lunch Box” series.

He altered the Hippodrome, so that it could present a floor show type of entertainment “Starlight Roof”.

The stars of “Starlight Roof” were Vic Oliver, Pat Kirkwood and Fred Emney. Among many unknowns, three people were auditioned by him to whom he gave their first Chance in this show. They were Michael Bentine. Jean Carson and Julie Andrews, who was then 12. Bentine offered a comedy act with a chair back and a rubber plunger; Jean Carson played a cigarette girl and was understudy for Pat Kirkwood. Julie Andrews sang a soprano solo. The show ran for two years.

With three shows running in the West End. Val Parnell began to plan future policy. It was then he decided to build the London Palladium into the world’s No. 1 vaudeville theatre.

STAR HUNT

To succeed, however, he needed stars — big top of the bill attractions. In January 1946, he flew to New York on his first international star hunt.

But not only stars, he brought back a whole list of good supporting acts — reasoning he had to offer the public something special if he wanted them to pay 14/6 [72½p in decimal, about £22.50 today] for a stalls seat. This is why big time, international variety came to the Palladium under Parnell’s management.

The list of stars who came to appear for him still reads like an international Who’s Who of Show Business… Danny Kaye; Lena Home; Johnny Ray; Bob Hope; Jack Benny; Kay Starr; Guy Mitchell; Dorothy Lamour; Duke Ellington; Grade Fields; Ella Fitzgerald; Edgar Bergen; Martha Raye; Phil Harris; Jean Sablon; Danny Thomas; Betty Hutton; Frank Sinatra; Eddie Fisher; Judy Garland; Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis; Sch-nozzle Durante; Sophie Tucker; Howard Keel; The Andrew Sisters; Tony Martin; Allan Jones; Jo Stafford; Nat “King” Cole; Benny Goodman…

They were all given the star treatment — dressing rooms were redecorated, modernised and the current headliner had his or her name outside the famous No. 1 dressing room — on a brass plate with the date of appearance. The plates were unscrewed — mounted on polished wood and given to them as a souvenir at the end of their engagement.

He booked Katherine Dunham’s Dancers for the Prince of Wales Theatre. One girl in the show also had a small solo spot in which she sang a number. Her name? One of this year’s Royal Variety Show performers — Eartha Kitt.

NEXT TIME: Mickey Rooney’s flop . . . when Charles Henry had to push on Judy Garland . . . Peggy Mount’s début . . . how Max Bygraves got his chance.

The post The Val Parnell Story: Crazy, Gang Crazy! appeared first on THIS IS ATV NETWORK from Transdiffusion.

VAL PARNELL gives up his post as our Managing Director this month and will be succeeded by Mr Lew Grade, his Deputy.

He has had a remarkable career — rising from a 5/- a week office boy to holding Managing Directorships of two of Britain’s biggest entertainment organisations — Moss Empires and then ATV.

He built up Moss Empires into the world’s biggest theatre circuit — at one time controlling 30 theatres and music halls.

He has brought the public — first in theatres and then on television — the world’s greatest entertainers. Many of them were unknown performers till “V.P.” gave them their first chance.

He came into commercial television at the start. In 1957 he took over as full time Managing Director of ATV and turned our £1,500,000 losses into a profit.

He will still continue his association with the Company — as Executive Producer of “Sunday Night at the London Palladium” and as a Director of ATV.

But now, for the first time in 57 years, “V.P.” will no longer arrive in a theatrical or television office in the morning for the start of a day’s work …

VAL PARNELL was born into show business.

His father was Fred Russell, a famous top of the bill entertainer and the pioneer of ventriloquism as it is known today.

Fred Russell was the first “vent” to face an audience with a single dummy. Till then, ventriloquists worked with as many as a dozen dolls. Arthur Worsley, Peter Brough and all the others have followed in his footsteps.

REVOLUTIONISED

Years later, it was his son who revolutionised the British Music Hall by streamlining running orders, cutting artistes’ time on the stage and presenting, for the first time. “High Speed Variety” as we know it today.

Val Parnell, born on St Valentine’s Day, was two years old when his father gave up the editorship of the Hackney Gazette to become a full time entertainer with his Pearly King dummy “Coster Joe”.

He had been given a tryout at the Palace Theatre — for £10 [about £1,100 in today’s money, allowing for inflation – Ed]. He did so well he stayed 20 months.

At that time, Victorian England was rocked with a sensational divorce case involving an Irish politician named Parnell and Kitty O’Shea, a married woman. To avoid confusion, Thomas Frederick Parnell became Fred Russell.

For the next 40 years Fred Russell was a star. He was a contemporary of Marie Lloyd, Little Tich, Charles Chaplin—all the great entertainers in the lush golden hey-day of British music-hall.

But conditions were very different to those today. Artistes had little or no protection. There was no standard contract between managements and performers. Fred Russell saw the need for variety performers to organise themselves.

With the help of a few fellow performers he organised a trade union — the Variety Artistes’ Federation. And Fred Russell became its first chairman.

BRIEF STRIKE

Managements, however, didn’t take too kindly to the idea. And although, after a brief strike, the music-hall performers won the right to negotiate conditions of employment and obtained a standard contract which, with modifications, is still in use today, Fred Russell found himself ostracised.

For four years he was unable to secure any worthwhile bookings in this country. So, instead, he embarked on World tours visiting America, Australia, Canada, South Africa and other countries — anywhere where they spoke English.

The postscript to this, of course, is that earlier this year his son found himself in dispute with the same union his father founded. But, fortunately for all, the disagreement was short lived.

Fred Russell died in 1957 — aged 95. And there is a bronze bust to “Variety’s First Gentleman” in the foyer of the London Palladium.

TOY THEATRES

With this background, it is no surprise that his son’s first playthings were toy theatres.

At 13, Val Parnell ran away from boarding school in Margate, to enter show business. But he never thought of himself as a performer. It was the managerial side that attracted him.

His first job — as a 5/- [25p in decimal, about £26 now] a week office boy with Sir Walter de Frece, husband of Vesta Tilley, who ran a theatrical company and a few small theatres. At night, he went to Pitman’s to learn shorthand.

When he was 15, he added 12/6d [62½p in decimal, about £64 now] to his 7/6d [37½p in decimal, about £38 now] a week wages by going from his day time office job to sell tickets at night at the box office at the Metropole Theatre, Camberwell.

BOOKING ACTS

A couple of years later he was booking acts for four small provincial theatres.

The end of 1914 saw Parnell in the army and he served overseas until 1919 when he returned to England to resume his employment with Sir Walter de Frece.

When de Frece sold out to the Charles Gulliver circuit, Val Parnell became booking manager for 10 of Gulliver’s provincial theatres — one of these was the newly opened Birmingham Hippodrome.

Here, Val Parnell found himself in opposition to two Moss Theatres in the same town. Both were regarded as No. 1 dates.

The stars naturally preferred working for the well established Moss circuit. And, just to make things more difficult, all Moss contracts had a barring clause against appearances at Birmingham Hippodrome.

Parnell, finding he couldn’t get headline attractions, decided on a new policy. For a start, he booked many more acts per bill. He cut their time, streamlined their routines. And at Birmingham Hippodrome, modern fast moving variety was born.

In 1928, the Gulliver circuit was sold to The General Theatre Corporation and Val Parnell took over the booking of the whole chain of theatres, including the London Palladium. In 1931 the newly formed General Theatre Corporation took over the management of The Moss Empire Chain of Theatres and Val Parnell became General Manager and in complete charge of the booking of all artistes and attractions.

NEXT TIME: His battle with Sir Oswald Stoll . . . The start of the Crazy Gang . . . When Tessie O’Shea fell off an elephant . . . How Jerry Allen of “Lunch Box’’ got his start.

The post The Val Parnell Story: They called his father ‘Variety’s first gentleman…’ appeared first on THIS IS ATV NETWORK from Transdiffusion.

AGAINST the name of Geoffrey Hodgson in the records of the Dorset Regiment it is stated that on a memorable occasion in 1944 he “worked steadily and imperturbably”, a phrase which applies well today to his administration of the Studio Centre at Elstree.

The phrase was part of the tribute paid in an official citation recording the award of the Military Cross to Captain Hodgson, Platoon Commander.

Geoffrey Hodgson’s battalion was being heavily shelled in a wood near the Siegfried Line. It was his job to get anti-tank guns into position.

The citation records that “Capt. Hodgson worked steadily and imperturbably, despite numerous air-bursts, for over four hours, without thought of taking cover. Had it not been for the magnificent work and splendid example of this officer, the battalion might well have had to withstand a counter-attack by enemy tanks without anti-tank guns”.

Geoffrey was wounded a week later and sent back to Brussels — the place where he first met the young Belgian lady who was to become his wife in 1948.

When the war ended Geoffrey, demobilised with the rank of Major, rejoined his old firm, Unilever, and went out to Sierra Leone to work for the United Africa Company.

His first married home was a wooden house on stilts in a remote jungle station called Segbwema. This name is now inscribed on a strip of mahogany which hangs in front of Mr and Mrs Hodgson’s home at St Albans.

The only European neighbours for the Hodgsons were five Methodist missionaries.

Chimpanzees played in the garden, leopards prowled close by. And the Hodgsons lived happily in their house on stilts, breeding ducks, entertaining many travellers who called on their way through the jungle, and operating a real trading outpost of the Empire.

Their first child, Priscilla, was born while they were there. Now there are Alan, 8, and four-year-old Martin.

The Hodgsons spent 12 years in West Africa. They returned to Britain in 1959 and Geoffrey joined ATV.

He worked first in Mr Max Gumpel’s department and held a watching brief on the development of the new Studio Centre of which he is now the administrator.

The post First home was on stilts appeared first on THIS IS ATV NETWORK from Transdiffusion.

Keith Rogers, ATV’s Operations Controller has had a varied background.

In his teens he was a wireless operator on board a Fleet Reserve oil tanker during the first World War. Bom in London, Mr Rogers attended Mill Hill School. When he left school the exciting new world of wireless, just opening up, beckoned him.

In 1917 he joined the Marconi Company as a wireless operator. “Sometimes now, after all those years, if I happen to hear a snatch of Morse code on the radio I automatically translate it,” he says.

After two years at sea, Mr Rogers continued working for the Marconi Company until 1922.

Mr Rogers was with a radio technical journal until 1935 when he started to write freelance articles on scientific subjects for Fleet Street.

“I was aware of developments in television quite early,” he says. “I had written articles about Baird and I had been carrying out experiments on the reception of television on cathode ray tubes with the Edison Swan Company.”

When war came in 1939, he was commissioned in the R.A.F. and was concerned in the installation of radar in Britain. It was then that he first met Mr. Philip Dorté, now ATV Midlands Controller.

After the war he rejoined the Marconi Company, in their television and radar department. He supervised radar installations in Denmark.

Then, by chance, he met Philip Dorté again. “Why not join the BBC as an outside broadcasts producer?” he suggested. Mr Rogers took his advice.

“I enjoyed the work tremendously. Television outside broadcasts are a form of reporting and I had done plenty of journalistic work in the past.

“During my last few years with the BBC, as Senior OB Producer, I was responsible for organising the Royal broadcasts.”

When ATV started in 1956, he was one of the first to join the Company. His job then was head of the Outside Broadcasts Department. After a few months he was asked to take charge of Operations.

This was a challenge, for commercial television on the British pattern had not been tried anywhere else in the world.

Mr Rogers helped to thrash out networking details with the other contractors to establish the practice necessary for networking to function efficiently.

“I thrive on a sense of urgency,” says Mr Rogers. “We feel this strongly in Operations because we are always working against the clock.”

Mr Rogers’ department is responsible for the cohesion of everything transmitted by ATV.

That includes the transmission of live and recorded programmes, preparation and transmission of films, the insertion of commercials, announcements, weather forecasts, station identification and promotion of forthcoming programmes.

Everything is timed to the second by clocks synchronised with TIM.

Although his job leaves little time for hobbies, Mr Rogers enjoys gardening at his Haywards Heath, Sussex home. He is married with one son, who is a doctor.

The post MORSE is engraved on his memory… appeared first on THIS IS ATV NETWORK from Transdiffusion.

PHYSICALLY, he is a big man, way above the six-foot limit.

You can see that he has Irish blood. And you can tell that there are two sides to his nature.

He gives the air of a man of great physical energy who would like to be expending his strength on such things as horses or boats.

And you can tell by looking into his eyes that he is not the kind of man to be easily swayed or persuaded. He is used to pondering the significance of any facts or statistics that may have been placed before him.

As it happens both readings of his character are right.

On the one hand, his favourite form of exercise is horse-riding — while he says the reason he is always broke is because he owns “a beautiful Bermudan ketch” in the South of France.

On the other hand – the more business-like side this — he charters the ketch, and apparently makes a profit!

This side of Pat Henry is the one in which we at ATV are clearly most interested — for it is his responsibility to ensure that we get our advertisement revenue.

As ATV takes about one-fifth of all the money — about £77 million [£1,500m in today’s money, allowing for inflation – Ed] gross in 1960 — spent on ITV, it is obvious that Patrick Henry’s activities, and those of his Department, are of more than academic importance to the rest of us.

“On a straightforward basis of the number of ITV homes in our two areas, the number of hours we transmit, and the success of our programming,” Pat Henry says, “it is fairly simple to calculate the share of the ITV cake we ought to get.

“Our job in Sales is first to advise and cherish that ‘share’; second, to try to get a bit more; and third, to play a leading part in enlarging the whole ITV ‘cake’.”

At a recent meeting of the Regent Advertising Club, of which he is a Patron, he was asked how he selected his salesmen.

He put enthusiasm for selling plus a clear mind as the first priorities — with a knowledge of TV and advertising next.

When Pat Henry left school, he gave up the idea of going to university in favour of joining a whaling ship which hunted its quarry in the frozen southern oceans.

“A spell at a tough job is good for a young man”, he says.

After a short term in advertising, he served in the Army, rising from private to captain.

After the war, he became a documentary film producer, then advertising scriptwriter, manager of several film departments and, eventually, advertisement manager of ‘Woman’ magazine until he joined ATV in April 1955 as Sales Director.

Pat Henry’s manner is easy and frank, his conversation friendly — and he has a good sense of humour.

Because he tends to be a bit of a stickler for insisting that his men and women salesmen

create a good impression in and out of business hours, he himself tries to set the example.

“If you conduct yourself properly after office hours, the chances are you’ll do the same while working”, he says.

“My Department is essentially a team, and that team must always give clients a good impression — otherwise it will never be able to command that respect without which no salesman’s story will ever be accepted”.

The post The man with the big job appeared first on THIS IS ATV NETWORK from Transdiffusion.

BILL WARD is a name that’s direct, easy and straight-forward — a name that personifies ATV’s Production Chief.

And although he’ll answer any question about his favourite subject, television production, he doesn’t like to talk about himself.

“Television production is essentially the result of team work”, he tells you. “A man on his own is pretty unimportant”.

From his first job as a youth, working in the engineering department of the BBC in Plymouth, Bill Ward is now acknowledged one of the finest TV producers in the country. An energetic person, he’s known to most of ATV’s staff. A big, balding man this, with a commanding presence, he moves with surprising speed along office corridors and studio floors.

Pam Matthews who’s been his PA at Roxburghe House for two and a half years sums him up this way: “Mr Ward is a very easy-going boss”, she says. “He’s also very stimulating to work for. Perhaps the most distracting thing about him is his fantastic memory. He can recall memos he sent out before ATV really began. Then it’s my headache trying to track them down for him”.

Valerie Buries, now Harold Jameson’s secretary, has also worked for Bill Ward. Indeed, there’s a saying round ATV “If you can get past Bill Ward’s bodyguard, seeing Bill himself is no trouble”.

“It’s always easier working for someone with a sense of humour”, says Valerie. “When I handed over my job as Mr Ward’s secretary to Diedre Berry I wrote out a list of instructions. This list included some remarks about Mr Ward’s method of working. “Against one of these I added ‘This is how he dealt with this matter when I was working with him. I don’t know how he’ll be with you, but you’ll soon find out!’

“Soon after I heard a huge guffaw from Mr Ward’s office and he called me in.

“He told me he’d discovered my list. ‘So this is what you think of me, eh,’ he roared. ‘You’ll certainly have to go now!’

“But of course he was only joking. He thought the whole thing very funny.”

And now here’s Bill Ward’s own summing up of the stages which make a perfect producer.

“In charge of production for the first time, the new producer is terrified. He relies on the people who are with him to pull him through.

“The confident stage, when in fact he grows over confident. He thinks it’s all too easy and wonders why there’s all this nonsense about it being a difficult job. He starts to get technical. He suddenly discovers television is a visual medium and one night has his show full of cuts, montages and dissolves. He goes down to the pub afterwards expecting his colleagues to tell him how excellent the show was. They tell him, of course, that it was dreadful.

“Now he’s at the oversimplification period, the direct opposite of Stage Three.

“Finally, the detached outlook — when at last he’s able to stand away from the programme and consider it impersonally.”

A facsimile reprint of issue 1 of the ATV Newsheet is available as part of Transdiffusion’s “ITV70” print pack. On sale until 31 January 2025, for delivery in March. £20 inc p&p worldwide.

The post Bill Ward appeared first on THIS IS ATV NETWORK from Transdiffusion.

A REPORT of high merit has been received by the Company on a 19-year-old member of the staff, John Steppings, who took a month’s course at the famous Outward Bound Mountain School at Ullswater earlier this year.

John works as a clerk in the Property Department of Supply Manager, Leslie Harrison, at Elstree. He has been with the Company for three years, starting in the Mailing Department and then working for Accounts.

The month’s course was during some of the worst weather this year and for anyone to pass it with merit demanded a high standard of fitness, tenacity and strength of character.

GROUP LEADER

John was made a group-leader during the course in which 80 chosen youngsters took part.

Something of what was ahead of him became apparent for John when he arrived and was issued with an ice-axe! It came in very useful during the month as he had to climb to the top of Helvelin [sic: Helvellyn – Ed], the second highest mountain in England, which at the time was covered in snow.

John’s only previous experience of rock-climbing was on such minor rocks as can be found at Tunbridge Wells.

FIRST WEEK

The first week at the school was spent learning to climb, how to tie the right knots, first aid and map-reading. On the second week the young men went out with instructors, each carrying their own 40 lb [18kg] packs.

Weariness and blistered feet vied with their sense of achievement at the end of the days. During the third week each youngster went out on his own for 24 hours, with the summit of Helvelin as the target.

The fourth week saw John in charge of a group with 70 miles and two ranges of mountains to cover in three days.

“There was no molly-coddling.” says John. “The days began at 6.30 with a cold shower or a jump into the lake. But it was a wonderful experience. Every young man should go on a course like this. It really is worthwhile.”

John, whose home is at Edmonton is no “toughie” to look at. He scales about 9st [57kg] and is 5ft 5ins. [1.56m] in height. “It was the big tough looking ones who seemed to fall out first.” he recalls.

WISELY

He wisely went into training before the course, doing a spot of weight lifting and “walking 15 miles or so to get my boots easy”.

John’s hobby has nothing to do with physical training. He is a motor-cycle fan. Not a “ton-up” boy but a member of a club at Wood Green. He has won rally cups and shields, and he also won a medal as a boy footballer.

The post It’s tough getting to the top – of a mountain appeared first on THIS IS ATV NETWORK from Transdiffusion.

LIFE is full of “ups and downs” for liftman Arthur Hale these days, but before he came to ATV House he worked for 38 years on street-level — driving London buses.

Arthur holds 34 awards for safe driving, including the gold and silver stars of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents and their 15, 20 and 25 years’ brooches.

In his breast pocket he keeps what must be one of the oldest driving licences in existence. The year of issue — 1917.

He has driven buses in London for more than half a million miles and for many years he was a driver on the well-used No. 6 and 11 routes through Central London.

Driving London’s buses, particularly in recent years, is a job that makes big demands on nerves and skill.

Arthur’s philosophy for driving: “Keep your mind on your job. And never try to get your own back when another road user takes advantage of you”.

Arthur’s experiences of locomotion have not been confined to years behind the wheel of a bus. He was one of the pioneer members of the Royal Flying Corps and was flying in action on Zeppelin patrols when still in his teens.

As a youngster he was mad on the new science of aviation. Several times he tried to get into the air by joining a balloon school but without success until, at 18, he was accepted in the Royal Flying Corps.

At 18 he was in France with No. 12 Squadron, RFC. After an injury he was returned to England where he flew as an observer on a 120 horse-power FE2B — a plane that seemed mostly held up by bamboo sticks and will-power of the pilot and observer as they scouted the German Zeppelins.

They flew at 75 mph — a terrific speed in those days — without radio or any other contact with the ground.

It was a matter of following a course by map and compass and hoping you would see a railway station if you got lost.

Arthur still bears two scars on his face which are mementos of the occasion when his aircraft forced-landed in a farm field in Lincolnshire and pitched over in the ploughed furrows giving both pilot and observer a nasty shaking up.

The post Ex-airman Arthur plays it safe… appeared first on THIS IS ATV NETWORK from Transdiffusion.

BERNARD BLAKEMORE, 47, has joined our Midlands staff as Administrative Assistant to Mr Philip Dortd. He replaces Bob Morrison who has left to join his family business.

Mr Blakemore thus renews a wartime association with our Midlands Controller — a wartime Group Captain — under whom he served as a squadron leader employed on radar defences with 60 Group at Leighton Buzzard.

Our new Midlands executive is also an engineer. He has spent most of his life in the technical field of radio, electronics and television.

After serving his apprenticeship with Rediffusion Ltd. [aka Broadcast Relay Services, providers of wired radio services – Ed] he joined the BBC’s Engineering Department in 1937. Two years later, on the outbreak of war, he was one of four BBC technicians selected to work on radar development at the Air Ministry Research Establishment at Bawdsey, near Ipswich.

After his spell at Leighton Buzzard he spent some time at the Air Ministry and was then posted to Delhi as Wing Commander, Chief Radar Officer. On demobilisation, he returned to the BBC and was then appointed Deputy Station Director and Chief Engineer of Radio SEAC in Ceylon.

Here, he first made contact with the programme side of radio and the staff included a number of young men who have since made big reputations for themselves on both TV channels.

“Three of our announcers were McDonald Hobley, David Jacobs and Desmond Carrington of ‘Emergency – Ward 10′”, he told me, “Hobley and Carrington were army captains. David Jacobs was a chief petty officer in the navy”.

After a year in Ceylon, Mr Blakemore returned to England to look after family affairs and later took up an appointment as an executive engineer with the Lancashire Dynamo Electronics Products Ltd where he has been for the last four and a half years.

During this period, his firm sent him to Moscow for a month — “But I don’t think I’d like to work there” he says.

A former Wolverhampton councillor, he is now a member of Tettenhall, Staffs, council where he lives with his family of three daughters — Rosemary, 9, Felicity, 7, and Veronica, 5.

“I’ve always wanted to get back into the executive side of radio and television” he told me. “So, when the chance came to join ATV I was naturally very pleased”.

The post Ex-radar man takes over admin post appeared first on THIS IS ATV NETWORK from Transdiffusion.

THE man who is planning the Company’s participation in spanning the Atlantic in a split second this summer once took three months to cross from Liverpool to New York.

That was when LEN MATHEWS, M.Brit. I.R.E., Assistant Technical Controller (Commumcations and Outside Broadcasts), was in the Royal Navy aboard an armed merchant-cruiser dodging U-boats in a trans-Atlantic convoy.

Wartime service took Len all over the world setting up maintenance and development sections for radar and radio to be used by the Services.

His job was one of the “hush-hush” type — a Special Service appointment. The knowledge he had was considered to be of such importance that the Admiralty issued him and his colleagues — there were six of them chosen for the job — with “suicide pills” to be taken if captured by the enemy.

The nearest he came to being captured was when his ship was sunk by a Japanese aerial torpedo, but he was lucky enough to be rescued by a Dutch ship. Many of his shipmates were not so fortunate, being picked up by the Japanese and receiving brutal treatment when put ashore at Singapore.

Len went to India, Africa, Australia and America, and served a long period with the Far Eastern Fleet.

When the war ended he joined the BBC where he spent some time in charge of regional control rooms and was subsequently transferred to a group concerned with the expansion of the TV network.

He helped to establish the links between London, Manchester and Scotland and eventually obtained a special assignment that took him into all departments of BBC Television in order that he should gain experience of every facet of the operations.

At one time he attended a course on production, which he has always regarded as great benefit as it enabled him to see the producer’s point of view.

In July 1955 Len came over to ATV to build up a communications department before the company went on the air, and shortly afterwards he took over the OB Department.

LEADING EXPERT

He is now recognised as one of Europe’s leading experts in TV communications.

He planned the links between Moscow and London for the first ITV television exchange with the Soviet. At present his big job outside normal duties is dealing with the way in which trans-Atlantic TV will get to viewers’ screens not only in Britain but also in several Continental countries.

When the satellite TV experiment was announced ITN called on Len to explain to viewers in layman’s language what it was all about. He was also called in as adviser on their Colonel Glenn [John Herschel Glenn Jr (1921–2016), first American to orbit the Earth – Ed] coverage.

He is ATV’s representative on the British Space Development Company’s technical committee.

His paper on “Television Communications Using Earth Satellite Vehicles”, presented to the British Institute of Radio Engineers at Oxford last year, is regarded as one of the most important contributions to knowledge of communications to be made for many years.

A report of the National Association of Educational Broadcasts, submitted to the United States Administration, refers in detail to this paper, and the European Broadcasting Union recommends it to members as an essential authority on television communications.

It is in the family tradition of the family that a Mathews should be taking part in new developments in communication.

Len s grandfather worked on the design of the first-ever submarine cable and his father was a senior engineer at Siemens.

It seemed natural for Len, after attending Birmingham Technical College, to start a student apprenticeship in telecommunications.

Now 45, Len lives at Dartford, Kent. One of his sons, Paul, works in the Company’s Engineering Department at Elstree and the other, 15-year-old Anthony, is studying for his GCE.

SPARE TIME

In his spare time Len has done some painting and drawing. In his younger days he was quite an athlete combining running the mile with playing wing three-quarter at rugby, and also scoring considerable success in the boxing ring as a southpaw lightweight.

A spare-time task which Len considers of great importance nowadays is his work as the examiner for the Television Graduate Examination of the British Institute of Radio Engineers.

He sets the questions and marks the papers which means that most of the young men who will be concerned with the technical future of television in Britain will have gained something from the knowledge of our Len Mathews.

The post The man behind our Space plan appeared first on THIS IS ATV NETWORK from Transdiffusion.

IF 70-year-old Joe Riley wrote his life story he would call it “The Memoirs of a Royal Milkman” — and it would make fascinating reading.

For Joe, who now operates a lift at ATV House, served milk to the famous for more than 40 years and his customers included several members of the Royal Family, including the Queen herself when she lived at Clarence House.

Joe’s round was the most aristocratic in the world. He would start out in the morning around 5 a.m. with a delivery list that read like a page from Burke’s Peerage.

The Queen Mother and the Princesses; Queen Mary, The Princess Royal, the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester and the Duke of Connaught all drank Joe’s milk. Clarence House he remembers as being a particularly large order, sometimes amounting to as many as 36 quarts a day [72 pints – Ed].

Until the last five years of his service Joe went round with a milk-float pulled by a horse called Bill.

“He was a good old pal and well known to members of the Royal family” says Joe. “I could tell you some stories, but I regard what happened while I was on duty as being strictly confidential. After all, they don’t like royal servants writing about what they know after they have left the service. I feel in the same position.”

When he left the milk round the Princess Royal presented him personally with a wallet and the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester gave him an antique jug.

Joe’s cheerfulness, whatever the weather, was noticed by a number of members of the Royal Family and there were times when they stopped for a few minutes to talk to him.

Apart from his royal mementoes Joe has a prized possession at home — a Safety First Star presented to him by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents. It is an award for 42 years on his round without having an accident. This achievement is all the more creditable because of the fact that since birth Joe has had only one arm.

RECOGNITION

One day recently a well-known peer got into his lift at ATV House. “I seem to recognise you from somewhere” he said to Joe.

“Yes sir, I used to serve your mother with milk in Little College Street” replied Joe.

Last month Joe surprised his friends at ATV House by revealing that he was getting married. His bride is someone he has known for many years since the days when she sold programmes and acted as usherette at the old Empire Theatre, Leicester Square, in the days when it was owned by Sir Alfred Butt.

The post The life of Riley! appeared first on THIS IS ATV NETWORK from Transdiffusion.

LESLIE ABBOTT, Head of Contracts and Copyrights arrived at Gt Cumberland Place via a stockbroker’s office, Broadway and Tin Pan Alley.

For as many years as most people remember the name of Abbott has been associated with music publishing and when Leslie, dissatisfied with working in the City, joined the firm of Francis Day and Hunter he was following a family tradition.

After a year in Denmark Street he went to America to work for Irving Berlin, his main object being to gain experience, because in those days American songs were sweeping the world.

Leslie started song plugging. It meant working until three or four o’clock in the morning visiting the clubs and hotels where artistes were appearing making sure that the song he was plugging was on their minds — and lips. He was the only Englishman in the organization and had to take a good deal of ribbing. Paul Whiteman used to stop whatever his band was playing when Leslie arrived and start up with “Here Come the British”, a popular number at the time.

Show Friends

Back from America, Leslie joined Chappells and continued plugging songs, but with all the experience he had got from mastering the American method. When Radio Luxembourg opened up he joined the organization in charge of copyright.

The war started and into the RAF went Leslie and he was fortunate enough to be posted to Blackpool where he met up with many of his friends in show business.

He was in England a year and then went overseas to South Africa. At the end of the war he was the Adjutant at the Headquarters, RAF, S. Africa at Pretoria.

Demobbed, Leslie went straight back into music again rejoining his first firm Francis Day and Hunter in an administrative capacity. Eventually he became a director of the company but resigned in 1952 to become managing director of the Southern Music Company.

Three years later commercial television appeared on the horizon and he joined what was then ABDC [Associated Broadcasting Development Company – Ed], the forerunner of ATV, on April 4 1955 to look after contracts and copyright. Or at least that was what was written on his contract. Actually it turned out to be much more. In those early days everyone joined in setting up a TV organization that would work and he found himself hiring rehearsal rooms, reading scripts, negotiating with the Musicians’ Union and making arrangements with the Performing Rights Society in addition to a hundred and one other jobs. The Personnel Dept came under his wing for some time.

Lucky Escape

Those early days were interesting, absorbing and at times not without risk. He recalls the occasion when he was at Wood Green when the dressing room roof was being removed. As he walked through the stage door half a ton of concrete fell immediately behind him, missing him by inches. “You really shouldn’t have come through here” explained the foreman.

Leslie didn’t wait to explain that he very nearly didn’t.

Nowadays life is full of copyrights, contracts, and agreements and there is not much time for song. But Leslie Abbott still has a great affection for the world of music.

He believes that despite the near-monopolization of the “pop” world by the Americans, Britain has still a good deal to sing about. Our composers are far ahead of any in the world when it comes to writing light music of the type that gets played again and again for several years, as distinct from the “overnight” successes and failures in the Hit Parade.

His Favourites

At 50, Leslie Abbott can look back on a life full of music and entertainment. He is a friend of hundreds of stars. Married in 1938, he now has a 19-year-old son who is an assistant TV time buyer with a big company. His home is at Brookman’s Park.

Leslie has one passion in his spare time — motor racing, and he goes to most of the big meetings. Naturally, he likes to listen to music, and if asked to choose his favourite numbers he would probably plump for some of Gilbert and Sullivan’s works. He has one pet aversion — parodies of good music.

The post Life has been a song for Leslie! appeared first on THIS IS ATV NETWORK from Transdiffusion.

Bernard Bibby is one of the men who, on that memorable night of September 22, 1955 when ATV first went on the air, [jointly with Associated-Rediffusion; they began their own transmissions on Saturday 24 – Ed] kept his fingers crossed and hoped that the “string and sealing wax” improvisations would survive.

He had joined the company from the BBC in June, as deputy to Terence McNamara [sic – name given as Macnamara in his staff profile in an earlier edition], and had to tackle the tremendous task of getting things to work at Wood Green. In 10 weeks he and his colleagues did what it would have taken about 18 months to do back at the BBC.

“Everyone worked like blazes to get Wood Green equipped properly for the opening night’s show ‘Channel Nine’” he says. “The equipment arrived in bits and pieces. Sometimes it wasn’t addressed to us at all but we grabbed it. I doubt if any of us got more than three hours sleep a night in the week before the start of programmes”.

Now, having left engineering to become Production Facilities Controller with the Elstree, Foley Street, Highbury and Wood Green studios to deal with Mr Bibby usually gets a normal night’s rest. But there are still plenty of tough problems to be solved every week. At 37, he is responsible for everything that goes into the studios apart from the electronics.

Bernard Bibby has always been interested in making things work. As a boy in North West Lancashire he dabbled in radio sets, motor bikes, cine-projectors and anything electrical or mechanical.

Some time later Bernard turned his talent to motor bikes and in 1948 he was roaring around the famous Isle of Man circuit touching 115 miles an hour on his Norton as a competitor in the Junior Tourist Trophy Race.

Nowadays he finds time for more relaxing hobbies in his lovely home high on the Hog’s Back in Surrey. It is a converted stable block and a good deal of the conversion he is doing himself including the digging of a wine cellar, which has a certain amount of fame in ATV, not to mention popularity, and a swimming pool in the garden.

In the cellar he keeps more than 1,000 bottles of wine and just now he’s very pleased with some ’57 and ’59 burgundies and clarets which he bottled himself. They’ll be fully matured in about 10 years time, but, as visitors to Little Down know, there are plenty of other wines there which taste very good at present.

Bottling wine, keeping bees and playing the harpsichord are amongst the ways in which Bernard Bibby relaxes away from television. His interest in wine came when, in his own words, he “got fed up with drinking the beer served up by the pubs soon after the war”. His interest in the harpsichord came through a fascination with 16th and 17th century music. He has two — both Kirckmans.

Mr Bibby has spent all his working life in radio or television. He joined the BBC in 1948 to work in the Recording Department. He was in London, Manchester, Bristol and Bangor at various periods and met his wife in the BBC’s Recording section. When television re-started after the war Mr Bibby went to Alexandra Palace on “racks”.

Then came the move to Lime Grove where Mr Bibby became a Technical Operations Manager. He occupied this post until joining ATV at Regent House when the early staff were being recruited.

The post Bernard Bibby, wine bottler appeared first on THIS IS ATV NETWORK from Transdiffusion.

THE qualifications required to become a competent company secretary are precisely laid down in the textbooks. They do not include playing rugby, squash or sailing your own 14-foot International dinghy. No mention is made of studying engineering, stage managing musicals or digging up mines in the desert.

But this is the kind of experience that provides the background for 41-year-old JACK BARHAM to work with efficiency and skill as the secretary to Associated Television. Being a qualified chartered accountant can also come in useful, by the way.

In his job Mr Barham has to combine the precision of an expert on company practice with the enthusiasm of an adventurer in a new medium of entertainment.

Jack Barham’s functions range from recording the minutes of the board meetings to solving personal problems of members of the staff.

There are many times when he has to have both the skill of the chess player and the optimistic anticipation of the man with only one number to go for a fullhouse at Bingo.

One important factor that makes him well-liked throughout the company is that he always is very approachable.

Born at Woodbridge, Suffolk, the son of a local solicitor, Jackson Barham was studying engineering when the war came. He left London University for the Army to serve in the Royal Engineers.

In North Africa he found himself engaged in the delicate task of avoiding being blown up by mines and preventing the same thing happening to the advance troops of the First Army.

His field company cleaned-up vast stretches of desert territory prior to the push into Tunis, but one little stretch almost cleaned up Jack Barham.

A mine that exploded at the wrong time sent him back to Blighty on a stretcher.

When the war ended Mr Barham decided he would become an accountant. The fact that the firm to whom he was articled did a good deal of work in show business was probably the first signpost along the road that led him into television.

Qualified as an accountant, he joined the Stoll Theatre Group, but in order to gain practical experience he worked at first as a stage-manager.

Some time later he was appointed Personal Assistant to Mr Prince Littler who was to become the chairman of ATV.

Jack Barham came into ATV in January 1956.

At that time there were less than 100 ATV shareholders. Now there are more than 15,000, and a host of subsidiary companies scattered throughout the world which Mr Barham has helped to form.

With so much business to attend to he has little chance these days of taking part in the sports at which he showed so much promise in his younger days. Rugby and athletics are out, although he plays regularly squash and occasionally gets a chance of sailing.

But it’s pottering about the garden at his home in Purley that takes up most of his leisure time. He has a 15-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son, and a wife named Nora, who no doubt sometimes speculates on how much more ordered family life would have been if her loving husband had gone back to civil engineering after the war.

The post He does more than keep the books… appeared first on THIS IS ATV NETWORK from Transdiffusion.

OUR Administration Controller, 55-year-old LESLIE LEWIS, is the man who keeps the wheels turning for ATV.

“I suppose administration is something I have always liked. Probably because I’ve got a methodical sort of mind,” he says reflectively.

Mr Lewis was born in London and was educated at Highgate School. He left school early to study in Switzerland and is bilingual in French and English. He started his career in his family’s business of woollen merchants.

This gave him many opportunities to travel — to France, Belgium and Germany. But work was not the only thing that occupied him at that time. In 1926, he joined the Territorial Army and served in the Honourable Artillery Company until 1936.

Then he found a new leisure interest — motor racing at Brooklands. “I shared a succession of cars with a friend. We had an Alta, an M.G. Magnette and an E.R.A. [English Racing Automobiles – Ed] And we won some races,” he recalls.

But after a time another sport beckoned — “I decided to take up flying”. And it was while he was learning to fly at Hatfield that he met his future wife. Mr Lewis’s wife, Andrée, is French, and they were married in 1937.

In August 1939, he was recalled to his regiment and in February 1940, commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Welsh Regiment. After some time, when he had reached the rank of Major, he was seconded to a War Office experimental training scheme.

Then he was posted to the Middle East where he joined the Forces Broadcasting Service as administration officer. “We were just setting up the service then — starting it from scratch” he says.

When he came home he returned to the family business but on the death of his father in 1955, Mr Lewis joined ATV.

“It was pretty hectic in those early days” he says. “I was a jack-of-all-trades — I looked after personnel, insurance, the maintenance of our various buildings.

“I even worked the teleprinter and on occasions I serviced duplicating machines and moved furniture.

“Our most chaotic period was when we moved into Television House while it was still being adapted for our use. Nothing was working properly, no heating, no water and at times no lighting, except Tilley lamps and candles!”

His Philosophy

His philosophy about administration is simple: “The Administration Department of any large company should function as a team, with every member pulling his weight no matter how heavy or light. Unless everyone does his job, the internal organisation could very easily break down”.

He does not believe in an accumulation of charts and statistics for their own sake. He uses them only when they are functional. He describes the job of the Administration Department as “servicing all the other departments of the Company”.

He has never regretted joining ATV. “I enjoy working for this company,” he explains. “It’s exciting — I never know what I am going to cope with next.”

The post He keeps the wheels moving appeared first on THIS IS ATV NETWORK from Transdiffusion.

PHILIP DORTÉ, ATV’s Midlands Controller, was only 22 when he was offered a job by the General Electric Company of America to work on the development of radio at their Schenectady works in New York.

From Downside he had gone to Cambridge but finding no provision there for the study of electrical engineering he attended Faraday House instead.

After reading a paper on radio to students at the Institute of Electrical Engineers, the young Dorté was approached by a member of his audience.

“Would you like to work for us in New York?” asked the G.E.C. man [sic: American General Electric was known as G.E.; the unrelated British General Electric was G.E.C. – Ed]. The young radio engineer jumped at the chance.

At New York, however, his sense of humour at once got him into trouble.

“Do you suffer from moral turpitude?” asked the immigration official.

“I said ‘Yes'” recalls Mr. Dorté “and I spent the night on Ellis island. The next morning the G.E.C. people had to come and get me out”.

In America he worked on the development of both TV and talking pictures and when his company secured the contract to build Toronto’s first high powered radio station, Mr. Dorté was put in charge.

While in Canada, he had the idea of approaching the French Government to secure a concession for broadcasting commercial radio programmes to Britain.

The French agreed and Mr. Dorté formed Radio Publicity Ltd. — in opposition to Mr. John Reith, as he then was, and his British Broadcasting Company.

“I suppose, I must have been the first Englishman to see the possibilities of commercial radio” he recalls.

“These were sponsored programmes and we had plenty of advertisers too — Black Cat cigarettes; Revelation suitcases and Grosvenor House Hotel…”

Transmissions were beamed to London on long wave. Tom Ronald, BBC sound radio producer, was one of the announcers.

Soon after this, Captain Leonard Plugge obtained a similar concession to operate Radio Normandy — on medium wave.

“Captain Plugge suggested an amalgamation” says Mr. Dorté, “I was agreeable but the rest of the Board were against it. I resigned.”

From commercial radio, Mr. Dorté switched to talking pictures. Basil Dean was just starting Ealing Studios and with his knowledge gained in America, Mr. Dorté was put in charge of the sound recording side.

From Ealing he joined Michael Balcon at Gaumont British, working in the old Lime Grove studios, now used by the BBC.

“I went on location abroad for all the big British films of that time” he says “This kept me out of the country for months on end. My wife took a dim view of this.

“Then one day I met an old friend of mine, John Hytch at the BBC, He told me the BBC were just about to start a television service and why didn’t I join them?”

Mr. Dorté thus became the BBC’s first TV Head of Outside Broadcasts. And for the next few years everything he organised was a FIRST.

“The first O.B. was the Coronation of George VI and Queen Elizabeth in May 1936″ he says. “Then there was Wimbledon, the Boat Race, a show a week from the London Coliseum and both the 38 and 39 Derbies.”

In the Spring of 1939, Mr. Done joined the RAF Volunteer Reserve. It was while he was doing an O.B. from the London Zoo that his wife came round with his calling-up papers.

With his TV and engineering background, he was a natural for radar.

Demobilised with the rank of Group Captain, he was awarded the OBE (Military Division) for his services.

As BBC TV expanded, Mr. Dorté switched over to films, becoming Head of TV Films in 1949.

“It was a constant battle with the film industry” he recalls “I fought them all the time. Finally I told them that if they wouldn’t co-operate with us over the question of newsreel coverage, we would start our own.

“They roared with laughter. They reminded me that cinema newsreels were fast going out of business. They said I didn’t stand a chance.”

Events proved Mr. Dorté right. He even put out a better service than the cinemas — by providing the BBC with a different newsreel daily as against the twice a week offering in the cinemas. And he started a Children’s TV Newsreel too.

In 1954 he quit the BBC to join Mr. Norman Collins as a senior executive of the original Associated Broadcasting Development Company which later merged with Moss Empires and other interests to become ATV.

In the early days of ITV he was seconded to Independent Television News for a year, then — as he puts it — Val Parnell asked him if he’d start the Company’s Midlands Operation.

“I’m still starting it” he says.

The post He pioneered commercial radio appeared first on THIS IS ATV NETWORK from Transdiffusion.

TERENCE C. MACNAMARA, ATV’s Technical Controller, has worked in television and radio since the pioneer days.

He joined the BBC engineering department in 1923 and saw the building up of both the BBC sound and television services. Today he is in charge of ATV’s 179-strong engineering department.

At the age of 56, he has seen the growth of the industry since the earliest days. He proudly remembers showing Marconi around the BBC’s Savoy Hill studios in 1923 and Lord Rutherford around Alexandra Palace in 1936. He also worked with James Logie Baird [sic: John – Ed].

Baird, he remembers as “a lovable man of great vision — impractical, though, and with no idea of money.”

Mr Macnamara was responsible for the complete installation at Alexandra Palace after he moved to the television section of the BBC engineering design and installation department, of which he ultimately became head.

In 1951, he joined Norman Collins in High Definition Films Ltd., making electronic films with Pye Ltd. at Highbury. Mr Macnamara has chalked up some notable “firsts” during his career.

He was in charge of the first television outside broadcast ever carried out at the coronation of George VI, and also supervised the first TV outside broadcast of the Oxford and Cambridge boat race from a launch following the boats.

When ATV started there were only five months to get the service going.

“It was an enormous strain on the technical people. We worked all day and all night. The job was planned by about three people.

“Today we are using a similar team to plan the great new Elstree studio scheme”.

During the war Mr Macnamara worked for the BBC team used by the Air Ministry. Their job was radio counter-measures such as distorting German beacon signals to throw their aviators off course.

Mr Macnamara helped to deal with a German mystery voice that interrupted London programmes. The voice, which the technicians called “Funf” came from a transmitter on the continent. He and his colleagues had to devise a way of blotting out the German signals.

Looking to the future, Mr Macnamara says: “I’m a supporter of the introduction of the 625-line system. I’ve seen colour TV too, both in America and Russia, and we keep a close eye on developments in that direction.

“I believe young people with a bent for engineering should be encouraged to go in for the technical side. We started a trainee scheme straight away at ATV and nearly all the original trainees are now in posts of considerable responsibility.”

Mr Macnamara has been married for 33 years and lives with his wife, Kathleen in a “minute Regency terrace house in St John’s Wood.” But at weekends he goes to his country house in the village of Cadbury, Devonshire.

The post His first O.B. – a Coronation! appeared first on THIS IS ATV NETWORK from Transdiffusion.