PROSPEROThe newspaper for retired BBC Pension Scheme members • December 2019 • Issue 6

A NEW HOME FOR BBC PENSION AND BENEFITS CENTRE

PAGE 3

PENSION SCHEME

2

Mystery Sudoku

O RS C RG A L

E GO L S N E A

G O

S C LE A G

C L

Complete the grid so that every row, column and 3x3 box contains the letters ACEGLNORS in some order. One row or column contains a five or more letter word, title or name with a BBC connection. Solve the Sudoku to discover what it is and send your answer to: The Editor, Prospero, BBC Pension and Benefits Centre, Broadcasting House, Cardiff CF5 2YQ by Monday, 6 January 2020.

The winner gets a £10 voucher. Many thanks to Neil Somerville for providing this puzzle.

The Sudoku winner in October 2019 was Mr N Willmot. The answer was ‘Jo Brand’. The Crospero winner was Mrs S Tredwen; the song was ‘How are things in Glocca Morra’.

WIN£10

| RETIREMENT

AGEING WELL IN YOUR OWN HOMEIn October’s issue, we reported that a spokesperson from Care & Repair Wales had addressed the BBC Volunteer Visitors at their summer conference. The English equivalent of Care & Repair has provided the following article about their service and ideas to help you stay happy and healthy in your own home.

As we get older some of the simple, everyday tasks that we used to take for granted can become a challenge. Getting out of the bath or going up and down stairs can start to feel not only difficult but also dangerous, with the worry about falling, especially if we live alone.

So how do we know what to do to our homes to ‘future-proof’ them before a crisis, and where can we get advice and help with adaptations?

Living with a long-term health conditionConditions such as arthritis, eyesight loss (such as macular disease), respiratory problems and heart disease are common in older life. While medication can help us to manage these conditions, the symptoms (stiffness, reduced vision, breathlessness) can affect the way we manage at home.

Most of us like our home and want to live there for as long as possible. With a few changes we can help to make our homes good places to age, even if we have a long-term health problem or disability.

We can alter our homes to help us to live with these health changes – for example, by improving lighting and heating, installing handrails, replacing the bath with a level shower, or putting in a stairlift. Special equipment and new technology can also help and this is likely to become increasingly used to help us to stay safe at home as we age.

Planning aheadA group of older people, working with the charity Care & Repair England, have produced a series of self-help guides which explain the housing implications of particular health conditions. Each guide advises on what changes you can make to your current home to make living with the condition more manageable. They also describe possible alternative housing options and offer suggestions about where to find more detailed information, advice and help.

Adaptations and equipment information and adviceImpartial information and advice about equipment, assistive technology and adaptations is useful – even if you are paying for the equipment yourself.

The Disabled Living Foundation can help – visit their website at dlf.org.uk or call them on 0300 999 0004.

Many areas have a ‘Home Improvement Agency’ that can offer information, advice and help with organising home adaptations, whether you qualify for a grant or are paying for the work yourself.

To find out if there is one near you, visit findmyhia.org.uk or call 0300 124 0315.

Home adaptations financial help*• Small items of equipment where the cost

is less than £1,000 (such as toilet frames, walking frames, grab rails) should be provided free of charge where these are assessed as being necessary by health professionals (e.g. hospital staff) or Social Services. Phone your council or Age UK (0800 678 1602). gov.uk/apply-home-equipment-for-disabled

• Financial help with larger home adaptations, such as stairlifts, bath/shower alterations, should be available from your local council through a Disabled Facilities Grant, but in most areas this will depend on your income (but not the value of your property). An occupational therapist will usually visit to assess what adaptations you need and what the grant would pay for. Apply through your Social Services or see gov.uk/disabled-facilities-grants

*These apply to England but there are similar schemes in Scotland and Wales.

This article has been provided by independent housing charity, Care & Repair England.

As well as a general guide, there are six specific guides covering respiratory problems, macular disease, heart disease, dementia, stroke and arthritis.

Find out more at careandrepair-england.org.uk/planning-ahead-for-housing-in-later-life/

3PROSPERO DECEMBER 2019 |

BBC Pensions 3

Letters 4-5

Prospero is provided free of charge to retired Scheme members, or to their spouses and dependants.

Prospero provides a source of news on former colleagues, developments at the BBC and pension issues, plus classified adverts. It is available online at bbc.co.uk/mypension

To advertise in Prospero, please see page 12.

Please send your editorial contributions, or comments/feedback, to: Prospero, BBC Pension and Benefits Centre, Central Square, Cardiff CF10 1FT

Email: prospero@bbc.co.uk

Please make sure that any digital pictures you send are scanned at 300dpi. Please also note that the maximum word count for obituaries is 350 words.

PROSPERO

Odds & ends 12Full circle

London Lunch

Caption competition

Prospero December 2019

The next issue of Prospero will appear in February 2020. The copy deadline is Monday, 6 January 2020.

Contents

Back at the BBC 6-7BBC launches BritBox streaming service

50th anniversaries – Monty Python and A Question of Sport

Meeting David Attenborough

Ageing well in your own home 2

Obituaries 9-11

| BBC PENSIONS

Memories 8The Exmouth Term

BBC PENSIONS MOVES INTO CENTRAL SQUARE

Did you know?• Central Square’s net internal area is

14,454 square metres (that’s around 150,000 square feet)

• It is roughly half the size of the current Llandaff sites and less expensive to operate on a like-for-like basis

• Around 1,000 BBC staff will be based there when it’s fully operational

• An economic impact study published by BOP Consulting (April 2018) found that BBC Wales’ decision to relocate is expected to deliver a £1.1 billion economic boost to Wales, leading to the creation of 1,900 additional jobs over a ten-year period

• Central Square is the first BBC facility in the UK to use the Internet Protocol (IP) technology so comprehensively across both its production and broadcast operations.

The new address for correspondence is: BBC Pension and Benefits Centre, Central Square, Cardiff CF10 1FT.The move will see around 1,000 production and support staff relocate to the new building, with the final teams reaching Central Square in spring 2020.

Central Square is the first BBC centre in the UK to use Internet Protocol (IP) technology so widely across both its production and broadcast operations, future-proofing the facilities for years to come.

As well as the technology advances, Central Square is designed to be the BBC’s most open and accessible building – and the public will be invited into the centre for a range of tours, community and learning activities.

The centre will also be a base for S4C as well as the independent production sector – with meeting and production facilities available to key partners.

Opening upBBC Cymru Wales Director Rhodri Talfan Davies said: ‘Central Square is all about opening up. Broadcasting and media are changing before our eyes. And our audiences these days expect to ‘get up close and personal’.

‘We’ve designed this building to let the light in – not seal it off – and the fantastic location means that we’ll be more accessible.’

As part of the drive to ‘open up’, inclusion is a key part of the design of Central Square throughout. As well as opening up the ground floor to the public, the new building will be thoroughly accessible for people with a range of neurodivergent conditions.

Central Square has been awarded a BREEAM new construction rating of ‘outstanding’, the highest level of sustainability.

A number of features allowed it to meet this status, including 500 square metres of photovoltaic panels on the roof which will reduce the need for power from the grid, while underground rainwater-harvesting tanks are used to collect rainwater to flush the toilets.

Located next to Cardiff Central Railway Station, staff will be encouraged to choose sustainable transport methods as they travel to work.

Construction facts• There are around 250 miles of copper cable in the

building – this is about the distance between Cardiff and Bangor and back again, on the train

• There are around 52,600 metres of fibre cables in the building – that’s around 48 times the height of Snowdon

• 47,500 cubic metres of material was excavated from the site – this would fill 19 Olympic swimming pools

• The backup generators based in Central Square weigh 36 tonnes and could power 3,000 homes

• The rainwater harvesting tank holds 160,000 litres – that’s nearly 27,000 toilet flushes

• There is over 10,000 square metres of glazing and roofing panels in Central Square, enough to cover the entire pitch at the Principality Stadium

• There was 2,300 tonnes of steel fabricated and constructed for the base build – that’s the equivalent weight of around 190 double-decker buses.

BBC Wales’ move from Llandaff to the new broadcast centre at Central Square in Cardiff city centre began on 21 October.

| LETTERS

4

What 3 words There is a novel way of using GPS satellite coordinates to identify your position in a more user-friendly way than, for example, latitude and longitude or the Ordnance Survey National Grid Reference (NGR). Anywhere on the Earth’s surface (or sea) can be identified by three English-language words (other languages are available) with an accuracy of three metres.

In an emergency, or when using hands-free voice recognition, this is much more reliable than trying to list a string of numbers or strange place-names. There are 40,000 words used in the system, and there is no obvious structure to the allocation or choice of words.

This is great news for Mongolia – where there are few streets, fewer street numbers, and no postcodes.

Since the days of Lord Reith, and probably still in our Royal Charter, the BBC has had an obligation to inform, educate and entertain. If you use the what3words app on a smartphone, or enter https://what3words.com/inform.educate.entertain into an internet browser, you will find that this is the address of a three-metre square patch of Forest Ranch in the mountains north of Sacramento, California.

Perhaps the Corporation could arrange an appropriate permanent display at this site?

John Chambers

His Master’s VoiceI was rummaging in the attic and found the tin tray with the ancient advertisement featuring Nipper intrigued by ‘his master’s voice’ on the old Victor gramophone.

It struck a chord with me and I remembered a similar image. Some further rummaging uncovered a picture taken back in the eighties when our kitten Mimi joined us on the bed to listen to the Saturday morning repeat of Travel Time, a series that I produced and introduced on BBC Radio Scotland.

She definitely recognised my voice. I thought her to be a very bright creature at the time although later she developed the habit of taking a swipe at any seagulls that appeared on the TV screen.

Allan Rogers

BBC2 opening nightEdward Mirzoeff was not dreaming – there was indeed a kangaroo in the large scene lift servicing Studio E on the opening night of BBC2. I believe the Tonight programme had intended an item about the start of the second network.

I was the studio engineer that evening and it was my understanding the animal was herded, in the dark, back into the lift for its own safety and that of the studio staff supporting the programme. I think at least one individual was bruised by the kangeroo lashing out with one of its legs. Certainly the panelling of the lift showed indentations ever afterwards from further kicking.

Edward describes seeing the lift stuck between floors which likely negates, in part, what I have written. However, there certainly was a kangaroo stuck in a lift on the opening night of BBC2 in Lime Grove.

John Warner

EDDIE MIRZOEFF WONDERS whether anyone else remembers the night of the kangaroo in Lime Grove on 20 April 1964. I doubt if anyone who was there is likely to forget it, though my own recollection differs slightly from his.

By the time I arrived, the hapless animal was out of the lift and being held across the surrounding stairs by two keepers, from Whipsnade Zoo I think, who were doing their best to keep it calm. One held it by the neck and the other by the tail, while members of staff had no choice but to jump over this unexpected obstacle, as they rushed about in near darkness, trying to salvage what was left of BBC2’s opening night.

For those who may not have been around in those far-off days over half a century ago, the kangaroo was the brain child of Michael Peacock, the channel’s first Controller – BBC2 symbolically emerging from the pouch of BBC1.

I think it must have been a Monday evening because I was part of the Panorama production team that piled into several taxis, together with cans of film, tape recorders, and even a typewriter, for the short drive up to Alexandra Palace, which had not been affected by the power cut. BBC2 was launched from there – but without the kangaroo.

Christopher Ralling

Harry ChampionAfter two failed attempts by BBC Audience Services to answer a few questions about sound recordings (or even send a grammatically correct letter), I thought I might fare better from some Prospero readers.

I am researching music hall singer Harry Champion who, in the 1930s and 40s, did a number of radio broadcasts. The questions that the BBC couldn’t answer were (1) ‘Would these broadcasts all have been ‘live’?’ (2) When did the BBC start recording programmes? (3) Are any of Harry’s broadcasts still accessible?’

If anyone can help I would be most grateful.

Peter Charltonpeter.charlton@zen.co.uk

Dinky ToysReading Bill Rhodes’ letter in the October Prospero brought back some good and bad memories! The vehicles mentioned in his letter were MCRs13-16 inclusive, which were supplied by Marconi in the mid-1950s – with three installed cameras, 405 lines, and black and white, of course!

The first vehicle I saw (empty) was in Autumn 1954 in a garage in New Street, Chelmsford awaiting fitting-out in the nearby Marconi Works. As part of the planning for the start of BBC2, I was involved in converting them for 405/625 operation, with four installed cameras capable of operating with longer lengths of cable. Whether one of them subsequently became CMCR12 is beyond my knowledge.

A set of the Dinky models mentioned by Bill used to reside on a windowsill at Avenue House – to my regret I didn’t purchase a set – they are now presumably very valuable.

However, on the toy stall at a local school fete in the late seventies, I spotted a Roving Eye (RE2) from the set. It was looking very sorry for itself, having lost its roof camera, operator, Band V (!) array and its tyres! I hadn’t the heart to leave it there, so paid the stallholder his requested 1p and began a limited refurbishment programme.

I found a set of replacement tyres and scrounged a small quantity of the correct green paint from the Transport Department and set to work. The model now resides in the family archive, but if anyone can find the missing bits – or indeed the other vehicles – I should be pleased to hear from them!

In passing, I believe Hornby subsequently produced a similar set in the livery of ABC Television – but you can always repaint!

RG (Bob) Matthews

I HAVE MY small matchbox van which was given to everyone who worked on the Commonwealth Games Edinburgh 1986.

Mine has never been out of its box and is still in pristine condition.

Pieter Deuling

NationwideMany thanks for today’s Prospero. It’s a well-produced mag on quality paper.

One tiny gripe though.

On page 8, why is the photo of the Nationwide survivors so small? It’s hard, if not impossible, to see what the people in the photo above look like now.

I was on attachment to 24 Hours when Nationwide launched from the office next to ours, so was looking for Derrick Amoore in the upper photo. Dark glasses behind Bob Wellings and the woman I can’t identify? Others in the front row (l-r) Michael Barratt, Val Singleton (?) and at the end Richard Stilgoe. Behind them it’s hard to identify anyone for sure. And in the photos below, I can’t begin to guess any of them.

Graham WebbGraham, we understand your frustration. Unfortunately we weren’t able to source a high-res version of the photo in question in time for the print deadline, and technological gremlins mean we are still unable to do so!

5PROSPERO DECEMBER 2019 |

Evesham course 1959It is now exactly 60 years ago that this group of studio managers attended their technical course at Evesham.

Some were to become well known in their area of work in Radio, World Service, Television and Personnel.

They are from the back: Derek Mills, Robert McLeish, Joe Egbuson (Radio Nigeria), Alan Edmonds and Greville Havenhand.

Front: Rosemary Hart, Barbara Hawkins, Tony Slater (?), Monica Carbines, Ann Dalton and Auriol Blandy.

Robert McLeish

Additional noise filtering through to radio, tooOnce again the subject of music interference comes up in the October issue of Prospero. I agree with all that Paul Foxall, Colin Bradbury and Rodney Mantle write as I am sure so many other people do. Despite many complaints to the BBC about intrusive music and other noises the irritation becomes ever worse.

The aggravating noises are now getting added to the radio programmes. Almost every trail now on BBC Radio 4 has a rather senseless noise added to it which for me makes it impossible to understand the speech, hence rendering the trail utterly pointless!

Now I try a programme of interest both on radio and on TV. If it starts with a lot of added noises I simply turn it off and do something more rewarding with my precious time. I am not prepared to struggle when trying to follow dialogue to filter it from the added noises. I say ‘noises’ because a lot of the added material is not by any stretch of the imagination music. Even if it were music, the old cry that it helps to create an atmosphere simply does not wash. People have such different reactions to any sort of music. It is like trying to follow a conversation when at a noisy party. It is a struggle which becomes more difficult as one gets older.

I confess that I turned off the recent David Attenborough series on the planet simply because of the intrusive noises.

As for the huge development of ‘Accessible and Enhanced’ – is that not rather insane? A lot of money is spent in developing a system to remove noises which are deliberately added in the first place. Why not solve the problem by not adding the noises?

Much money has been spent in developing and building studios which are soundproof. Engineers work hard to remove all unwanted noises, hum and distortions from the audio system and then producers deliberately contaminate the output.

Worst of all is the phantom pianist who seems to creep into every studio and clank and hammer away on the keys in a random way producing the sort of noises that a toddler might make if allowed to get at a keyboard. It is utterly pointless stupidity and it even happens in documentary and scientific programmes.

When I was studying for my qualifications, had somebody started to hammer away on a piano during a lecture he or she would have been smartly evicted from the lecture room.

You have a programme on Radio 4 ‘More or Less’. It might be interesting to ask that programme to research the number of letters of complaint about music and irritation noises in comparison to the number of letters asking for more such aggravations!

If the BBC expects this old codger to pay for a TV licence next year so that I can be irritated, the BBC can think again!

Tom Peckham

WITH REFERENCE TO the current topic of sound problems on TV, and talk of gadgets for the home viewers to adjust their own levels, would it not be a simpler idea if the production team were to monitor the output during recording on an ordinary domestic system? They could then adjust the background noise and music balance, and, if necessary, the director could get the mumbling performers to sharpen up, so that the home viewer could appreciate the programme. Or is this too simplistic?

Brian Holloway

REGARDING THE ARTICLE in October’s Prospero about improving audio (for television) – why waste Research’s valuable time?

Why not use appropriately trained people to do the job properly in the first place?

And while I’m at it: Do we not use PPMs any more? Sound levels for news inserts, for example on Radio 2, are all over the place.

John Hawkins

I READ WITH interest the article about A&E Audio in this month’s Prospero. However, spending time and money on such a device is surely missing the point. As the letters in that edition (and many previous ones) show, the issue of music in TV programmes can be very annoying to viewers and yet their complaints have apparently been ignored for years. There is a simple solution. No music over natural sounds, such as waves, wind and wildlife – we want to experience them pure, with no background noise. No music over speech – we want to hear it clearly, otherwise what’s the point? And if music is necessary, make sure it’s acceptable and not the usual ‘plinky plonk’, to use Jimi Hendrix’s phrase.

Richard Walsh

Can you help?BBC local radio: Remembering the people, programmes and places of the 1970s, 80s and 90s

Radio Times has many photographs featuring BBC radio stations and their presenters, mainly shot for the local radio listings at the back of the magazine. Whilst these images have no commercial value, they could be a valuable resource for broadcasting enthusiasts and historians, but only if the materials can be scanned and the subjects identified and catalogued.

A pilot project in Scotland, run by a group of staff working in their own time, has resulted in thousands of images being scanned, with the files and catalogue now stored on our database for future use.

If there is anyone out there who worked in BBC local radio and enjoys image scanning or maybe just identifying people and places, please contact Ralph Montagu, Head of Heritage at the Radio Times to discuss the possibilities further.

Ralph can be emailed at Ralph.Montagu@radiotimes.com

Moonstrike anyone?An ex-RAF pilot friend has asked me if it is possible to access any recordings of the TV series from 1963 called Moonstrike. It featured the Lysander aircraft; as a child during the war he lived close to RAF Old Sarum, the home of the Lysander operations.

I checked online and apparently most of the recordings are lost or destroyed but some are still in existence. I wondered if any TV staff would know if they are available and how one would access them?

Diane Ward

If you can help, please email Diane at dianef.c@talktalk.net

6

| BACK AT THE BBC

BBC ENTERS PAID STREAMING MARKET WITH LAUNCH OF BRITBOXBritBox, a streaming service offering shows from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5, has launched in the UK.

I n an email to all staff on Thursday 7 November, director general Tony Hall announced the launch of BritBox – a new streaming service offering shows from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 (including Film4) and Channel 5. Channels 4 and 5 came on board after the BBC and ITV announced BritBox as a way to get into the paid streaming market.

In his email, Tony Hall described BritBox as ‘a new and different way of working – delivering a unique service which brings together all the public service broadcasters, in one place, to back British creativity and talent.

‘It’s something we’ve pushed for, with ITV, these last few years – and, having had a sneak preview, I think audiences are in for a real treat.

‘This completes a really significant period for the BBC. Alongside the ambitious plans we have for iPlayer, we now also have a commercial partnership that will grow investment in our industry and strengthen British TV still further.’

Downton Abbey, Gavin & Stacey, Wolf Hall, Love Island and Broadchurch are among the shows available.

The service will cost £5.99 per month and will mostly feature classic series, but will also include new shows, beginning with Lambs of God.

How does the price compare with other services?• BritBox: £5.99 per month for HD and

multi-screen viewing

• Netflix: £5.99 for basic package rising to £8.99 for a standard plan, including HD on two screens

• Amazon Prime: £5.99 on up to three screens simultaneously

• Now TV: £8.99 for entertainment pass, with optional extras - Cinema Pass (£11.99), Sports (£33.99), Kids (£3.99)

• YouTube Premium: £11.99

Dramas on the service at launch include Cracker, Prime Suspect, Brideshead Revisited and Ashes to Ashes, while comedies include Absolutely Fabulous, Extras, Blackadder and Fawlty Towers.

More than 600 classic episodes of Doctor Who – broadcast between 1963 and 1989 – will be available to stream for the first time by Christmas.

Shows and movies from Channel 4 and Film4’s back catalogue will be available in 2020, and original shows from Comedy Central UK will also feature.

Some of the biggest hits of recent years, such as Killing Eve, Peaky Blinders and Bodyguard, will not be available at first.

This is either because existing deals are in place with other streaming services, or because they are still on the broadcasters’ own catch-up platforms.

Shows are not expected to appear on BritBox until they have dropped off the BBC iPlayer, ITV Hub and All 4, which do not require paid subscriptions. The BBC was recently given permission to keep programmes on iPlayer for one year.

Some people have questioned why they were being asked to pay for television programmes they had already paid for via their TV licence. Tony Hall’s response was to compare Britbox with releasing a programme on DVD. ‘That was the BBC saying, there’s a secondary market – you pay for content after we’ve shown it,’ he said. ‘This is just a modern-day version of that, and an even better version of that, because it used to be infuriating when you’d seen a programme on the BBC and you couldn’t get hold of the DVD.’

Any money the Corporation makes will be put back into programme-making, he said. ‘I think this is wins all round for the licence fee payers.’

BritBox launched in the US two years ago and has a different catalogue of content, with 650,000 subscribers.

A Question of SportThe television quiz A Question of Sport first aired on 5 January 1970. The Radio Times promised ‘50 years of world sporting action on film, 50 of our greatest sporting stars – in the studio during the series’.

Presenter David Vine introduced team captains Henry Cooper and Cliff Morgan. Guest panellists on the first edition were George Best, Ray Illingworth, Lillian Board and Tom Finney.

The programme has only had three presenters over its long run. David Coleman replaced Vine in 1979 and Sue Barker became the current host in 1997. Many team captains have taken part including Ian Botham, Bill Beaumont, Emlyn Hughes, Brendan Foster, Willie Carson, Ally McCoist, Phil Tufnell and Matt Dawson. Guests have come from all areas of sport and included, in 1987, Princess Anne.

The format of the quiz has remained largely unchanged and generally starts and ends with the picture board round.

Another perennial favourite is the Mystery Guest round, where the panellists have to identify a sports personality from a film in which they are glimpsed doing something out of character, such as staring through binoculars or gardening.

A Question of Sport has survived, inspiring newcomers like they Think It’s All Over, and regularly provides specials for Sport Relief.

020 8752 6666BBC.CLUB@BBC.CO.UKBBC Club Broadcast Centre, BC2 B3, 201 Wood Lane, London W12 7TP

Can you help?Do you recognise this token? We’ve come across a medal/token inscribed with ‘BBC Club’, with a lion emblem holding a winged flaming torch (as pictured). We can find no information about it and we would like to hear whether anyone would know? If you are able to identify it, please email us at bbc.club@bbc.co.uk

Christmas Radio Times Club members can collect their Christmas and New Year double edition of the Radio Times from BBC Club W1 in Wogan (formerly Western) House from Thursday 12 December from 10am. We understand that copies may be available in shops and newsagents before this date but our delivery schedules differ. There will be a dedicated desk for collections every morning during this week to speed things up. Why not combine this with a morning coffee and mince pie or pastry?

LotteryBBC Club Extra is proud to announce the return of THE BIG ONE! Our £10,000 jackpot is back in December. This is in addition to the other £1,000 and 10 x £100 prizes. To join or increase your shares, call the Club on 020 8752 6666. Minimum entry is £5 per month.

EventsAll BBC Club retired members are invited once again to Christmas lunch on 7 December when the whole of Club W1 has been reserved until 5pm, giving our members the opportunity for some West End shopping, a relaxed lunch and afternoon in the Club with old friends and colleagues (and a chance to meet some new!) and perhaps a glance at the Christmas lights in Regent Street and Oxford Street on the way home! You MUST have pre-booked to attend this event. Please see the website or phone for details and to book.

The Club would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

7PROSPERO DECEMBER 2019 |

This man has been an inspiration to me since childhood. He created my enthusiasm for the outdoors, and my fascination with wildlife. He took me to otherworldly, mysterious and wonderful places through a TV screen, and taught me the intricacies of nature. He inspired me to study Zoology at the University of Manchester, and later for a Masters in Wildlife Filmmaking at the University of the West of England.

And with distant hopes of meeting him someday, exactly one year ago I joined the BBC Studio’s Natural History Unit in Bristol for my first job in TV. I came in as a Junior Researcher on his next series Seven Worlds One Planet, so I'm thrilled to be contributing to a series under his name.

MEETING DAVID ATTENBOROUGH BY TOM PARRY

Out of nowhereThen out of nowhere, at the launch of that series last month, I found myself in the amazingly fortunate position of meeting the man himself – Sir David Attenborough. The context was to film an episode for a new strand of original content, produced by LadBible, called The Gap. The premise is simple. Two people with a shared interest, background, or profession – but from completely different generations – have a conversation about the subject that unites them.

So here Sir David and I, as the oldest and youngest members of the Seven Worlds One Planet team, were going to have a chat about wildlife.

In the days building up to filming I was childishly giddy and excitable. When the big day arrived however, this transformed into pure nerves. The studio setup was very intimate – two chairs sat very close together either side of a tiny coffee table, upon which sat an imposing pile of question-bearing cards.

A month ago, if you’d asked me who I'd like to meet more than anyone in the world, I wouldn’t have needed a second to consider it.

Celebrating the Beatles of comedy 5 October 2019 marked the 50th anniversary of the ‘sick tripe’ that was Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

Given a late night slot (22.55pm to be precise), the programme was expected to be experimental, but not necessarily expected to last.

During the next half century, the Pythons created TV shows, films, books, records and live appearances that, it can be argued, changed the nature of comedy.

In honour of the series, which both delighted and shocked BBC audiences in equal measures, BBC History has created a dedicated website that looks at the ground-breaking series in more detail, and includes some rarely seen images that were taken by the BBC in 1969 to publicise the show.

The anniversary page is available at https://www.bbc.com/historyofthebbc/anniversaries/october/python50

How much do you know about Monty Python? Here are six quirky questions to tax your grey matter…

Which one of these was NOT considered as a title for Monty Python’s Flying Circus?

• Owl Stretching Time • Whither Canada? • The Toad Elevating Moment • Casper & Mandrilaftalen

The Pythons adored dressing up as old ladies with notable, peculiar, high-pitched voices. These characters appeared in many sketches, but what were they commonly known as?

• Ratbags • Pepperpots • Biddies • Squawkers

In the famous Dead Parrot sketch, what creature is offered to the unimpressed customer as a replacement for his deceased avian companion?

• Wombat • Halibut • Bee • Slug

The famous foot that squashes the opening credits with an audible raspberry was purloined by animator Terry Gilliam from which famous painting?

• Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time by Bronzino • The Wedding of the Virgin by Raphael • The Deposition from the Cross by Pontormo • The Garden of Gethsemane by Vasari

In The Mouse Problem, the telephone number of a mouse advocate was given out during the sketch, but which actual celebrity did the number belong to (and had to be edited out of subsequent repeats)?

• David Frost • Barry Cryer • Ronnie Barker • Cliff Michelmore

Python characters and sketches have given their name to innumerable things: fossils, landfill sites, asteroids, rock bands – but a ubiquitous computing term is named after a famous Python scene – what is it?

• Gumby • Spam • Pither • Biggles

Answers: Casper & Mandrilaftalen; Pepperpots; Slug; Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time by Bronzino; David Frost; Spam.

As I watched the crew set up, I began to feel a huge weight of responsibility. I was one of hundreds of people to have worked on the series, and I wanted to do them, and I suppose the generation I was representing in this conversation, proud.

Putting me at easeBut upon meeting David minutes later, these nerves vanished as instantly as they’d appeared. David is one of the warmest and friendliest people I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. He put me at ease instantly. No doubt he’s become an expert on meeting adoring fans reduced to a babbling mess, as I felt at the time! He shook my hand and said ‘good to meet you’, and we were off.

What followed is a bit of a blur. It took all my focus to stop my mind wandering – I wanted to soak up every second, but a tiny voice in the back of my head would regularly catch the rest of my brain drifting, going ‘wow, look, that’s David Attenborough over there…’ and shout back ‘he’s going to stop talking in a few seconds, and you better have something to say when he does, so listen!’

As the conversation went on, however, it become more and more natural, as we started to connect over what was clearly in both of us, a genuine passion for the nature. David’s enthusiasm is utterly infectious – and his wealth of knowledge staggering.

Advice for the next generationBut the most powerful part of the experience was our last few minutes together. I was given the question ‘what advice would you give to the next generation?’ David thought for a long while, then said simply ‘Care for the world.’

The impassioned speech that followed will stay with me forever. I was fortunate enough to be sat in front of him, but he wasn’t just talking to me – he was addressing a whole generation of young people, imploring them to right the wrongs of the generations before them.

The great man’s passion for the natural world, and sadness about what is happening to it, had never struck me more clearly. And so as he stood, shook my hand and said ‘Over to you’, I knew I’d leave that room understanding properly for the first time just what a responsibility we have to our planet.

| MEMORIES

A chance look one day 36 years ago by Brian Hawkins at the official announcements in The Daily Telegraph lead him to discover a fascinating piece of naval history, which became the subject of a documentary for Radio 4.

It’s not surprising that our attention has been drawn this year, on the bicentenary of her birth, to the long and interesting life of Queen Victoria. We have been told that her favourite residence was Osborne House on the Isle of Wight.

Designed and built by Prince Albert in collaboration with Thomas Cubitt in the style of an Italian Renaissance palazzo, with a commanding view across the Solent, Queen Victoria wrote: ‘It is impossible to imagine a more perfect spot.’

On a clear day she could see the masts and wisps of smoke from the funnels of the ships of her navy, moored off Spithead or leaving or entering Portsmouth Dockyard.

Just recently an edition of the Antiques Roadshow was recorded at Osborne in the beautiful and spacious gardens, with the house making an attractive backdrop. In the programme’s introduction, the viewer shared the delights of the house’s interior with presenter Fiona Bruce.

My introduction to Osborne goes back to 1983 when, quite by chance, I spotted an announcement in The Daily Telegraph, which caught my eye.

70 yearsA group of retired Royal Naval officers had recently celebrated, over lunch in a hotel in Salisbury, their 70th anniversary of joining the navy. I was intrigued to think of how old they must be and all the developments and changes they would have witnessed in our navy since 1913.

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THE EXMOUTH TERM

This would require a new college to accommodate the future intakes of cadets, who would be recruited at the younger age of 13, spending two years there before joining the existing Royal Naval College at Dartmouth.

Officer trainingThis was all part of a scheme to modernise what was then the world’s most powerful navy and to give those becoming naval officers a broader training in what was rapidly becoming a technological age. As a result, spearheaded by Lord (Jacky) Fisher, some 40 acres of the Osborne estate was devoted to the site of the new college. In complete contrast to the style and elegance of Osborne House, the college buildings were designed upon a bungalow system built in a prefabricated way with Uralite panels, the cavity walls packed with asbestos! Fisher, impatient as ever, hired an American contractor to meet his deadline to complete the college to accommodate 400 cadets.

On completion, greeting the cadets on their arrival when they assembled in the college gym was a large portrait of Nelson, below which were the words in brass letters: ‘There is Nothing the Navy Cannot Do’.

As well as basic education, seamanship and naval history, there was an introduction to engineering to prepare them for the navy of the future and, in keeping with public school tradition, there were two and a half hours of sport each afternoon. From early morning until ‘lights out’, the exacting timetable was announced by a series of bugle calls. The first of these and the most chilling was Reveille, ordering the cadets to leap out of their beds and jump into the cold plunges that were situated at the end of each of the dormitories.

College of kingsThe Royal Naval College Osborne remained operational until 1921. Over 18 years nearly 4,000 cadets were educated there, including two future kings (Edward 8th and George 6th) and Mountbatten, the last Viceroy to India. Being nearly 100 years since its closure, it is not surprising that former cadets are an extinct species. However, I was fortunate to meet a number of retired naval officers, mentioned at the celebratory lunch I’d read about, who’d joined Osborne in 1913.

I persuaded them to contribute to a documentary programme for Radio 4 entitled ‘The Exmouth Term’. This was the name of the term that those veteran officers had joined 70 years ago (all terms being named after famous naval figures from history).

The Royal Naval College Osborne remained operational until 1921.

The cadets who’d passed the examination and selection interviews that were held in London to join Osborne met on the South Railway jetty in Portsmouth, on a sunny, blustery afternoon in May 1913, prior to crossing the Solent to Osborne pier. Their numbers included Prince Louis of Battenberg and the grandson of WG Grace.

In our interviews, they recalled their time at Osborne in a lucid and clear way as if it were yesterday. Their recollections were bittersweet. Former Cadet French remembered the delights of fresh rolls with generous helpings of butter for breakfast, whereas Cadet Drake remembered the beating he received for being late on parade. He’d been delayed repairing a broken bootlace. He recalled that there was always a Cadet Captain or Petty Officer with a cane to chase the cadets up. For giggling in bed after lights out Prince Louis was rapped over the knuckles with a steel ruler so hard it took a week for the mark to disappear.

Churchill’s visitVivid memories came to mind of the occasion when Winston Churchill, at the time First Lord of the Admiralty, came to inspect the college. Prior to his departure he addressed the assembled cadets. On the conclusion of his address he asked if there were any complaints. A hushed silence reigned over the 400 or so cadets. Then Prince Louis asked if they could have three sardines for breakfast instead of two. Suppressed giggles followed, after which Churchill replied that when he got back to the Admiralty he would see what could be done about it.

The summer of 1914 saw a review at Spithead of the ships of the Royal Navy. An exciting time for cadets of the Exmouth Term who had the chance of joining certain vessels of the assembled fleets off Spithead. Overwhelmed by their size and the variety and number of vessels awaiting to be reviewed by the King, the cadets had the experience of what life was like in some of the

capital ships of the day. But all too soon the vessels were called to their war stations and the cadets returned to Osborne as war had been declared.

Off to warThe mobilisation meant that many of the younger officer instructors at Osborne were drafted to ships, replaced by older officers and civilians as the college settled down into its war routine. Soon the cadets of Osborne would begin to realise the harsh realities of war when they heard the news of the sinking within an hour or so of three elderly Royal Navy vessels in the North Sea by one German U-boat. Many were drowned, including those cadets serving in them fresh out of Dartmouth who’d only recently left Osborne. Some of those had been the Cadet Captains who’d disciplined the Exmouth Term.

Of the 80 or so 13-year-old boys who joined the Royal Navy in May 1913 making up the Exmouth Term, one became Admiral of the Fleet, four became Rear Admirals, 15 retired as Captains and 29 as Commanders.

Bonds of friendshipThey served in a variety of vessels, some in both world wars, and specialised in the skills that helped to develop and make our modern navy. Osborne College had played its part. The plans of Selborne and Fisher had paid off. All had witnessed dramatic changes during an era which saw the ending of a great empire, the like of which had not been seen since the days of the Romans. But what came across to me from researching and compiling the radio programme ‘The Exmouth Term of 1913’ was the spirit of friendship that survived between many of the term members who had known each other for over 70 years.

The Exmouth Term, was produced in Bristol by John Knight, narrated by Tom Salmon and first broadcast on 3 January 1984.

From my initial research I discovered they’d joined the Royal Naval College Osborne on the Isle of Wight in 1913. Long since gone, the college was operational from 1903 to 1921. The college’s location came about because, after Queen Victoria’s death in 1901, King Edward 7th decided to give to the nation the residence of Osborne House, which his mother had loved so much.

By coincidence in 1902 Lord Selborne, then First Lord of the Admiralty, issued a memorandum which was to revise the way future Royal Naval officers were to be recruited and trained, in particular giving a greater status to those who were to become engineer officers.

9PROSPERO DECEMBER 2019 |

| OBITUARIES

Jack HollinsheadI had the privilege of working with Jack for over a decade at the BBC in Manchester, making radio programmes together.

Jack started his career in the BBC at the age of 14 as an ‘FX boy’, looking after the library of effects disks on 78s.

He was there eight years after the start of broadcasting in Manchester, when the medium-wave transmitting aerial was at Portland Street, and broadcast under the call sign 2ZY.

In 1939, although not required to sign up for the war effort, he did do, and spent a large amount of the time in Aden as a wireless operator and mechanic in the RAF.

After the war Jack returned to BBC Manchester to continue his career. He was responsible for an expanding FX library, and later mixing drama and general programmes in the studios in old Broadcasting House.

Jack was the longest serving engineer and the oldest pensioner that we know of. At the age of 100 he could still remember the ancient valve amplifiers the BBC had in its studios, and even the valves used.

I really got to know Jack when we were sent to Leeds to work on one of Trevor Hill’s dramas – he never made a crisis out of a drama, and at work he just never had a crisis.

His kind, laidback approach to life was reflected in all his work – he was simply adored by all of those who worked with him for his kindness and humility, and he never said an unkind word about anyone.

What singled Jack apart from others was his care for his junior staff, including myself, Ken Gregory and many others. One of my colleagues, who was desperately house searching, found that he was suddenly given a day off to do this. Jack came in on a day off to cover his commitments, without pay.

Jack was an inspiration to us all, a true gentleman, and his many friends at the BBC in Manchester share the loss of this very special person.

Ian Reed

Documentary Features organiser/managerBrian Elliott died at Hillingdon Hospital on 5 July from prostate cancer. He remained alert and indicated when he wanted no more treatment.

Brian, a Liverpudlian, joined the BBC as an accountant but is best and widely remembered as the organiser/manager of General Features and then Documentary Features from the seventies till the nineties.

This was a large department of talented, ambitious and often difficult producers. Thank goodness for Brian. These years witnessed stormy times: a major bust up between staff and the departmental head, Desmond Wilcox, culminating in Wilcox’s sacking; later came a BBC strike when the BBC Governors intervened to halt transmission of Real Lives: At the Edge of the Union. Through these and other rows Brian was a rock to staff and management alike.

He was a calm and wily administrator, and a wise and kindly handler of people. In the best spirit of the civil service he would ask, ‘Are you sure?’. Even better, ‘I think we can tuck this away in Work In Progress.’

Brian was rarely seen without a suit and tie, but was not formal or stuffy. A very private man, shy in manner, a listener but with a gleam of mischief in the eye.

He loved books, music and opera – and on these subjects would happily chat through many a lunch in the canteen. He was a regular at the Festival Hall and Covent Garden.

Colleagues sent tributes from around the world.

‘He believed in being kind, especially to the less privileged – clerical staff, PAs, the unwell.’

‘In a department of battling egos Brian’s office was a sanctuary. He was always peaceful, supportive and honest.’

‘His values and personality reflected so much that was good about the BBC in those days.’

‘A gentle, wonderful man of a bygone time.’

‘He shielded people from trouble; rejoiced in their triumphs, consoled them in their failures.’

‘Wisdom and common sense in his advice and, if necessary instruction. A wonderful example of the BBC at its best.’

There were many more such memories. The word most often included was ‘kind’.

Will Wyatt

Reginald John Poulter Born in Kingston, Surrey, the

only child of Samuel and Alice Poulter, Reginald Poulter was evacuated to Birmingham at the outbreak of World War Two, where, as a teenager he was briefly employed as a motor

mechanic before joining the Post Office as a trainee electrical engineer.

Returning to Kingston in 1946, at 18 he was called up for National Service, joining the Royal Corps of Signals as a radio mechanic, also meeting future Porridge director Sydney Lotterby at Catterick.

After demob he rejoined Post Office Telecommunications as an engineer, meeting his future wife, Joan, at Elmbridge Telephone Exchange in Surrey. They married in August 1953 and had three children, Martin (1959), Carol (1960) and Simon (1967).

In 1954 Reg applied for a job at the BBC and joined the Television Camera Department on 1 November. He rose through the ranks as a camera operator and then senior camera operator, retiring in 1989 as a studio technical coordinator.

During his 35-year BBC career, Reg worked on everything from sitcoms to ballet, with EastEnders, Doctor Who, Last Of The Summer Wine, ‘Allo, ‘Allo, Hi-Di-Hi and Only Fools And Horses amongst his many credits.

Reg passed away six weeks after his 90th birthday and just a week before what would have been his 66th wedding anniversary with Joan. In recent years he’d been coping with Alzheimer’s Disease and prostate cancer, and in August 2018 moved into a Kingston care home, where he was looked after by a wonderful team of nurses and carers, right up until his passing.

He will be greatly missed, especially for his gentle sense of humour, love of comedy and also for the playful sense of fun he expressed with the children in his life.

Simon Poulter

Radio Leeds stalwart and BBC visitorThe sudden loss of Nigel Fell, at the age of 68, was a shock to former Radio Leeds colleagues, who regarded him as a special member of their ‘family’. He was the one who kept everyone else in touch, enabling a small band of ‘originals’ to gather for a 50th anniversary celebration last year.

Nigel had a large network of former colleagues and friends but only two surviving family members – a half-sister, living abroad, and an aunt, for whom he was full-time carer.

Nigel’s passion for radio was sparked by his father, who was a BBC studio manager in London. As a young boy he rigged up an OB by stringing wires across garden hedges to link up with friends.

Hospital Radio in Dewsbury and stints as a DJ on Pirate Radio City followed, paving his way to Radio Leeds in 1968 as a volunteer. He was there for 30 years, taking time out to work in Leicester, Belfast and Manchester, and on an Israeli offshore station, The Voice of Peace, which he loved.

Whilst there, a wish to revive his pirate pseudonym of John Martin was thwarted because a Geoff Martin was already on the ship. Mischievously, he took the name of John Reith instead.

Nigel was a ‘live wire’, effective trade union negotiator and compassionate pensioner visitor. He always considered others before himself, never owned much and cared nothing for possessions. To simulate his sharp intellect, he acquired a philosophy degree from the Open University. To protect himself after an unfortunate mugging, he took up Thai Boxing and opened his own teaching centre in Bradford.

All this, despite poor health and respiratory problems. Nigel was a lifelong radio man who simply ran out of airtime.

Derek Woodcock and Caroline Woodruff

Senior engineer, Radio Merseyside Ask anybody who worked with

Bill Holt and they’ll remember the whimsical smile with which he greeted programme staff with their technical problems – and the fact he could usually fix them!

Bill, who has died at the age of 76, was EiC at the Liverpool station for almost 30 years and played a major part in its development, including the move from its original temporary accommodation in an office block to a purpose-built operation in Paradise Street.

After attending Manchester University, he joined the BBC and became an assistant engineer for the start of one of the first local stations, Radio Leeds, in 1967. Three years later he became EiC at Radio Merseyside – his home area – where he stayed until his retirement in 1995.

Bill is remembered by his former colleagues as an unassuming but talented engineer who could always be relied upon to organise the most complex outside broadcast or fix the most taxing technical problem.

As programme organiser in the late seventies, I decided we would bring a weekly show from a listener’s home and we were soon flooded with invitations. But many of them came from people who lived in multi-storey blocks and, as Bill agreed, there was no way we could cable that far out to the radio car. Bill shook his head and wandered off. Two weeks later he walked back into my office and put a small suitcase on my desk. He opened it up and explained that it was a portable version of the radio car which he and his colleagues had devised and built to solve the problem. Which, of course, it did.

Shortly afterwards the same kit was used by Bill to rig the first Merseyrail train to inaugurate the Northern Line with HM Queen on board. It won the station a national award for local radio outside broadcast of the year.

Quite a talented guitarist himself, Bill was an enthusiast for country music and for many years he also produced the station’s weekly Sounds Country programme.

He leaves a widow, Maria, two sons and a daughter.

Roy Corlett

| OBITUARIES

The engineer known as ‘Golden Ears’

Ralph W Mills, known as 'Golden Ears’ because of his exceptionally sensitive hearing, regularly tested the commercially produced LS3/5A loudspeakers to make sure that their sound was true. If the

manufacturer changed a component, even the type of wood used for the casing, it could impair the sound. Ralph was an avid concert attendee and listened to BBC Radio 3 while he worked. He believed that the LS3/5A loudspeakers should and could recreate the sound one experienced in a concert hall. He worked closely with the engineers in the Kingswood Warren BBC Research Department to perfect the loudspeakers’ performance. The LS3/5A loudspeakers have been recognised as the most successful small loudspeaker of all time, with around 100,000 pairs of speakers sold by new and old licensees.

In 1955, Ralph was lured away from the BBC Monitoring Service in Caversham Park to join Ronald D Petrie in the BBC Designs Department. Ralph spent the next 26 years in Designs, working solely on sound equipment and sound problems, specialising in loudspeaker work.

For Ralph, loudspeaker work was not a narrow and limited blind alley but rather a door which gave him access to the world of radio and television. Within this world he maintained many friends who knew that a loudspeaker problem was not just an encounter to solve a problem, but was also an opportunity to share in some philosophy.

Ralph’s preference for chequered shirts defied convention, hinting at his humour. He frequently entertained colleagues through the many teatime short plays and musicals that he wrote to celebrate their birthdays, retirements, achievements and adventures. Superb lyrics were written to Gilbert and Sullivan music and colleagues were willingly drafted as actors and singers. Several of these creations were recorded… sadly only a few copies were made. Perhaps you are lucky enough to have one?

Despite his joie de’vivre, Ralph carried the scars from his injuries during the 1973 Ealing Rail Crash. He retired from the BBC in 1981. He passed away in 2019. Our heartfelt sympathy goes to his wife Marie José.

Robert Kitcher

Raymond Gammon Ray was born into a farming

community in Kent and educated at the local village school. He left school aged 14 to become a hotel page boy in Folkestone.

At 19, at the start of World War II, he was called up, first to the Royal Artillery and then to the Royal

Armoured Corps, serving in Northern Ireland, North Africa, Malta, Sicily and Italy. On discharge, his papers described his character as ‘exemplary’.

On demob from the army, he joined the Entertainment Department of Margate Corporation. He started as a commissionaire at the Winter Garden Theatre before joining the stage crew and eventually becoming a stage manager. After five years, he moved to Hastings Corporation to become stage director.

Whilst there, he was head hunted by a West End impresario to become a touring stage and concert manager. After only one year, he was promoted to production manager and was responsible for staging many touring and West End shows. These included the first large-scale post-war pantomime, ‘Cinderella’ at the London Coliseum, involving cast, musicians and staff of 80 plus a gaggle of geese, six ponies and a horse!

10

He was later responsible for staging the London productions of ‘The Music Man’ and ‘Half a Sixpence’. During this phase of his career, his tours involve theatres all over the UK as well as in New York, Brussels and Paris.

In 1965 he joined BBC Television and became manager of the Scenic Services Department, responsible for producing scenery for all London-based productions and locations. He retired from this post in 1980.

He recalled how his love of theatre went back to when, at the age of eight, he would see the circus trains travelling through his village. His father took him to see the great Bertram Mills Circus.

Pat Gammon

Nirmal Singh Nirmal Singh Sehmi was born on

3 November 1939 in Nairobi, Kenya, and came to the UK in the 1960s, where he subsequently worked for the BBC. He retired from the BBC in 1989, aged 50. He worked on the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games and several BBC radio stations, setting up channels

as an electrical engineer, and was well known at Broadcasting House.

Nirmal passed away on 16 September 2019 aged 79, two months short of his 80th birthday. He is survived by his wife, son, daughter and four wonderful grandchildren.

Rajpal Kaur Sehmi

Longstanding PA and first on ToTP Esme Trueswell, who died on

31 August, was one of the longest serving producer’s assistants in BBC Manchester, working there from the 1950s until retirement in 1990. In that time she assisted many different producers and directors, but one early highlight was

calling the shots for the first live transmission of Top of the Pops, produced by Johnnie Stewart, which came from the Dickenson Road studio in 1964.

She went on to work with John Miller on Sixth Sense (Michael Aspel’s first venture outside newsreading) and Not a Word (with chairman Brian Redhead); then for John Buttery on Screen Test (with Michael Rodd) and The Movie Quiz (with Robin Ray).

Her final ten years were spent in the Manchester Children’s Department, where she worked both in studio and on film programmes, notably the Go with Noakes series, during which she became a great fan of John’s dog Shep, a large photo of whom found pride of place in her retirement flat in Skipton.

Esme was always a very private person, but never afraid to make her views heard. When working in the 9th floor office in Peter House, she led a one-woman campaign against the high temperatures that afflicted the building in the summer. To prove her point to House Services, she brought in a tomato plant and quickly grew a good crop on the windowsill.

She had no living relatives and wanted no public funeral, but asked for her ashes to be scattered in a memorial woodland on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales.

David Brown

A broadcasting pioneerDon Grattan died on 21 August shortly after his 93rd birthday. Sadly Valmai, his wife of almost 70 years, predeceased him by several months.

Don was a proud descendant of Henry Grattan (1746-1820), the Irish statesman who began the struggle for legislative independence for Ireland in the 1780s, and whose statue still stands in Dublin. Since then all male Grattans bear the name Henry.

Educated at Harrow Boys’ Grammar School and later at King’s College University of London, Don took a BSc with first-class honours in mathematics and a diploma in radio-physics.

After ten years teaching, he joined the BBC as a producer in school television, soon to become head, then assistant controller and controller in 1972, a post he held until he retired in 1984. His combination of good looks and gravitas called to mind a Roman Senator. He had both the wisdom and the authority to match.

Softly spoken, Don Grattan was a dedicated teacher, a shrewd manager and a far-sighted strategist. He was quietly passionate about education as a liberating force. He believed in the motivating power of broadcasts in spear-heading far-reaching campaigns that required partnerships with others to achieve their full effectiveness.

In initiating further education, radio and television, Don started with a blank sheet. He wrote the original brief and appointed an Advisory Council and Programme Committees made up of independent experts from outside the Corporation. He recruited all the staff, including a team of education officers whose role was to test the materials at the sharp end and feed back the results. Series and books covered a range of subjects from the arts and sciences to leisure pursuits.

As a brilliant networker on behalf of a lifelong commitment to education, Don served on a range of councils and committees. He was made a CBE in 1989.

Don was greatly respected across the BBC and much loved by his colleagues. Although a workaholic he was also a fun-loving family man. At home in Marlow his passion was croquet.

Don leaves a daughter Jenny, a son David, seven grandchildren, nine great-grandchildren and many admiring, loving friends.

Sheila Innes

A man who made a difference ‘Dennis Carr was a supremely

competent engineer with a deft personal touch and understanding – a joy to work with’…‘he was gentle, yet authoritative, humourous, courteous and helpful...’

DC, as he was known, left the RAF in 1955 for the BBC in Birmingham, working as a cameraman and then sound engineer on such notables as Workers Playtime, The Goon Show, Educating Archie and The Clitheroe Kid. Cameras and photography became hobbies as sound engineering led his career forward.

In 1971, as local radio expanded, Dennis became one of the first four travelling local radio engineers which based him in his home city of Newcastle. Within two years he was appointed Engineer-in-Charge Radio Leeds, overseeing adventurous OBs and the move in 1978 from the Merrion Centre station with its experimental Mk I equipment to state-of-the-art studios at Broadcasting House with Mk III local radio desks. The smoothness of that operation and continual good spirit under stress was not only characteristic of Dennis’ engineering and management but of his personality and supreme people

11PROSPERO DECEMBER 2019 |

skills. With the fresh broadcasting potential including the big studio capable of incorporating bands, audiences and on one occasion, a horse, Dennis’ keen sense of humour and can-do attitude was a gift to producers, facilitating innovative programmes no matter how technically challenging.

Dennis’ retirement in 1986 brought cherished opportunities for voluntary work in India and Sri Lanka, living in a mud hut at the Academy of Development Science in the wilds of Maharashtra and with VSO helping to establish the media department at the University of Colombo. He loved both places and people, finding fulfilment and serenity living simply and helping others.

Dennis was married to the late Jean Rowntree with whom he had six children. He later became the close companion of Carol Jefferson-Davies, remaining lifelong friends, and latterly, Dagmar Wright.

Diagnosed with Parkinson’s, Dennis bore it philosophically despite increasing difficulties. He died on 1 September aged 88. He leaves daughters, Jennifer, Helen and Diana, sons, Dennis and David, seven grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

Carol Jefferson-Davies

Radio 4 announcer, studio manager and drama director

David Willmott died aged 88 in the early hours of Monday, 14 October after a lengthy battle with cancer.

David was a BBC radio announcer for many years. He joined the BBC in Manchester

in 1953 as a studio manager and worked on many television productions.

He met his wife Kate, who also worked for the BBC in Manchester, and they were married in December 1966. They have two children, Benjamin and Simon (now known as Nathan) and four grandchildren, Tallulah, Luke, Joseph and Georgia.

He was born in Windsor on 15 September 1931 and it was during his National Service that he began working for British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS) in 1950.

After his return to the UK, he joined BBC Manchester as a studio manager in 1953. He worked in both radio and television as a drama director. He gave Ray Moore his first job in radio and worked with names as illustrious as Ingrid Bergman, David Frost and Morecambe & Wise among many others.

He also wrote and read an edition of the Morning Story and children’s stories broadcast on Radio 4, masterminded the adaptation of many popular TV programmes to radio and conceived the feature ‘Bells On Sunday’ which runs on the station to this day. He also regularly read the evening ‘Shipping Forecast’ and a recording of him reading it from the mid-1970s is often dug out of the BBC archive to illustrate the heritage of this iconic fixture of British broadcasting.

He was seconded to Libya for a year in 1969, becoming a BBC Radio 4 announcer on his return. After another Middle Eastern secondment, this time to Dubai in 1978-9 to help set up British speaking TV station Channel 33, he joined Radio 3, regularly presenting the Proms live from the Royal Albert Hall, before rejoining Radio 4 as a continuity announcer. He also presented on Beacon Radio, Wolverhampton, Blue Danube Radio in Vienna and BFBS and taught at Evendine Court School.

Ben Willmott

Bush House External Service and then Radio Brighton Meriel Ball was born and brought up in Surrey with her younger sister, Carolyn. She attended Chatsworth Primary School and then the Convent School of the Sacred Heart, Epsom. Gaining ‘O’ and ‘A’ levels, she then did intensive secretarial training at Kingston College of Further Education.

Meriel applied to the BBC and started at Bush House External Service in August 1965 as a secretary in ‘English by Radio’ with a programme called ‘Come Let’s Learn English!’

In October 1965 they took on an exciting new project – an Archers-type programme in Hindustani which hit the headlines of the national papers and she wrote in her diary ‘to think I typed all the scripts, memos and letters, etc for it!!’

By February 1966 she was Secretary to the Assistant Head of the Far Eastern Service and later became Production Secretary in the Chinese Section where, on 15 April 1971, she notes ‘telephone communications were re-opened today for the first time since 1949!! Shanghai is the receiving station’.

In August 1971 she was Secretary to the Head of the World Service. However, in early 1972, Meriel’s family had moved to Goring-by-Sea and she and her sister travelled between London and Sussex until the train strikes took their toll. In June 1972 Meriel became Administrative Assistant at BBC Radio Brighton where she remained until September 1991.

She had always wanted her own tea shop and opened ‘The Pantry’ in South Ferring in December 1992. BBC Radio Brighton did an OB from there in September 1993. Having moved to Crockerhill in 2007, Meriel continued running her teashop until October 2015 when she retired.

Although starting to be poorly, she enjoyed life with her sister, Carolyn, and their pets including three dogs. Latterly Meriel could no longer garden but sat in the conservatory watching the wildlife.

Meriel died on 30 July 2019 aged 73, in the home that she loved so much and with those she loved around her.

Carolyn Ball

The Film Unit’s ‘Royal Spark’Just before the war, David Gorringe MVO was on Brentford FC’s books, playing for Southall, who was Brentford’s nursery team.

Due to the outbreak of war he signed up with the Royal Navy as a DEMS Gunner. Once he was demobbed in late 1945, he landed his first job as an electrician at MGM Borehamwood and then Pinewood Studios. During this film studio period, he worked on many British and Anglo-American productions, including Edward My Son, Under Capricorn and The Guinea Pig to name three.

In 1952 he joined BBC Television and was at Lime Grove Studios for four years, then transferring to the BBC Film Unit in 1956 and moving over to Ealing Film Studios. He travelled the world working on many documentaries, for example All My Loving.

As the chief lighting electrician he worked with Richard Cawston on Royal Family broadcasts, starting with the Trooping of the Colour in June 1968. In that year he was part of the small team that filmed at Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, Holyrood House and Balmoral. There were numerous public functions with the Queen on board the Royal Yacht Britannia and extensive overseas travel. Arising out of this,

Cawston directed every Christmas Day broadcast since 1970 – and David was the only technician who was with him from the original crew from 1970 until 1982.

David was awarded the Queen’s Silver Jubilee Medal in 1977 and the Queen gave him a pair of gold cufflinks at Christmas 1981.

He finished his time at the BBC as Allocation Lighting Manager and retired from the BBC in 1983, when he was made a member of the Royal Victorian Order.

He was nicknamed the Royal Spark within the Film Unit. On leaving the BBC, he formed his own lighting company for five years where he picked up many jobs due to Channel Four starting including Man and Music.

He was the Royal Navy Association representative for Woking for ten years and many veterans attended his service with ex-film staff when he passed away on the August Bank Holiday 2019.

Paul Gorringe

Sound expertIt is with great sadness that I convey news that Richard Yeoman-Clark passed away on 17 September following a short illness, aged 75.

Richard joined BBC Radio direct from school as a technical operator at Broadcasting House, moving to the Experimental Stereo Unit as the recording engineer a couple of years later. There he was involved with the integration of Stereo Operations from just test transmissions into the regular output of Radio 3 in the late 1960s. As stereo proliferated across BBC Radio he transferred to the Music Department as a studio manager. There, his technical expertise was in demand for the presentation of electronic music concerts, working with contemporary composers such as Stockhausen, Berio, Boulez etc. This experience led him to join the BBC Radiophonic Workshop where he produced the special sound for the science fiction series Blake’s Seven, amongst other programmes. Later he became the technical coordinator for the Workshop when electronic synthesizers started taking over from Musique Concrete.

Richard left the BBC in 1978 to become the chief technical engineer at Roundhouse Recording Studios and oversaw the installation and operation of one of the first 3M Digital Multitrack Mastering System in the UK. Leaving Roundhouse Studios in the early 1980s he joined FWO Bauch as a field service engineer, later becoming service manager for their professional broadcast products.

In 2002, Richard was recruited to the BFI National Archive where his vast knowledge and experience of sound and digital techniques transformed the audio department’s capabilities to cater for sound restoration of the optical soundtracks of films being restored by the BFI for both theatrical and DVD release. Perhaps most notably, Richard led the sound restoration project for a special David Lean Centenary collection of ten of the best known Lean films which were re-released in 2008.

Since his retirement from the BFI in 2012, Richard has been the technical powerhouse behind the Church Stretton Arts Festival, quietly providing a dazzling array of skills, knowledge and equipment each year to numerous artists and audiences.

Charles Fairall

Rodney Taylor’s obituary will appear in the February 2020 issue of Prospero.

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It’s funny how things turn out. For many years I worked at the BBC Written Archives Centre at Caversham. It is here where a huge amount of the BBC’s written history is stored. Whether files concerning programmes and policy, correspondence with contributors, scripts or press cuttings, all these sources have stories to tell and remind us of how things once were.

I remember looking though a box of press cuttings from the 1930s and there was discussion in the papers about what to call those who watched the new BBC television service. Suggestions included auralookers, teleseers and televisor viewers.

There were also many cuttings about theatre managers putting a ban on artists appearing on the BBC lest it affected numbers going to the theatre.

The Centre holds a treasure trove of material and I was there when the trivia craze became popular. One day I took a phone call from the Radio Times asking if I could compile trivia about the BBC for the magazine. I very much enjoyed the task and it became so popular I was later asked to compile the Radio Times Radio and Television Trivia Quiz Book and also a further one containing puzzles about the BBC.

As a writer I leapt at the chance but little did I know how this would develop. Having set trivia and puzzle books, several years later I was given chance to compile more and this resulted in other themed puzzle books, including on Britain, literature, football and sport, and The Ladies and Gentlemen’s Puzzle Books. For my latest, which is about The Archers, I was thrilled to be able to delve back into BBC history and research this much-loved programme. It reminded me of many classic highlights as well as enjoy the programme’s humour and splendid characters.

The Archers too has its serious side, particularly in highlighting contemporary issues as well as the pressures facing the farming community. It gives a superb snapshot of rural life.

The Archers is a delight and it was also a delight to compile puzzles about this great British institution. Not only was I able to devise themed sudokus, cryptograms, coded crosswords as well as anagrams but also discover country words used in the Midlands, where The Archers is set.

For instance, here’s a challenge. What does squib mean? Is it:

• an anvil • a swarm of bees or • the den of a hare?

During my years at Caversham I remember an enquiry concerning the very first episode of The Archers broadcast on the Midland region. This episode ended with a cliff-hanger concerning a sick cow. Having sent the script off, I had a phone call the next day asking what happened to the sick cow. Sadly, the second script had not survived and with the fate of the cow still a mystery.

It is funny how things go full circle and how I was able to rekindle my love of BBC history as well as engage in more puzzle setting. And if you are still wondering, the answer to the above, squib is a swarm of bees.

For the Love of The Archers: The Unofficial Puzzle Book by Neil Somerville is published by Summersdale.

Caption competitionThe winner of a £10 shopping voucher is Mr P Walling, with: Anna Rampton – ‘My view is not to have a view, so as to remain impartial.’ Ian Fletcher – ‘So that’s all good then.’

Post your entry to Prospero by Monday, 6 January 2020.

Or, you can email your entry to prospero@bbc.co.uk, with ‘caption competition 6’ in the subject line. Please include your BBC pension number. Good luck!

WIN£10

The picture shows John Birt (ex director general) visiting Bush House.

FULL CIRCLE by Neil Somerville London LunchThe latest London Lunch for retired BBC staff was held on 16 October at the Victory Services Club in London.

The guest speaker was Torin Douglas, BBC media correspondent for 24 years and who has reported on media issues for over 40 years. His well-received talk included many stories from the varied, amusing, and sometimes fraught, life of a media correspondent.

The annual London Lunch is arranged by Paul Mason and Simon Shute.

Ray Liffen

Prospero Classifieds, BBC Pension and Benefits Centre, Broadcasting House, Cardiff CF5 2YQ.

Please enclose a cheque made payable to: BBC Central Directorate. Rate: £6 for 20 words. In a covering letter, please include your pension number.

CLASSIFIEDSMenorca. Lovely detached villa in Es Castell. Sleeps 2–7. Private swimming pool. Air conditioned. Close amenities. Brochure: 01621 741810. Or visit www.menorcaholidayvilla.co.uk

Grants are made at the discretion of the Trustees. They may provide assistance in cases of unforeseen financial hardship, for which help from other sources is not available. Tel: 029 2032 2811

Prospero Society Prospero Society is the only section of the BBC Club run by and for retired BBC staff and their spouses. Its aim is to enable BBC pensioners to meet on a social basis for theatre visits, luncheons, coach outings, etc.

Prospero Society is supported by BBC Club funds so as to make events affordable. If you would like an application form, please contact:

Gayner Leach, BBC Club, BC2 B3 Broadcast Centre, 201 Wood Lane, London W12 7TP

Tel: 020 8752 6666

Email: bbc.club@bbc.co.uk.

BBCPA The BBCPA was founded in 1988 to promote and safeguard the interests of BBC pensioners. It is independent of the BBC. For details of how to join, see the panel on page 5 or download a membership form at bbcpa.org.uk.

CONTACTSQueries For benefit and pension payroll queries, call the Service Line on 029 2032 2811 or email mypension@bbc.co.uk.

Prospero To remove a name from the distribution list, ring the Service Line on 029 2032 2811. Prospero is provided free of charge to retired BBC Scheme members only. Prospero is also available on audio disc for those with sight impairment. To register, please ring the Service Line. Alternatively, it is also available online at bbc.co.uk/mypension, under ‘Documents’.

BBC Club The BBC Club in London has a retired membership costing £3 per month or £36 per year. Members can also add friends and family to their membership for a small additional cost. Regional clubs may have different arrangements. Please call the BBC Club London office on 020 8752 6666 or email bbc.club@bbc.co.uk for details, or to join.

Benevolent Fund This is funded by voluntary contributions from the BBC and its purpose is to protect the welfare of staff, pensioners and their families.

Light Entertainment Television ReunionOpen to all who have worked in and for Light Entertainment Television. Another opportunity to meet up with former colleagues. To be held at Club W1 at Wogan House (formerly BBC Club at Western House), 99 Great Portland Street, W1A 1AA on Wednesday 15 January 2020 from noon onwards.

RSVP Tony Newman (email: tonynewman@live.com) or Lesley Begley (email: l.begley2012@btinternet.com)