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Whilst Roger was on his TO course in 1965, he shot an 8mm film. This is a bit like one of those BBC2 programmes, as Roger then forgot about it until his old films were copied to DVD some 40 years later. For anyone who also went to Evesham in the '60s this top class nostalgia. For those who didn't, a short intro.... For four decades BBC Engineering Training at Evesham was regarded as the best in the world. They occupied Wood Norton Hall, a grand old house on a hill in Worcestershire. During the war the BBC used it as a safe place to broadcast from away from London. When the war was over the green dormitory huts and other building were turned over to training technical people for the expanding broadcasting industry, as the BBC fed people first to it's own studios, and then second hand to those of the new and richer ITV. In the early sixties BBC2 opened, and many more people were needed to staff it. Technical Operator and Technical Assistant courses ran several times a year - Roger was on one of them. The equipment was out of date stuff discarded from studios and outside broadcasts - the all-servo Pye Mk3 cameras were the bane of trainee cameramen, and what they didn't know was that they'd been the bane of experienced cameramen too. The film includes various features of Evesham life. The strange shapes near the beginning were for lighting practice. The programme exercise in the tv studio was created and produced by the course members - and the vicar in this one is Roger himself. The "tow-a-mini" race was one of those weekend events for those who didn't go home to get their washing done, and the swimming pool was notable for it's extreme cold - also in this case for the rare prescence of women. Evesham also had a cold war secret which was of course much discussed amongst the trainees. I can't tell you about it, or I would have to kill you, but you can read about it here - http://www.subbrit.org.uk/rsg/sites/w/woodnorton/ Here's the film - it's 10Mb in Windows Media format, or you can download from here. ..and for when you've finished watching Roger's historic film - whilst we're doing BBC Engineering, here's a document I was pointed at somewhere out there in the net. It's called "BBC Television, a British Engineering Achievement" and was produced in 1958 to mark 25 years after the service began in 1936... |
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