First, lots from Pauline Langfield

"The sinking of the Zeebrugge ferry - news reports in every junction including into Points of View at 8.50. The PA on the 9 o'clock news arguing with me at 8.55 that it was vital that I came to them on time at 9 and me failing to get across to her that the 2' report they'd just done at 10 to meant I wouldn't be out of POV till 1 minute past. "

"Lockerbie - having (for the only time in my career) to interrupt a programme (a play which was lead of the month/Radio Times cover etc) - do a News Report and go back to the play with the announcer (the very brilliant Charles Nove) ad-libbing a recap on the way. Then at the following junction on a 10" symbol into what should have been a longish News Report, having News yell 'don't come to us Pres, we can't go ahead' (script hadn't made it to the studio) - so we had to go to the next programme instead and everyone went mad."


"Exactly 3 weeks later,same team on, copping the M1 aircrash as well."

"Margaret Thatcher resigning and having to go the News off an intro from some idiot presenter on a daytime prog in Birmingham who said ' Now for news of Margaret Thatcher's resignation, here's Moria Stuart...'"

"Being on for the Olympic Games in Atlanta when terrorists set off a bomb. (NTA) - PA on GSTND refers to me as 'that girl in network' " (from director aged 40 something with 20 years experience)"

"The night (12.15am) someone in CAR decided to tidy up by unplugging a few things - including the on-air Snooker - vision cut to bars with CAR's phone number on. It was only there for seconds before I took my feet off the desk and cut to a breakdown slide but 77 people phoned the number.... "

"- also the time I went to sit in for another director so they could go to the loo and they were out of the door before I'd sat down and all lines from the Snooker promptly vanished."

"The year that it rained for the whole of the opening week of Wimbledon and the standby cupboard was pretty well exhausted."

"The final kids prog of the afternoon, running from telecine when the film broke as it ran (you could see it flapping about in the gate) and Phillip Schofield bravely filled several minutes in vision from the Broom Cupboard with no material as there was no chance of mending the film in time and there were no standbys - people kept arriving from the kids production office and handing in letters etc through the door..."

"The infamous 'That's Life' (who frequently edited so late they were often spooling the tape back to a clock while we were introducing them) being in mid-record one evening at the TV Theatre when a bomb scare meant they had to evacuate the building and we had to go to air with the first half of the programme on tape then try and join them live for the second half - assuming they'd be let back in before the tape ran out and, having not seen the end of the tape, hoping we'd pick the right place to go across and no-one would notice...."

"Red Nose Day which was breaking for the news at 9 (off a clock in those days - ie an in-vision on -air clock) - huge build-up to sketch of Dawn French kissing Hugh Grant...it kept not happening and time was running out.... the word from Pres Control was a helpful 'you can't fade them but you must get to the news on time - they'll just have to get off when you tell them ....'I held as long as possible as they reached the denouement, took as much snogging as I possibly could then went for a swift fade and a 3 second clock ('this is BBC-1') into the News (you were allowed varying length clocks in those days as long as you went on time)"

"There used to be a three minute reg opt spot before the 9 am news - 2 mornings in a row they were about to go to air when their fire alarms went off and they had to evacuate (Elstree I think) - it was an incredibly busy time for us but I'm rather proud to say I managed to fill both days fairly seamlessly with a filler grabbed from the standby cupboard in the floor control room and thrown on a Beta machine, backtime the start of the regional weather (from the weather studio), cue the weather person and count out the opt - but I aged many years in the process and the second occasion felt like groundhog day! "

"My first solo shift in the NTA - one hour in - News Report. Pres Control 'standby - it's an announcement from the Palace - could be anything - could be an obit....' - it was the QM having a hip replacement."

"My second shift in the NTA - six minutes left on Grandstand before News (off that clock again) - call from Grandstand 'Pres, we're going to be 3 minutes light....' - 2 minutes later 'or we could be on time if you'd prefer that? We just thought you'd like some extra time back '...."

"In the NTA a mis-timed programme gets into the schedule leading up to the 9 o'clock news and I realise as the (short) credits run - try to run the trail manually but manage to upset the desk so can't get any trail to air - poor old announcer has to do a minute plus read on a menu caption up to the News."

"Many years before that - in the old fourth floor control room - with more than 7 minutes to go on Newsnight hear the immortal words 'now a quick look at the papers' - they've lost a satellite and are just going to end. Recall announcer from corridor - the unique David Allen. Ask him to fill for as long as he can. (no such luxury as trails available at instant notice in those days) He manages more than 4 minutes on a menu caption that has 4 programmes on it (one of them News). What a star! "

The night the late film had to be dropped because of news events, except there weren't such things as standbys in those days - I was actually working in Promotions at the time, but having popped into Pres Control to say goodnight found myself volunteering to get in a cab with a guy from VT, drive to the film library at Brentford, persuade a security guard of our good intentions and search the racks of film cans (enormous 35mm things) with a torch for a suitable film and get it back for tx."

"In the mid to late 70s 2 incidents - one was the playing out of a Marx Brothers film with the reels in the wrong order.... and also I have a vivid memory of being the Network Assistant with Martin Mortimore directing (he went on to produce Tomorrow's World and other stuff in Science Features) - there'd been a big plug for the fact that we were showing the film 'A long day's journey into Night' for the first time in its uncut form. When Martin lined up with telecine I heard him say 'what do you mean the can says SHORT VERSION?'
It turned out the one we were meant to be showing was in the library at Brentford. A decision was made to go to air with the short version while someone (not me this time) raced to Brentford and got the right one. This was done and we all held our breaths while the switch to the long version was made at the next reel change. Seamless. Much cheering. Unfortunately it then became apparent that the two versions had of course been edited differently and we were now watching again scenes we'd just seen in the previous reel of the short version. Much fun in the press about the film's title and the way repeats were happening these days even before the first showing had finished."

"Saturday night BBC-1 second week of the National Lottery. It follows Noel's House Party - the live programme from hell which could over or under-run by minutes. The junction between the two is very large (for those days) and takes up every machine in the place (actually in the basement then) including some trail that absolutely has to transmit there because it has a phone number and the operators are all standing by. The PA on the lottery is nervous because something had gone wrong the previous week with the cue dots (visual dots on screen we sent to cue live programmes). I promise her she's in safe hands this week....Pres Control ring to say we have to do a News Report in the junction - it's a good news one for a change because a missing baby has been found safe and well - mad scramble to speak to news, put in a slide/symbol, re-arrange the trails etc - I think 'I'll get into the News then sort out where I'm cue-ing the Lottery'. Unfortunately the News only runs 20" so no time for the cue-dots I'd promised so I hear myself yelling 'fade News, standby Lottery...go to the symbol..cue Lottery...run, run......I'm really sorry.... ' whilst hearing from them 'but she promised there'd be cue dots.......'"

"My favourite - Saturday evening BBC-1 (isn't it always?) - strangely only one live programme the whole evening - a 15 minute News. We've only just gone to it and strange whooping sounds accompany Jan Leeming's presenting. She battles on looking slightly surprised. News ring to say 'as you can hear our fire alarms are going off so we're evacuating - we'll leave you with a bit of VT - no idea how long it is...bye'.
Our next programme is Cagney and Lacey on telecine - this is run by an operator in the basement - they also have fire alarms going off - he gives me remote control of the machine but I can't run it down to check it because only the operator can re-set it - only vision you can see on a telecine prog cued up is an '10' so have to hope the guy's loaded the right thing and it's not a porn film or something....
Fade off news, put up a menu - yelling to regions that it's regionally unsafe so they'll all have to try and do their own - announcer fills, plays music, as soon as near enough to billed time, run Cagney...meanwhile Pres Control etc have all turned up in Control Room cause they've been evacuated....spend quite some time standing up waiting for our alarms to go, and/or expecting to beat out the flames with our feet...
In the end normal service resumed and Ariel prints a front page story about brave old News trying to get a programme together from the horseshoe carpark whilst 'the whole building was evacuted' and not a word about those of us who stayed in our places and kept transmission going.....



These are mine (Bernie)
"On the first day of Breakfast Time, when there'd been no transmissions on BBC1 before 1000 before, no-one knew that the network mixer did a self-test at 0830 by running through all the sources - 20 of them - one by one. "

"A good friend was once a TA whose job was to cut to the next programme in NC1 - the original NC1. One day there had been golf during the afternoon on OS6, and after it had finished we were left with Birmingham Pres output on it, which was the same as ours except for the BM visuals and voice in the junctions. Our man was enjoying during the early evening listening to them during our junctions - something he should not have been doing. Before 2100 he put News on OS5, instead of his usual OS6, so he could keep listening. Of course in the heat of the moment at 2100 he cut to OS6 instead of News just as Birmingham cut to us, thus howling BBC1 in sound and vision. After a while Birmingham put their clock on their output, and everyone else's, before Dave (oops!) worked out what he'd done. The network director, Bernie, was hauled over the coals by the head of department, but explained that as our man was an engineer he had no control over where he put his sources, and certainly couldn't at 2100 check which button he was about to press. All true - ask Dave Hardin."



This one from Malcolm Walker (former Head of Pres) -

"During an early Grandstand one Saturday afternoon, when all the switching was done in CCR1 at Lime Grove, the equivalent of NC1, director (and later Ass Ed) Nick Franks decided to have a look see what else was going on to relieve his boredom so did a quick run through of every source available to him. Unfortunately he did it on the TX row of buttons instead of the preview. All would have been well, with only the great British Public watching, except that he chose to do it immediately after the start gun for a swimming race had been fired and only completed his wander through the sources as the winner touched at the end of the race. Sadly for Nick this race was being telerecorded, and later that evening Alan Rees the producer in telecine, arrived in CCR1 clutching some yards of film and asking who was responsible!!"




This one from Gordon Waters

Gordon worked at AP before and after World War II. He was the first Senior Television Engineer (Telecine) from 1949-1952, when he left the BBC and emigrated to Canada, joining the CBC in its Engineering Dept.

"When the Baird system was installed the system to use on the announcer was a Nipkow disc. As the announcer, ( in this case Jasmine Bligh) could obviously not wear cans (ie. headphones) and due to being in darkness and facing a huge rotating disc, how could she be cued to commence talking?

Initially an engineer would sit out of shot, wearing cans, and on cue would squeeze Jasmine's hand. On one classic occasion, having a long wait the engineer had let go of her hand. On receiving the cue to start talking the engineer made a wild stab to find Jasmine's hand and grabbed her knee. The viewers were treated to an opening "WHOOPS err, Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen ...."

A solution was quickly found, a small solenoid was strapped to the announcer's ankle which operated a vibrator which on cue would tickle !!"