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BBC Radio Lincolnshire: Reunited - A journey of Remembrance

2017-11-06T10:00:00+00:00

Charles Beechey – Killed fighting in East Africa.

The Beechey family suffered unbearable loss in the First World War with five of their eight sons being killed. One hundred years on from the death of the fifth Beechey brother, BBC Radio Lincolnshire's Michael Hortin follows in their footsteps telling their story and reuniting them with an act of Remembrance.

Even amongst the carnage of the First World War the story of the Beecheys stands out. At the outbreak of WWI the family was a large one with eight sons and five daughters. All the brothers saw service, with five killed and a sixth left with life-changing injuries. The family was one of three in England to suffer such loss.

Eric Beechey – Survived the war after serving in Malta and Greece.

What marked the Beecheys out for our project, in addition to being from our area, was the archive of letters from the brothers that survives. Reading them you get a real feel for their differing personalities, they become much more than a name on a headstone.

Telling their story we had three aims: to produce as much of the content as possible using a smartphone; to reunite the brothers in some way, 100 years on and to follow in their footsteps to tell their story.

Save for some photos and an interview the first has already been achieved, with the help of a tripod, lapel mic and iphone stand.

The second objective was initially the hardest to pin down. However the answer was on our doorstep, and in the families’ strong Christian faith. I approached Lincoln Cathedral for support, the result was six crosses carved from the stone it is built from. These were to be laid at the graves of those killed in WWI, bringing them together with an act of Remembrance. A sixth was to be put on display at the church where the brothers’ father was once vicar. In addition to the religious significance, it is worth explaining the importance of the Cathedral to people in Lincoln, like the brothers. You only truly know you are home when you see it. As a result we felt that by taking crosses to the brothers, we were also bringing their home county to them.

Final letter from Leonard to his mum, was sent three weeks before he died of Tetanus. (Credit: Lincolnshire County Council)

After 10 weeks planning, in September and October I began a four-week journey through six countries in the brothers’ footsteps. The first week was spent in France and Belgium where the majority of the brothers’ saw action. The next in Greece and then Gallipoli, where two brothers served as Anzacs. The third week was in Tanzania where the second eldest brother Charles was killed and is now buried. The final few days were in Australia following the story of the Anzac brothers before and after the war.

The headstone of Frank Beechey.

By the end of the journey four of the crosses had been left at Commonwealth War Grave Cemeteries. After a short period there, the CWGC are going to remove them to them be put on permanent display at their centres. The fifth for one of the Anzac brothers, who has no known grave, is being put on permanent display from the 11 November at the military chapel in Perth, Western Australia.

The final cross will be put on permanent display at the family church, where the brothers’ father preached until his death in 1912. At that moment I will have a feeling that in some ways the brothers have been bought a little closer.

Sam Beechey – Youngest son, served for last few months of the war.

From this journey we will produce a series and documentary for radio for both Remembrance Week and Christmas, short films about each brother and a vlog of the journey and supporting article.

It goes without saying all the above would not have been possible without the support of many people and organisations inside and outside the BBC and across the countries visited.

When I reflect on the family’s story my mind always returns to the mother Amy, who must have opened letters from her sons with a mixture of hope and fear. Sadly her voice, save for one letter, is largely silent. However in April 1918 we get a window to her world as she met King George and Queen Mary. When Queen Mary expressed sympathy for the families sacrifice she replied “It was no sacrifice Ma’am, I did not give them willingly”.

Michael Hortin is a producer for BBC Radio Lincolnshire

BBC Russian: Following Lenin from Zurich to the Revolution

2017-08-17T09:30:00+00:00

Juri Vendik is the author and presenter of "The Train From Zurich To The Revolution" a BBC Russian documentary exploring Germany’s role in Lenin’s 1917 return to revolutionary Russia.

If you ask Russians about Lenin’s return to Petrograd from exile in Switzerland in the spring of 1917, most of them will tell you about the passionate speech that he made upon arrival at Finlyandsky Railway Station, from the top of an armoured car. They will be very familiar with that image of Lenin, his signature cap in his hand, hailing the socialist revolution, surrounded by a crowd; it’s an image that became part of the Soviet Lenin iconography.

Many also will be familiar with the assertion that Lenin was a “German spy” who was sent to Russia in a “sealed railway carriage” – but in the Soviet times, those assertions would have been ridiculed as impotent malice of the detractors of the leader of the world proletariat.

While Russian history books have undergone changes since the end of the Soviet Union, this particular episode has hardly been reviewed. Nevertheless, arguments continue to this day about Lenin’s fateful eight-day journey from Zurich to Petrograd. Was Lenin’s carriage really “sealed”? Was Lenin a “German spy”? And what about the “German money”, the “German gold” – the big question: were the Bolsheviks financed by the country with which Russia was at a bloody, all-out war?

When the BBC Russian producers behind our Revolution-100 project, Anastasia Uspenskaya and Aleksandra Zaytseva, shared with me the idea of a film, The Train from Zurich to the Revolution, I started to read Western historians. In the very beginning it seemed that for a major school of thought in the west, the question of the German sponsorship of Bolsheviks in 1917 had a definitive answer: the German government did pay the Russian revolutionaries. However, as I continued my immersion in the subject, I faced something, that, as a journalist, I have faced a thousand times: the more you study an issue, the fewer reasons you have to be single-minded about it.

We set off on the Lenin train trip: Bern-Zurich-Gottmadingen-Berlin-Potsdam-Stockholm-Tornio-St Petersburg. The resulting film on bbcrussian.com explores the story of a fateful trip of a group of Russian émigrés from Switzerland to the Russian capital, earlier renamed from St Petersburg to Petrograd because of the war with Germany.

Cameraman Alik Grigorian turned my script into four punchy, vivacious, dynamic, and I think beautiful, episodes. The masterful readings by popular Russian actor, Mikhail Yefremov (pictured below), breathed a life in the diaries of key witnesses: Lenin’s closest Bolshevik allies, Grigory Zinoviev and Karl Radek, and the Swiss Social Democrat Fritz Platten (all three of them were prosecuted and eventually shot in Stalin’s purges in 1936, 1939 and 1942 respectively). We focused each episode on a key moment of their journey with Lenin.

In the first episode, we have Swiss historian Dr Gleb J. Albert explain why Germany was interested in facilitating the journey. We reconstruct the scene at the Zurich railway station on 9 April 1917, where a crowd of Russian exiles cheered or were indignant that their fellow Russians were about to travel to and through an enemy territory. Our narrative – with experts’ commentary, witness memoirs and archival photography - follows Lenin to Berlin and then to Sweden (where our story includes the tale of Lenin’s iconic cap).

In the final, fourth episode Lenin reaches the then border of the Russian Empire, at the Finnish town of Tornio. At the time, under the Entente Cordiale, British inspectors manned this part of the Russian border, and in Tornio, Lenin’s team faced the Secret Intelligence Service officer, Harold Gruner. Having informed the Russian Provisional Government about the suspicious party in his care, he searched them, questioned them and tried to delay them for as long as he could, hoping that the officials in Petrograd would order him to deny Lenin and his coterie entry into Russia. The order never came as Russia’s new democratic government saw such a denial anti-democratic, so in the end Gruner let all of them, except Platten, into the country – we read from Zinoviev’s memoir, telling us that Stalin and other key Bolsheviks met Lenin at the first Russian stop, in Beloostrov.

At the journey’s end - Petrograd’s Finlyandsky Railway Station - a crowd was waiting for Lenin. The crowds there were welcoming many other political exiles returning to Russia following the February Revolution. However, today it’s Lenin’s statue that stands on the square in front of it and the city went on to bear his name for 67 years after his death in 1924.

As our journey comes to an end, we reach our verdict to the question of whether the Bolsheviks were financed by Germany: Kaiser’s Germany and Lenin must have used each other. In the short term, they did it to a mutual success: the Bolsheviks came to power in November 1917, and Russia signed a separate peace treaty with Germany and the other Central Powers in March 1918. The rest is history.

The question of the “German gold for Lenin” will remain the subject of debates. But I hope that, having watched our film, our Russian-speaking audiences will know much more about those eight days in April 1917 than their history books have taught them.

Juri Vendik is a journalist for BBC Russian

Listen to a clip from The Train From Zurich To The Revolution on BBC World Service

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gurinder directing scenes from 'Viceroy's House'

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

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

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

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

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

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

Antiques Roadshow Holocaust Memorial

2017-01-13T11:30:00+00:00

On Sunday (15 January 2016) Antiques Roadshow has a special Holocaust Memorial episode. About the BBC Editor Jon Jacob spoke to Producer Julia Foot to find out more.

I didn't expect to feel quite so moved when I watched this episode of Antiques Roadshow.

It’s good to know you had that response. They were such powerful stories and we wanted to do them justice. I was really keen that we should tell the story of the Holocaust in a very accessible way and from a personal perspective. I think there is also a particular poignancy at the moment when you see all the news footage of the refugees fleeing Syria, families being torn apart and people suffering.

We were cutting the programme up till the Christmas break and when I was celebrating with my parents and children it really made me think, for the first time, about those families ripped apart forever by the Holocaust.

There is a ‘matter of factness’ in the way contributors tell their story, so is the emotional reaction rooted in our own projection?

I think it is perhaps the fact that we cannot help but be moved, hearing many of the individual stories for the first time ever. However, for the survivors, who have experienced so much loss, they have wept all their tears over the past seven decades and can be quite stoic about it now. When you look at documentaries on the Holocaust you see images of horror on such an enormous scale that it’s overwhelming, people don’t seem like individuals, they are statistics in a way. But that changes when you actually meet somebody like Axel and hear a very personal story. You come to understand that he was an only child when he came over on the Kindertransport and then both his parents, who had to remain behind, killed themselves rather than go to Auschwitz. Here he is as a man in his late eighties, telling us his story of being all alone, a young boy in England with nobody.

How do you verify the stories?

There are some stories you can verify easily because people like Sir Nicholas Winton, who brought so many children over from Prague on the Kindertransport, kept meticulous notes and records. So there are records to a degree, but also I think what we were relying on was family stories. For example the children of the survivors of the holocaust whose parents passed on their stories to them. Together these descendants of some of these survivors made memory quilts to pass on their stories to future generations. Of course it also goes without saying that we had our commentary checked by an academic for cultural and historical accuracy.

At the time the Holocaust was happening there was a lot of chaos. Some of the children were very young and some of the facts might have been confused, they might also have been told sanitised versions, to protect them. Zahava - didn't know that her mother had kept so many artefacts from their experiences in Bergen-Belsen because her mother was keen that she live her life without this enormous great shadow over it and wasn’t reminded on a daily basis of her time at Belsen. It was only when Zahava's mother died that they found all the items in the attic.

It struck me that there wasn't much dialogue, and the information wasn’t overwhelming and yet the detail I was provided with was striking enough for it me to have such an emotional reaction....

The survivors were incredibly eloquent, what they had to say was powerful. They were quite difficult pieces to edit for broadcast because we allowed a fair amount of time for each recording and each story could almost have been an hour in its own right. But we had to take them down to short interviews. What we decided to do was to look at the Holocaust as a whole and tell the stories in chronological order, from Judith Kerr's fleeing in 1933, right up to liberation and post liberation. Each piece told a specific period of a family's or individual's story.

I worked very closely with assistant producer Sophie Wogden. We visited most of the contributors in their homes before the filming. We wanted to ensure that they would be comfortable telling their stories on camera - for some it was the first time - and that they understood what we were asking them to do, so that they weren't made vulnerable in any way.

I'm thinking a lot about the board game…

When I first came across that board game it was in the Wiener Library in Russell Square. It stops you in your tracks because you can't believe that non-Jewish German families were sitting down to play a board game called 'Jews Out’, encouraging their children to have this whole attitude of the Jews being evil and bad and something to be gotten rid of. While they were playing these games at home, in schools the Jewish children were being segregated. Jewish children were being made to sit at the back of classrooms or even sent to different schools completely, the teachers were ridiculing them, it's horrific really.

You made a quite understandable decision not to value the items that were brought to the programme, but what currency do those items have?

At the start Fiona Bruce says that they are, historically, priceless. It feels quite clichéd but they genuinely are. For example, the pair of striped trousers from Auschwitz, the material cost nothing, but when you come into contact with a pair of those trousers having seen the images of people wearing them in concentration camps, they are incredibly poignant and potent. When I met up with the owner Sybil before filming and she handed them to me I felt a mixture of awe and respect and horror all at the same time. You almost want to get rid of them, or put them down, or hand them on as quickly as you can, and yet you know that they are such a stark reminder of the holocaust that you can't help but be drawn to them at the same time on a very human level.

Were there contributors who were reluctant to participate?

I think a lot of the survivors want to make sure their story is told. Some of the contributors that we interviewed came via the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation and they had given their testimony for the new archive, which is due to be built and therefore had already spoken about their experiences. We put out an appeal on the Antiques Roadshow in October inviting people to get in touch with us if they would like to be involved and we had a tremendous response. We had several hundred people get in contact, so there were enough people who wanted to be involved and who wanted to share their stories.

How did the process change you?

I thought I knew a fair amount about the Holocaust, but working on the programme made me realise how little I actually knew. I found it a very humbling experience. It really made me think in real terms about how some of the contributors had lived through the most horrific times. I was taken by how these survivors managed to carry on, after suffering so much, often having lost their families, starting again with nothing, building themselves a new life in Britain and creating their own families.

When you are making a film like this, you are really immersed in it – for example, I spent time watching a great deal of horrific archive footage then went back into the edit suite, carried on editing, putting the programme together and was being very matter-of-fact about what we were producing. The next day, I had to give a presentation to our department about the programme and as I started to talk about the programme in front of a room full of people, I started to choke up as I told some of the stories. At that point I realised that it does affect you, of course, these human stories of family members who have been killed. You realise how close to home it could be. It could have been your mother, your son, your brother.

The Antiques Roadshow Holocaust Memorial is on BBC One on 15 January at 7.30pm

How we brought iconic voices back to BBC Russian

2016-09-16T10:50:57+00:00

At BBC Russian, we have always been aware of our amazing history (regular broadcasts started in 1946). Our radio archives span decades and contain recordings of unique historical importance. And for a while now we’ve been thinking: how can we make them available to the audiences in the new digital age and how could we turn audio archives into attractive video?

We wanted to keep the focus on the voices, so we decided to subtitle everything, and add some images of the interviewees. And who better to front a historical project but legendary veteran broadcaster, Seva Novgorodsev! So the concept of the new series, Voices from the Archive, was agreed.

Voices from the Archive presenter Seva Novgorodsev

When you listen to the archive now (on digital audio files), it takes you back to a time when the Iron Curtain was a genuine barrier to contact between the Soviet people and the West. Visits to Britain were extremely rare, and few people dared to speak their minds openly down a telephone line from Moscow to London, because all international calls were made through an operator who was almost certainly listening and perhaps recording every word.

The BBC was referred to as an 'enemy voice' (vrazheskiy golos). In those days, much of BBC Russian output was made up of music, documentary features on the arts and history, poetry and prose readings and radio adaptations of plays - all part of an effort to give Soviet citizens a taste of forbidden Western, and their own ‘dissident’, culture. This was not counter-propaganda, - we were giving the vast audience in the Soviet Union access to the BBC’s trademark balanced reporting, and to a free flow of information.

Today there are many thousands of digital audio files in the BBC Russian archive, so selecting the content for our new project wasn’t going to be easy. In the resulting first series of Voices from the Archive, which consists of 12 episodes, we have given those recordings a connection with the present through the thoughts expressed in the original interviews that still have resonance today. Each episode features two personalities. While about half of them spoke with Seva Novgorodsev during his decades of broadcasting on the BBC, the rest are from programmes and interviews by BBC Russian journalists such as Masha Slonim, Natalia Rubinstein, Boris Nechaev, Tatiana Berg, Diran Meghreblian, Igor Pomerantsev and others.

It’s all about stories, first-hand and first-person. The people speaking with the BBC come from different times and places, many of them are no longer alive, and the stories they tell are about a time before many of us were even born. Many of the conversations took place in the 1990s and 2000s when Russians could travel abroad freely and there was a powerful impulse to speak openly about the Soviet past. It’s history as told by witnesses:

White Russian émigré Countess Anna Ivanovna Shuvalova tells how, just after the revolution in 1917, she used all the rude words she could muster to stop a Soviet commissar from requisitioning a peasant’s calf
Vasily Petrenko, the youngest general in the Red Army, remembers his part in liberating Auschwitz in 1945
Ballerina Maya Plisetskaya, whose parents were both victims of Stalin’s purges, tells how she discovered she had danced before the Soviet leader in his dying days on 27 February, 1953
Writer Andrei Sinyavsky talks about the importance of his friendship with Yuli Daniel, during their infamous trial in 1966 for publishing their "anti-Soviet" stories abroad
Krushchev’s daughter, Rada Adjubei, remembers how her father’s successors “discouraged” him from recording his memoirs in the late 1960s
Natalya Koroleva tells how she was forbidden to say her father was the Chief Designer, Sergei Korolev - the man behind the Soviet space programme which put Gagarin into space
In 1978, at a time when it was dangerous to speak to foreign journalists, Nobel Peace Laureate, nuclear physicist Andrei Sakharov tells the BBC's Moscow correspondent Kevin Ruane that the struggle for human rights in the Soviet Union is important for the future of all humanity, not just for Russians
Bass guitarist Sasha Titov remembers being arrested in the underground rock scene in 1980-90s Leningrad
Liberal politician Galina Starovoitova’s story is about hatching a plan with Margaret Thatcher to rescue Gorbachev from the coup plotters in August 1991.

Seva Novgorodsev said that our new series brings back the voices of the people who, each in their own way, made history and that it’s a testimony of times and lives. I can’t agree more. He also said it’s the BBC at its best. I’ll leave it to our Russian-speaking audiences, wherever they are, to make that judgement – but I am proud of the work we’ve done and am looking forward to starting on the next series.

Jessy Kaner is the producer of the BBC Russian video series Voices from the Archive.

New episodes will be published every Friday on bbcrussian.com, after which they will be available on demand.
Following the initial 12 episodes, there will be new editions of Voices from the Archive.

Living in '66

2016-05-27T08:38:04+00:00

John Lennon declares the Beatles "bigger than Jesus".

England win the World Cup.

And Time Magazine calls London "Swinging" - in what would become the word that defined a decade.

But 1966 wasn't all about the capital. And it wasn’t all about football. All over the country, things were changing, and they were changing fast.

I hadn’t been born in 1966, but for most of my life I’ve been immersed in the cultural impact of that year. I grew up watching Star Trek which first aired in the US in ’66 – as did other childhood favourites of mine The Monkees, The Time Tunnel and Mission: Impossible. It was also the year that a number of incredible songs were hits – including the extraordinary Beatles classic Eleanor Rigby. Many of the hits of ‘66 I play regularly now on my phone, still marveling at a technology that back then would have seemed just impossibly far fetched.

So to mark a half century passing, we decided to make a programme in every region of England, celebrating 1966 and the changes it brought about.

They’re a fascinating selection of films.

In the West Midlands, Adrian Chiles discovers how new arrivals battled racism in everyday life.

In the South East, Simon Fanshawe visits my old university – then a new university – in Canterbury. In the East Midlands Robert Lindsay remembers life in Nottingham while Stuart Maconie uncovers a world of casinos, strip joints, slum clearances and women’s lib in the North West.

Vivien Walden outside the former Mr Smith's strip club

Writer Kay Mellor in Yorkshire with Fashion entrepeneur Rita Britton

Then, of course, there is the capital of the swinging sixties where Patsy Kensit explores what it was really like in London using five of her favourite photographs from the time.

Wherever you are in England, you’ll find Living in ’66 a wonderful reminder of a world now gone, but not totally forgotten. Frankly the great thing about making a TV programme about the mid sixties is that there was colour everywhere – and the music was sensational – which are quite simply a programme maker’s dream. If I was to think of 1956 I’d imagine black and white pictures and prim and proper people – think 1976 and I’d imagine beige outfits and an economic crisis – both a far cry from the exuberance, the colour and the change of the mid-sixties.

There's a unique perspective to explore with regional programmes like these - an opportunity to see the transformation of inner city areas to huge changes in transport and education. Do be sure to watch to find out – or to help you remember – what it was like 'Living in ’66'.

Stuart Thomas is Head of English Regions Programmes

Living in ’66 airs on BBC One in England at 7.30pm on Wednesday 1 June, 2016 and all regional programmes will be available to watch on iPlayer for 30 days after broadcast.
Read more about the programme on the Media Centre website.

Blood and Gold: The Making of Spain with Simon Sebag Montefiore.

2015-12-01T12:30:00+00:00

8.27am. The Alhambra Palace. We’ve been here since dawn. We have one more piece to camera to shoot, and in three minutes the gates will open and the public will pour in.

Outside, they’re getting restless. Visitors from all over the world have forked out 50 euros a piece for a tour of Granada’s stunning 14th century Islamic palace. They are in no mood to have their enjoyment marred by a British film crew.

Two and a half million people come here every year. Not all on the same day of course, but this is still one of the most popular destinations on the planet.

"Stand by", I say, just as the first wave of tourists comes round the corner, through the massive carved entrance way, arriving in their hundreds in the Room of the Two Doors. This is one of the many ante-rooms to the main part of the palace, currently littered with film crew, presenter, lights, camera, boxes of lenses and filters, and general filming gunk.

This group is French, they’ve been queuing for hours, and they are in no mood to wait.

"Silence sur le plateau" I plead. "All quiet on set". The French stop, as one. I hear a low murmuring. "Qu-est ce qui se passe?" "What’s happening?"

It’s now or never.

"Action!" I yell, and the man in the white Panama hat strides up to the right hand door, which towers over him, turns to the camera and explains that this, contrary to appearances, is not actually a door. It's a fake.

And the reason is the Nasrids, the last Moslem dynasty in Spain and the architects of the Alhambra, feared attack so much, they created false doors and passageways leading nowhere, to confuse and repel their enemies.

The final line to camera is expertly delivered: "This tells you all you need to know about the paranoia, fear and duplicity in the Alhambra palace."

"Cut!" I yell, and that’s a wrap. We start to gather up our things. Finally, breakfast awaits. The French, as one, applaud. "Bravo!" This is better than any guided tour, they tell each other. Our presenter smiles modestly, and waves at his newfound Gallic army of fans. Just another day on location with Simon Sebag Montefiore.

Blood and Gold – The Making of Spain was my first experience of working with Simon Sebag Montefiore and what fun, and how informative it turned out to be.

There are not many presenters who so cleverly and entertainingly combine tales of preposterous popinjays with stories of beautiful concubines and scheming, venal, bloodthirsty barons. It’s like filming with the most erudite and charming of teachers and guides.

Spain was the perfect setting for the latest in Simon’s epic historical television tours, following on from Jerusalem, Istanbul and Rome.

This time the formula was opened out to encompass a country, and Spain was the ideal choice. The first two programmes are set in Andalusia. They cover the conquest of the peninsula by the Carthaginians, Romans, Visigoths and Moslems and then the re-conquest by the Christian Kings, with Spain united under Ferdinand and Isabella and the Jewish and Moslem population expelled. The final programme focuses on nationhood. Shot mainly in Madrid it tells the story from Philip II to the present day.

What makes Spain so interesting is that, as Simon explains so vividly, it is part of Europe and yet in many ways it is so very different. It’s almost entirely surrounded by water. It’s only 14km from Africa, and its position at the gateway to the Mediterranean means through its early history Spain was subject to repeated waves of invasion. Those influences live on, in the architecture, in the language, which is infused with Arabic words, in the music, in the food and in the culture.

Spain is the most visited destination of all by British travellers, though not many venture too far from the Mediterranean coast. I hope this series persuades them to explore further and soak up the incredible atmosphere of Spain’s southern cities of Cadiz, Cordoba, Granada and Seville, and of course to travel further north to Madrid.

We all learnt so much filming this series. Incredible to think there is so much history, and such exotic stories, just a short plane ride away. Who knew the story of Spain would prove to be so thrilling.

Marion Milne is Series Prodcer/ Director, Blood and Gold: The Making of Spain with Simon Sebag Montefiore

Watch Blood and Gold: The Making of Spain with Simon Sebag Montefiore on BBC Four from Tuesday 8 December at 9pm

Remembering Lime Grove Studios

2015-05-21T14:09:28+00:00

Lime Grove, 1950, with BBC Television studios at end of street on the left.

In 1949 Lime Grove Studios were bought by the BBC as a 'temporary measure' until Television Centre was ready. On this day, 21 May, in 1950 the BBC moved in. Output included Childrens, entertainment and current affairs.

The BBC left in 1991 and here we remember the studios through pictures:

Lime Grove studios exterior, 1951

Opening of the new televsion studio for Children's Hour at Lime Grove, London 1950.

The picture above is of the opening of the new television studio for Childrens Hour at Lime Grove, London 1950.

After the opening of the new studio by none other than Mrs Clement Attle, viewers were invited to join in a house warming party, where they were introduced to new and old friends by Jennifer Gay (fourth left) and Wilfred Pickles (second left). Jimmy Hanley, one of the guests at the party, is showing his impressive paper tearing act.

Two visitors see themselves on television at the Lime Grove studios, 1951.

HM the Queen and HRH the Duke of Edinburgh visit Lime Grove, 1953

On Wednesday, October 28th 1953, HM the Queen and HRH the Duke of Edinburgh paid an informal visit to Lime Grove, where they saw the televising of a drama production, The Disagreeable Man; watching a variety show For Your Pleasure; and were present at the opening of the quiz programme Animal, Vegetable, Mineral?.

After the variety show artists and members of the staff were presented to Her Majesty and the Duke of Edinburgh. Here the Queen is talking to cameraman Colin Clews (left) Mr D.C Birkinshaw, Superintendent Engineer, Television, (right), HRH the Duke of Edinburgh.

Studio G at Lime Grove studios 1950.

The picture above shows Studio G at Lime Grove. Studio G was the second largest of the Lime Grove studios with a floor area of over 5,500 square feet.

It was equipped with four "Pye Photocon cameras" and a "telecine channel" for "televising cinematograph films". The electronic equipment for the cameras was in an adjoining room above which was the control room with a window overlooking the studio.

Lime Grove Studios exterior 1970

Recording Gloria Live at Lime Grove in 1991.

Auto cue control in studio at Lime Grove 1991.

Inside Lime Grove Studios 1990.

And in case the ghostly figure in the picture above is leaving you feeling whistful and sad, I wanted to include two more pictures, of cats.

It's a slight cheat as these pictures are from Lime Grove Baths where the Championship All-Breed Cat Show was held in 1948. But, recordings made at the show were broadcast in Woman's Hour and these two beauties were the champs.

Timothy of Knott Hall, a Blue Longhair Persian, winner of Championship All-Breed Cat Show held at Lime Grove Baths, London 1948.

Chinchilla Langherne Winsome, a six times champion, at the Championship All-Breed Cat Show, Lime Grove Baths, London, in 1948.

Hannah Khalil is Digital Content Producer About the BBC Website and blog

Find out more about Lime Grove Studios on History of the BBC

Winston Churchill’s funeral in HD on BBC Parliament

2015-01-26T16:45:39+00:00

Filming the state funeral of Sir Winston Churchill for the BBC

On Friday 30 January 2015, 50 years to the day, BBC Parliament will re-broadcast the state funeral of Sir Winston Churchill, a national event which saw hundreds of thousands of mourners come together in London and many millions more watch the BBC’s live coverage on television.

Specialists from BBC Archive and BBC Studios and Post Production have worked together to produce an HD remastering of the Former Prime Minister’s state funeral in full. Here James Rowland explains the genesis of the re-mastering project and how through the process some footage that could have been lost has been secured and preserved for the future.

BBC Archives were first approached in June 2014 with a request from BBC Parliament asking the Archive to consider making an HD re-mastering of The State Funeral of Sir Winston Churchill from the original black and white film recordings to be re-broadcast as part of nation-wide events marking the 50th anniversary of Winston Churchill’s death on the 30 January 2015.

While planning the project the BBC Archives team discovered that a section from the funeral footage, reportedly featuring two buglers inside St Paul’s Cathedral playing The Last Post followed by Reveille, was missing from a transfer that had been made from the print of the original film many years ago. When the team checked the original film they found, to their relief, the missing section of approximately 3 minutes and 35 seconds was safely preserved on the original film. Up until the Eighties it was relatively common, although not permitted, for users of the Archive to physically cut sections out of the film to use in their programmes with urgent deadlines such as current affairs and we think that’s what may have occurred with the print of the funeral which was later transferred to tape and added to the archive holdings.

We wanted to re-master the archive footage and make the complete recoding of this historic event accessible and available. So work began to bring a third partner on-board to undertake the transfer and restoration of the film. Having already completed the restoration of the Coronation film footage for the Golden Jubilee of 2012, BBC Studios and Post Production with their specific experience and technical expertise were an obvious choice to join the team.

Richard Dimbleby presents coverage of Winston Churchill's state funeral for the BBC

In total, 14 reels of black and white 35mm film negatives with mag tracks were retrieved from specialist film vaults at the BBC Archive Centre in west London where they are stored at 5°C and 30% humidity and then delivered to BBC Studios and Post Production for work to begin.

The film negatives themselves were in fairly good condition, but inevitably there was a certain amount of dirt and scratches. The sound was also of relatively decent quality, however due to the nature of how it was recorded there was a high-pitched whistle through much of the material.

The film was cleaned and then transferred to HDCAM SR tapes using Spirit telecines. Due to the recording being split over 14 reels (over 4 hours in duration) and the difficult nature of the content, ‘joining’ the film invisibly to give a seamless result was challenging for the transfer team. Also the individual sound and picture reels did not match or ‘sync up’ and therefore required ‘re-syncing’ on every reel changeover.

BBC Studios and Post production carried out the noise reduction and graded the pictures during the transfer process. They then tweaked the picture shape which was achieved by warping and stretching the image in order to match the different film reels. After that, the footage was then taken into the ‘dustbuster’ stage for frame by frame blemish removal and to remove monitor twitches. Finally, a quality assessment was carried out by BBC Studios and Post Production before playout to a modern HD tape format that was then supplied to BBC Archives as the completed transfer.

Back at the BBC Archive Centre, the team were obviously keen to see the finished results, including the footage of the missing buglers. The buglers were there, however the team didn’t recognise the first piece of music as being The Last Post which it was reportedly meant to be (it sounded similar but not the same). It was vital that the detail around this missing section of footage was accurate so the Archive’s Music Library Team, who manage the BBC’s collection of sheet music, were consulted and after listening to the piece, identified it as Watch Setting (2^nd Post) and not The Last Post.

Watching the rest of the recording, impeccably narrated by Richard Dimbleby, made for compelling viewing. BBC Studios and Post Production had done a good job of reducing ‘hiss’ from the audio and the results with cleaning-up debris and damage from the picture without losing the authenticity of the original recording was also impressive.

In addition to the historic footage of the funeral procession and service inside St Paul’s Cathedral, the film captures a fascinating sense of 1965 London, which viewers will find equally interesting when it’s re-broadcast by BBC Parliament on the 30 January 2015, 50 years after the event. After leaving St Paul’s the procession travels by car to Tower Pier and then along the River Thames by barge with the famous footage of the dockers who lowered their crane jibs in a salute. Following this the procession resumes by car at Festival Pier where it travels past a building works on the Southbank and Richard Dimbleby comments on the ‘new’ Festival Halls that are under construction before the procession continues to Waterloo Station and on by train.

The completion of this exciting piece of work has been a result of a great collaboration between BBC Archives, BBC Parliament and BBC Studios and Post Production who have all liaised and worked closely together throughout the process to deliver a complete version of this historic footage. We hope it will help the nation mark the anniversary of Churchill’s death.

The State Funeral of Sir Winston Churchill will be on BBC Parliament on Friday 30 January from 9.15am

James Rowland is Senior Media Manager for BBC Archives

Churchill: The Nation's farewell is on BBC One on Wednesday 28 January at 9pm
This post also appears on the BBC Archives website
Follow @ArchiveatBBC for more archive-related news
BBC footage of the funeral is also being shown at the National Railway Museum in York as part of its exhibition on the funeral train
Discover more BBC history on the History of the BBC website including a section dedicated to BBC anniversaries.

Taking Liberties Season on the BBC: Magna Carta 800

2015-01-07T10:13:53+00:00

Melvyn Bragg records Magna Carta for BBC Radio 4

What we love most about the Middle Ages is their glorious (and gory) distance from the modern world. Not for nothing is Game of Thrones held up as the ‘best drama about the Wars of the Roses’ even with its dragons, ‘gods old and new’, and 1,000 mile ice wall. It’s us, but not us. The castles, and the suits of armour, may be satisfyingly tangible, but they really come to life in the wildest fantasy – and have done so for centuries.

So it’s something of a surprise to be told our entire way of life – everything we hold dearest about freedom, liberty and justice – derives from a single sheep’s skin manuscript, covered in arcane medieval Latin, which is celebrating its 800th anniversary this year. Magna Carta – ‘The Great Charter’. Cue, a small island on the river Thames, and a group of angry, well-armed knights forcing a recalcitrant, and very bad King John to sign a document curbing his own arbitrary powers. Actually, he didn’t sign it, of course, he set his seal to it; and in fact, there was no document, per se, that day in June 1215, only the promise of one. But once that royal seal was attached, a vital principle entered into national political life – global political life in due course – and that was, simply, nobody was above the law, least of all the King. All those tyrants, emperors, and ancient kings who wielded cruel and non-negotiable power, free to dispose of their subjects as they chose – suddenly, it was they who were history, at least in theory. And from Magna Carta’s core idea would be built (after centuries of dispute, it has to be said, including revolutions and civil war) many of the pillars of the modern world. The fact our leaders cannot imprison us on a whim, for example. Long after King John – and his rebellious barons – were dead and buried, that principle would motivate the parliamentary opposition to Charles I; it would provide the central idea embodied by the Founding Fathers of the new United States of America; and it would offer justification to the protest movements of Mahatma Gandhi, and Nelson Mandela – among many, many others.

That is why we feel this is no ordinary anniversary. The story of how the Magna Carta came to be conceived in the first place, never mind sealed and implemented, is fascinating enough in its own right, and one we shall be addressing directly, on radio, television, and online. But it’s the story of its impact on the following 800 years which really astonishes. That is why our coverage will range far and wide – touching on everything from an exploration of the institution that most directly claims direct lineage from the Magna Carta – our Houses of Commons – to examples from around the globe of just how tendentious these principles remain in the contemporary world, from China, to Zimbabwe, and beyond.

Working closely with our partners – Magna Carta 800 and the British Library – we’ve made the season relevant to people of all ages. From David Starkey and Melvyn Bragg looking back at its history; to Horrible Histories, BBC Three comedy and Radio 1 supporting the British Library's Magna Carta: My Digital Rights project, to our news and current affairs offerings in Democracy Day on the 20th January - the season will promote understanding and debate around today’s democratic process.

Magna Carta’s legacy is as profound in its spirit, as it is in its letter. Ordinary people talk to power, we have the right to criticise those who claim to represent us, we are even allowed to ridicule them, and all without fear of imprisonment or torture. This too must stand as one of the most important consequences of that fateful encounter between king and magnates 800 years ago, though not one any of the original participants would remotely have anticipated, or, arguably, approved of. But still it stands. A tribute to the power of an idea, which once unleashed, can change the world out of all recognition.

Martin Davidson is BBC Commissioning Editor, History

Programmes in the season include David Starkey's Why so Revolutionary on BBC Two, and Melvyn Bragg's The Legacy of Magna Carta for BBC Radio 4.

See the Taking Liberties Media Pack for more details
Read the Taking Liberties press release

The centenary of Hartlepool Bombardment – how we covered the stories of 100 years ago

2014-12-19T14:56:05+00:00

On 16th December 1914 Hartlepool on the North East coast was the site of the first civilian deaths on UK soil during the First World War.

More than 100 people were killed as a thousand shells blasted the town for 40 minutes from three German ships (Blucher, Seydlitz and Moltke) shortly after 0800. Among the casualties was Theo Jones – the first soldier to be killed on British soil in the First World War.

BBC Tees’ coverage of the centenary of the Hartlepool Bombardment was one of our most ambitious projects to date, and one that was months in the planning.

We realised early on in that planning that it was a vast project likely to appeal to a national audience as well as those served by the BBC local radio station for Hartlepool, BBC Tees. It was also clear that to do justice to the events of that day, our coverage would need to cover not just radio, but also television, online and social media.

Two journalists led on covering the stories from the Bombardment – Jonathan Swingler and Lee Johnson - and whilst researching their stories they came across the Teesside Archive and a collection of around 600 tapes containing previously unheard audio. These tapes contained stories recorded in the 1980s of elderly Hartlepool residents, many of whom were children when the shells struck the town. A broadcast assistant sifted through all the material and pin pointed what was the most important and emotive recollections. They all recalled what they were doing at the exact moment of the first shelling, as the fear and enormity of it all began to take hold. To uncover this unheard audio was an exciting discovery for our team and it proved to be the starting point of our Outreach project.

After digitising the stories, we then took them to Dyke House School in Hartlepool and played them to a group of teenagers who had all volunteered to be part of the BBC Outreach project. Kate Fox, a performance poet and writer based in North Yorkshire, led a weekly discussion at the school working with a history teacher and Helen Amess from the BBC Outreach to discuss the audio, and what the teenagers felt when they heard the accounts.

What struck the school children most was that the people telling these stories were no longer alive and that many of them had been teenagers at the time of the attack – the same age as themselves. They all said they felt they had a responsibility to tell these stories and to keep the memories alive for future generations.

Ceramic poppies form Hartlepool Bombardment memorial

They produced a poem which they performed as part of the moving ceremony which saw a new war memorial unveiled to the civilian casualties of the Hartlepool Bombardment. The 130 people who died that day were publically named and remembered, as children from a local primary school planted a ceramic poppy, originally part of the Tower of London installation, one for each casualty.

Our coverage of the Hartlepool Bombardment started early in the morning on 16th December with a special Breakfast Show presented by Ali Brownlee, taking listeners back to the day with real-time reports to coincide with the historical timings of the attack. At around 0750, just as the sun was coming up, we managed to pull off a successful broadcast from a small fishing boat out at sea containing one of our reporters, David MacMillan.

David MacMillan broadcasts from the North Sea, where the Germans fought from on December 16th, 1914

The idea behind this report was to give the perspective of the German boats out at sea, looking back inland towards Hartlepool just before they started their attack on the town. It was a great relief to pull this off as it was probably the part of the broadcast with the biggest potential to go wrong.

The logistical and technical challenges didn’t end there, with a total of six different live sources and six local presenters and reporters across Hartlepool and Whitby contributing to that hour. Our Engineer John Proudler deserves great credit for the smooth overseeing of such a difficult live broadcast.

Later in the afternoon, BBC Tees’ Afternoon Show came live from the Borough Hall in Hartlepool where guests assembled to enjoy an afternoon tea dance, exhibition and poetry recitals.

In the months prior to the centenary, we had successfully secured funding to send our reporter Jonathan Swingler out to Germany to visit Heligoland naval museum to speak to historians about the German mood before and after the Bombardment. He managed to secure access to one of the ships Commanders’ diaries and read inside how the commander felt before the mission to Hartlepool

Jonathan also looked at archive material of German newspapers reporting on the attack and even took a piece of shrapnel found 100 years ago from Hartlepool back, to place in situ next to one of the gun barrels from the war ships.

Photo by BBC reporter Jonathan Swingler of Hartlepool shell fragment next to Seydlitz gun barrell in Germany

The material he gathered in Germany ran across BBC outlets including the national BBC bulletin at one o’clock, BBC Look North, BBC Tees and online and were a good example of original journalism which we wouldn’t have been able to do without the additional funding.

These examples of looking at the Bombardment from the German perspective were seen as a new way to cover this well-known local story and received praise from many people including Mandy Southcott, Vice-Chair of The Heugh Gun Battery in.

The dedicated Local Live web page of the Bombardment, delivered by Kristie Kinghorn with Rachel Kerr, was the second most viewed page on the BBC website on the afternoon of 16th December.

As well as real-time reporting of historical events as they unfolded, the website also contained ‘Then and Now’ images showing the damage and after effects of the bombardment alongside present-day images of the buildings.

It also carried video footage of several reports including the Imperial War Museum material (also played out on BBC Look North) of a joint funeral of two previously unknown sailors who were buried in Middlesbrough. Hartlepool Borough Council’s history expert, Mark Simmons, revealed to the BBC that his research had finally identified it as the funeral of Ralph Weston Hook and George Charles Martin Flynn.

It’s been thrilling to be part of such an ambitious project, and inspiring to see how imaginatively and authoritatively the BBC Tees’ team delivered it. BBC Tees was honoured to be named ‘Station of the Year’ (under one million) at the Radio Academy Awards this year, and the judges commented that the station was clearly “dedicated to serving their audience with flair and passion”. I believe the team demonstrated that with their work on this coverage.

We are now planning a radio documentary from the Hartlepool Bombardment coverage to go out over Christmas on BBC Tees, and we’ve had discussions about some of the audio and pictures we gathered being used as part of the display at the Heugh Gun Battery visitor attraction. Dyke House School are continuing to develop the Outreach work using the poem the children wrote with Kate Fox for educational purposes.

BBC Tees had to creatively approach a story from 100 years ago, which was well known to many locally, and do it justice. We worked in collaboration with several organisations and partners and thanks must go to Hartlepool Borough Council, Teesside Archive, Imperial War Museum and Heugh Gun Battery.

With their kind support, we hope that we honoured the momentous events of a hundred years ago.

Dan Thorpe is Managing Editor, BBC Tees.

TVC past, present and future

2014-09-22T13:05:19+00:00

A significant milestone will be reached at the end of this month when the BBC formally hands over the iconic Television Centre site to its new owners, Stanhope plc, six months ahead of schedule.

Since July 2012, when the BBC sold the site for £200 million, we have been working in partnership with Stanhope to ensure that Television Centre emerges as a great public space for people to live, work and visit, which pays homage to its past, whilst securing its future as a key destination in West London.

Once described as the Taj Mahal of television, Television Centre stands on what was part of the 1908 Great Exhibition. The BBC acquired the site in 1949, and it became home to the BBC when it opened in 1960. Designed by Graham Dawbarn, it was the world’s first purpose-built centre for television production. In its heyday, half of all BBC television transmitted was made at Television Centre.

I have spent the past 37 years at the BBC working predominantly as part of the Duty Facilities Management team at Television Centre and as such, have been privy to many of the stories that make up its great past. I remember the time, for instance, when the rapper 50 Cent arrived for his appearance on Top of the Pops with an entourage of 13 people carriers. And then there were the unusual demands made by the stars. One time we had to install a fridge just to house Lady Gaga’s wigs. On another occasion, when Madonna requested a life-size picture of the Pope for her dressing-room, the BBC Studios team managed to obtain his waxwork model from Madame Tussauds. These requests often posed their own set of problems. When Janet Jackson asked for 50 lit candles in her dressing-room, we had to position a fire officer outside her door!

The set of Top of the Pops in 1987

This weekend, Television Centre was on show to the public for the last time under the BBC’s possession, as part of this year’s Open House London 2014. Some 400 people booked onto one of the 13 tours with Allford Hall Monaghan Morris, the lead architects for the Television Centre Masterplan for one last chance to look around the White City site before it is transformed into a mixed-use development that combines office and studio and post production space for the BBC’s commercial operations, with a range of other uses including entertainment and leisure facilities, a public open space, a new hub for creative industries and new businesses, 950 new homes, and a new boutique hotel. When complete, the iconic listed buildings, including the famous forecourt and façade, Studio 1 and the central Helios Plaza will be preserved and opened up to the public for the first time.

If you missed out on getting tickets for the Open House tour, there is still a chance to own a bit of BBC TV history as the final online auction of Television Centre memorabilia gets underway next month. Some 4,000 items are being auctioned, including memorabilia from BBC TV shows, a range of IT and broadcast technology equipment, posters and signage.

So what does the future hold for this much-loved building? The masterplan prepared by the BBC/Stanhope partnership ensures that the long history of creativity and programme-making at Television Centre continues long into the future.

So remember, when the latest iteration of the BBC logo that has adorned the flank wall of Studio 1 for the last 50 years finally comes down later this month, it is simply an intermission; the BBC will be returning and be very much a part of this vibrant and unique new media site. With the return of BBC Studios and Post Production in 2017, and BBC Worldwide’s move to its new headquarters at the site early next year, we can look forward to having a presence at Television Centre for many years to come.

Mike Eaton is a Project Manager at Television Centre, BBC Commercial Projects

Tart and tea – Alan Bennett at 80

2014-05-08T10:20:58+00:00

“Alan Bennett’s 80 this week – are you going to write a blog?” It was a something I hadn’t considered – because this is a BBC blog, and Alan Bennett is a theatre dramatist. Right? Wrong.

Most people will have heard of Alan Bennett, even if they’re not familiar with his work. The writer, whose contribution to arts in the UK has been huge, turns 80 this month. It would be easy to presume – as I had – that Bennett is mainly a playwright – for the last 20 years he has dominated stages across the UK with plays like The Lady in the Van, The History Boys, The Madness of King George and The Habit of Art.

Closer inspection reveals that Bennett’s first writing home was the small screen, and the BBC where much of his output appeared in the form of TV dramas, as the forthcoming retrospective of his work attests. He confesses, “Television plays come more easily” – and bemoans the fact he only manages to produce stage works at four or five year intervals in this interview with Mark Lawson for Radio 4’s Front Row.

We won’t call Bennett a national treasure – he probably wouldn’t like it – but he’s certainly a BBC favourite. Aficionados of his (very funny, well observed) dramas won’t be surprised that Bennett’s first work was as a comedy writer. He penned Beyond the Fringe written with Dudley Moore (a fellow Oxford student) as well as Peter Cook and Jonathan Miller. He went on to write solo, On the Margin, a six-part satirical sketch show for the BBC, which starred Bennett himself (yes, an actor too), along with Prunella Scales. The 1966 series was thought lost but was recovered earlier this year, and is due to be returned to the BBC Archive.

Alan Bennett and John Sergeant perform a sketch in On The Margin in 1966

Two years later, in 1968, Forty Years On Bennett’s first stage play, a highly theatrical piece about a school play being mounted, opened. Again Bennett performed, this time alongside John Gielgud.

I think it’s fascinating that almost 40 years on from Forty Years On (!) Bennett revisited the institutional setting for arguably his most popular play The History Boys. It made me think about what is so appealing to Bennett (and other dramatists) about the school as a setting for drama. Something in the hierarchy of a school – within the teachers and pupils themselves – allows for interesting resonance and metaphor and offers the opportunity for comparison with political and state hierarchy. It’s also a good place to find a good schoolboy joke, and the hilarious one-liners Bennett is synonymous with.

He returned to TV to pen his first play for the small screen in 1972. Entitled A Day Out it was directed by the then little-known Stephen Frears. A black and white piece (despite the fact colour telly was now all the rage), it was set in 1911 and centred around a group of young men who made up Halifax cycling club. The poignant fact that these boys were about to go to war was not lost on audiences and the piece struck a chord with many.

The success of A Day Out lead to a number of other TV productions – for both the BBC and LWT. Then, in the 1980s, Bennett wrote the series he is probably best known for: Talking Heads (1987). In it six repressed characters, speak about their lives. It starred the cream of British acting talent: Bennett himself, Patricia Routledge, Maggie Smith, Stephanie Cole, Julie Walters and, perhaps most memorably, Thora Hird. Despite apparent nervousness about how the pieces would work on TV - the title itself is related to the fear many television execs have of seeing ‘talking heads’ on screen rather than action - the monologues were so highly regarded he revisited them 10 years later in 1998 and created another series. Both Talking Heads 1 and 2 have featured periodically on the British school curriculum ever since. If you haven’t had the pleasure of seeing them, A Chip in the Sugar, starring Bennett; A Bed Among the Lentils with Maggie Smith; and A Lady of Letters performed by Patricia Routledge, will form part of the BBC Four Alan Bennett retrospective.

Thora Hird in Talking Heads: A Cream Cracker Under the Settee

You’ve probably come across Bennett’s work on the big screen too. Two of his more recent stage works being produced, very successfully, for cinema – The Madness of King George and BBC Films’ The History Boys. The latter featured the same cast as the National Theatre’s stage production and is the reason you’ll recognise the names (and faces) of Russell Tovey (Him and Her, Being Human), James Corden (Gavin and Stacey, The Wrong Mans) and Dominic Cooper (Mamma Mia!, The Duchess).

The History Boys was also voted the Nation’s Favourite play in a poll by English Touring Theatre last year. And if that doesn’t assure his national treasure status (sorry Alan), he’s also read the Shipping Forecast on Radio 4 (a genius idea from guest editor Michael Palin), and shared his favourite recipes with Nigel Slater.

So, suitably disabused of the notion of Bennett as solely a stage writer, I plan to have a crack at baking his Custard Tart (don't let anyone on the About the BBC team know about that), which I'll consume with a customary cuppa to celebrate the telly writer’s 80th birthday.

Hannah Khalil is Digital Producer, About the BBC Website and Blog.

13 Controllers of BBC Two

2014-04-15T17:32:12+00:00

Seeing as BBC Two celebrates its 50th birthday this month, we thought a whistle-stop tour of all the people who have graced the Controller’s hot-seat was in order. Where possible we've used the scans of the original promotional photograph taken of each incumbent when they were controller. We've also included quotes of what some have written about each incumbent.

Launching BBC Two (20 April 1964)

"The channel was launched with the remit of offering an alternative and more experimental style of television broadcasting ... with the rather quirky symbol of Hullaboo and Custard - a kangaroo and its baby. Opening night was a candle-lit affair of an unexpected kind. A massive power failure in West London plunged the studios into darkness, blacking out the planned glitter of the 'night that nearly was'.”

(From History of the BBC Resource Factsheets)

Michael Peacock (Controller, 1964-1965)

Getting viewers to switch channels to watch the new station was no mean feat. In an article in the Times in 1964, the first Controller of the network Michael Peacock defended a subsequent programme reshuffle:

"Not a panic move, it was a logistical development based on experience gained over the past few months… Mr Peacock said he believed the BBC had underestimated the amount of persuasive power necessary to get people to convert to BBC Two. He was not surprised that there had been no radical increase in second channel viewing figures.”

(From New Programmes For B.B.C. 2, The Times, 2 Sept. 1964)

Despite this, in his short time as Controller he oversaw the conception of Match of the Day, and sitcom The Likely Lads. Peacock went on to be Controller of BBC One, one of only three people have held both posts to date (the other two being Alan Yentob and Michael Jackson).

David Attenborough (Controller, 1965-1969)

An article in the Times announced David Attenborough’s appointment to the post of BBC Two Controller. Entitled "Aim of alternative viewing" it said:

“Mr Attenborough … is well known to television audiences through his travel and animal programmes, notably his Zoo Quest series which took him all over the world… Mr Attenborough said to reporters yesterday that, when he was informed of the appointment last week, he was planning a trip to Ecuador to study rare birds… Mr Attenborough said he watched BBC Two frequently and, while he would hesitate to describe it as his favourite channel, it had provided some excellent programmes.”

(From Mr. David Attenborough Is New B.B.C.2 Head, Times 5 Mar. 1965, The Times Digital Archive)

Sir David Attenborough celebrated 60 years in broadcasting in 2012 and is the only person to have won BAFTAs for programmes in black and white, colour, HD and 3D. Appropriately enough Attenborough oversaw the first colour TV broadcasts which began in 1967 on BBC Two (colour didn’t arrive on BBC One until 1969).

Robin Scott (Controller, 1969-1974)

Robin Scott pictured in his previous role as Director of Radio

Prior to his role at BBC Two Robin Scott was the Controller of Radio 1 and Radio 2. During this time he ruffled feathers at the Musician's Union with his approval of, and desire to, play more recorded music on the radio (the MU had a long held view that "the playing of records denied work to musicians")

Alan Yentob, BBC Director of Television in 2000, paid tribute to Scott after his death: "He will be remembered as a pioneer at the BBC… he was a great advocate of quality programme-making and encouraged many talents inside the BBC. His passion for the arts was infectious."

Aubrey Singer (Controller, 1974-1978)

It seems science at the BBC owes a debt to Aubrey Singer whose love of it and desire to introduce it into programming led to the creation of Horizon and Tomorrow’s World while he was in the BBC Two Controller’s chair.

"He displayed the same sunny confidence as he built up what was in effect a private features empire within the BBC, initially in scientific topics because he thought science was neglected, but soon expanded to take in the arts and any other subject."

(From The Guardian)

His obituary in the Times says his role as Controller of BBC Two was the job he "most enjoyed". Whilst in the role the classic Roman drama I, Claudius starring Derek Jacobi was first broadcast on the channel.

Brian Wenham (Controller, 1978-1982)

In a time when Channel 4’s inception was on the horizon – and a threat BBC Two’s viewing figures, Brian Wenham raised audience viewing figures to the network by 50%.

"He is remembered by his colleagues of those days as a laid-back, warm-hearted genius, one who always wore an Astrakhan cap which made him look like a Pakistani guerrilla.”

(From The Independent)

Among the programmes commissioned during Wenham's time as Controller was Alan Bleasdale’s Boys from the Blackstuff which is still cited by many writers as hugely influential.

Graeme MacDonald (Controller, 1982-1987)

"His elegant and civilised approach, backed up by a natural bent for orderly administration, and a gift for staff relations, made him ideal for the role of a BBC producer from the 1960s to the 1980s."

(From The Independent)

Although his work on The Wednesday Play and A Play for Today is often remembered as a high point in his career (he produced the series from 1967-77 with writers like Jack Rosenthal, Christopher Hampton, Peter Nichols, John McGrath and Howard Brenton) it is worth noting that BBC Schools programming (which later became the BBC Learning Zone in 2010) came into being during MacDonald’s time as Controller of BBC Two.

Alan Yentob (Controller, 1987-1992)

Alan Yentob joined as a general trainee in 1968:

"In those early years, I looked upon the BBC as my education. I never thought of what I could give but what they were giving me. I learnt so much about books, music, painting. I'd go to work and think, my God, I'm getting paid for this."

(From The Independent)

Programmes that came to BBC Two under Yentob’s stewardship include The Late Show, Have I Got News For You, Absolutely Fabulous and Wallace and Gromit's The Wrong Trousers.

Michael Jackson (Controller, 1992-1996)

BBC Two Controller

Initially brought in to the BBC by Alan Yentob to run The Late Show, Michael Jackson went on to take Yentob’s place in the hot-seat at BBC Two and later BBC One Controller too. He left the BBC in 1998 to join Channel 4.

"As Controller of BBC Twp and chief executive of Channel 4, he hung up pictures of Lord Reith and PT Barnum, explaining to visitors that his theory of TV was that you needed to be positioned roughly in the middle between the great cultural public servant and the circus huckster.”

(From The Guardian)

Programmes on BBC Two when Jackson was Controller include the groundbreaking drama Our Friends in the North by Peter Flannery.

Mark Thompson (Controller, 1996-1999)

Mark Thompson joined the BBC as a production trainee in 1979. He went on to work across many BBC programmes including Newsnight, The Nine O’Clock News and Panorama. He became controller of BBC Two in 1996. A year later he caught the Guardian’s eye at the Royal Television Society convention:

"It was an otherwise unremarkable September afternoon at the 1997 Royal Television Society convention in Cambridge when Mark Thompson's career was made. All the biggest names in broadcasting were gathered, the BBC's digital plans had been unveiled by John Birt and the hushed assembly waited to hear from one of the corporation's biggest names, Alan Yentob.

"But Yentob had broken a tooth on an unscheduled toffee, so instead it was the relatively junior exec Mark Thompson who stepped up to speak, unscripted, about the essence of BBC values. Looking as if he'd stepped out of an M&S catalogue in a sludge-green pullover, boyishly disarming, he could have been a disaster. Yet he suddenly spoke from the heart, about what the BBC meant to him, of how its programmes were crafted with pride - he compared them to home-made, carefully prepared food… On such moments careers hang. You need luck, yes. But courage too."

(From The Guardian)

The channel’s programming under Thompson included Our Mutual Friend, The Royle Family and Storyville. He went on to become BBC Director-General in 2004 and left the corporation in 2012.

Jane Root (Controller, 1999-2004)

BBC Two Controller

Jane Root was the first female Controller of a BBC Channel. She was nick-named, "The High Priestess of Lifestyle Television" after bringing Jamie Oliver to the nation's screens. In an interview in the Telegraph in 2003 Root said:

"I don't think women do it terribly differently. A lot of my biggest successes have been very male programmes - I don't think reinventing Top Gear or commissioning SAS Are You Tough Enough? was a girl thing."

(From The Telegraph)

Popular programmes in the BBC Two schedules during Jane Root's time as Controller include The Office, The Weakest Link and Who Do you Think You Are? While Top Gear was originally launched in 1977 the current format enjoyed by worldwide audiences came into being in 2002 under Root's tenure – Top Gear was one of the most watched iPlayer programmes in 2013.

Roly Keating (Controller, 2004-2008)

Roly Keating joined the BBC as a general trainee in 1983 and rose through the ranks to take the job of Controller BBC Two in 2004 (he had already been responsible for launching BBC Four in in 2002). There was a short period after the departure of Peter Fincham as Controller BBC One in 2008 when Keating was in charge of both channels, though he said the BBC One role was: "not a job I’ve ever aspired to".

“The cerebral, softly-spoken Keating has never seemed the kind of man who would feel at home with the shiny floors and big egos of BBC1. And while he has proved a safe interim pair of hands there, he has quietly performed an impressive feat at BBC2…

“Sitting cross-legged on the sofa in his sparsely furnished office, Keating lists the reasons he thinks BBC2 has to a large extent succeeded where many predicted it would fail. "In the last year and a half or so we have got the right ingredients in the right mix," he says, mentally reaching for his book of channel controller's cliches. Or perhaps he is calling to mind Masterchef, just one of a string of fading BBC2 brands revived during his stewardship.”

(From The Guardian)

Other memorable BBC Two programmes from Keating’s time include Andrew Marr's History Of Modern Britain, The Choir, Jerry Springer The Opera, Stephen Fry – The Secret Life Of The Manic Depressive, Extras and The Catherine Tate Show. He is currently Chief Executive of the British Library.

Janice Hadlow (Controller, 2008-March 2014)

Janice Hadlow first slipped on a BBC lanyard in 1986 as a production trainee. She worked her way through the ranks and many interesting jobs (like Producer on Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour) to become Controller of BBC Two in 2008 (like her predecessor Roly Keating, Hadlow had previously taken the lead role at BBC Four).

Janice was named in The Observer’s Bright Stuff list in 2004 , a “selection of 80 prodigiously talented young people who we believe will shape our lives in the early 21st century.” When she was chosen for the BBC Two role she said:

"There could be no better job in the broadcasting world than that of controller of BBC2. For me, there's no channel that's more exciting, more original, more enticing and above all, more important. Growing up, it was BBC2 that helped shape my vision of the world, with its distinctive mix of intelligence, authority and wit."

(From The Guardian)

In Hadlow’s time BBC Two has ventured successfully into 'event television', with live events like Lambing Live, Stargazing Live and World Book Night. Other programmes during her tenure include Miranda, The Trip, Rev, The Hour, The Shadow Line and The Fall. But most importantly for everyone at About the BBC – cake lovers that we are – she is responsible for green-lighting The Great British Bake Off for which we shall be forever grateful.

Kim Shillinglaw (Controller, 2014-)

Since Janice Hadlow stepped down, Adam Barker has been acting Controller of BBC Two. Last week. the we announced the appointment of Kim Shillinglaw to the role of BBC Two Controller.

Jake Kanter writing for industry newspaper Broadcast said:

"Rarely is the race to become a channel controller so clear cut. Kim Shillinglaw was the only name on BBC insiders’ lips while BBC2 was hunting for a new boss, and, sure enough, the science and natural history commissioner has landed the role.

"a near-BBC lifer, is known to be a straight-talking, confident operator with a penchant for the odd expletive, which one source described as 'quite refreshing'".

Hannah Khalil is Digital Producer, About The BBC Website and Blog.

Watch BBC Two’s opening night on YouTube
BBC Two will be marking its 50 year anniversary with a suite of programmes including All About Two (Saturday 20 April at 9pm), 50 Great Years of Sport on Two (Saturday at 8pm) and a host of other new comedy and entertainment programmes.
Follow @BBCTwo on Twitter

13 Controllers of BBC Two

2014-04-15T17:25:12+00:00

BBC Two celebrates its 50th birthday this month. A whistle-stop tour of all the people who have graced the Controller’s hot seat was in order.

Where possible we've used the scans of the original promotional photograph taken of each incumbent when they were controller. For the sake of authenticity, and to give things a slightly nostalgic feel, we've chosen not to apply any colour correction.

Launching BBC Two (20 April 1964)

(From History of the BBC Resource Factsheets)

Michael Peacock (Controller, 1964-1965)

(From New Programmes For B.B.C. 2, The Times, 2 Sept. 1964)

David Attenborough (Controller, 1965-1969)

BBC Two Controller

An article in the Times announced David Attenborough’s appointment to the post of BBC Two Controller. Entitled "Aim of alternative viewing" it said:

(From Mr. David Attenborough Is New B.B.C.2 Head, Times 5 Mar. 1965, The Times Digital Archive)

Robin Scott (Controller, 1969-1974)

Robin Scott pictured in his previous role as Director of Radio

Alan Yentob, then BBC Director of Television, on hearing of Scott's death in 2000 said; "He will be remembered as a pioneer at the BBC… he was a great advocate of quality programme-making and encouraged many talents inside the BBC. His passion for the arts was infectious."

Notable programmes from Scott’s time as Controller include Alistair Cook’s America.

Aubrey Singer (Controller, 1974-1978)

"The finest Director-General the BBC never had…"

(From The Guardian)

Brian Wenham (Controller, 1978-1982)

In a time when Channel 4’s inception was on the horizon – and a threat BBC Two’s viewing figures, Brian Wenham raised audience viewing figures to the network by 50%.

"He is remembered by his colleagues of those days as a laid-back, warm-hearted genius, one who always wore an Astrakhan cap which made him look like a Pakistani guerrilla.”

(From The Independent)

Among the programmes commissioned during Wenham's time as Controller was Alan Bleasdale’s Boys from the Blackstuff which is still cited by many writers as hugely influential.

Graeme MacDonald (Controller, 1982-1987)

(From The Independent)

Alan Yentob (Controller, 1987-1992)

Alan Yentob joined as a general trainee in 1968:

(From The Independent)

Programmes that came to BBC Two under Yentob’s stewardship include The Late Show, Have I Got News For You, Absolutely Fabulous and Wallace and Gromit's The Wrong Trousers.

Michael Jackson (Controller, 1992-1996)

BBC Two Controller

(From The Guardian)

Programmes on BBC Two when Jackson was Controller include the groundbreaking drama Our Friends in the North by Peter Flannery.

Mark Thompson (Controller, 1996-1999)

(From The Guardian)

The channel’s programming under Thompson included Our Mutual Friend, The Royle Family and Storyville. He went on to become BBC Director-General in 2004 and left the corporation in 2012.

Jane Root (Controller, 1999-2004)

BBC Two Controller

(From The Telegraph)

Roly Keating (Controller, 2004-2008)

(From The Guardian)

Janice Hadlow (Controller, 2008-March 2014)

(From The Guardian)

Kim Shillinglaw (Controller, 2014-)

Since Janice Hadlow stepped down, Adam Barker has been acting Controller of BBC Two. Last week. the we announced the appointment of Kim Shillinglaw to the role of BBC Two Controller.

Jake Kanter writing for industry newspaper Broadcast said:

"a near-BBC lifer, is known to be a straight-talking, confident operator with a penchant for the odd expletive, which one source described as 'quite refreshing'"

Hannah Khalil is Digital Producer, About The BBC Website and Blog.

Watch BBC Two’s opening night on YouTube
BBC Two will be marking its 50 year anniversary with a suite of programmes including All About Two (Saturday 20 April at 9pm), 50 Great Years of Sport on Two (Saturday at 8pm) and a host of other new comedy and entertainment programmes.
Follow @BBCTwo on Twitter