LIGHTS dim in ABC’s Didsbury studios. The electric clock points to after midnight. The stars, the extras and most of the cameramen and technicians have gone home.

One man walks alone through the main glass doors and says “Goodnight” to the red-coated commissionaire.

The Rev Eric Geddes’ Sunday has begun.

For 15 months Mr Geddes has been giving Epilogues at the end of the ABC Saturday and Sunday programmes — five minute talks on living with God’s help. His are words that have brought comfort to many viewers.

Speaking before the cameras means more work for Mr Geddes, for his task does not end when he removes his make-up. Viewers write him many letters; some to thank him for his words, others to ask for advice. Many want to see him, saying they would prefer to discuss a problem with him — a friendly stranger — than with their local priest.

But they seldom call on a Sunday. Like other pastors. Mr Geddes conducts four services at his own church — St Marks, Gorton … the church whose football club became Manchester United.

This extra television work does not mean that Mr Geddes neglects his parish or parishioners. He is always “at home” to them; he visits and helps them. Television means he works harder, longer hours than the average priest. But he does not begrudge a moment.

When Mr Geddes leaves the studio in the early hours of Sunday morning he takes with him a recording of his Epilogue, which he plays back in the book-lined drawing-room of his home. Then he gets four or five hours’ sleep before he is up again to take the early morning service at his church, five minutes’ walk from his home.

Outside, it is not a beautiful church. But the interior is pleasing. It stands among rows of tiny, grimy houses in which live, says Mr Geddes, some of the best people he has met. The area is a change for him and his wife. They moved to Manchester from a Norfolk village.

After the early service Mr Geddes goes home for a short break before Matins. He does not write his sermon; he thinks of his subject and when he reaches the pulpit he speaks from the heart.

There are usually four or five baptisms before he leaves for lunch. Then there is a children’s afternoon service to conduct before he can read the day’s news. He does this because he likes his television Epilogues to be topical. They are not scripted. Mr Geddes speaks off the cuff.

At one time he had to arrive at Didsbury early in the evening to rehearse his talk. “As I wasn’t working from a script I used to find that difficult,” he told me. “I could never be quite sure whether 1 had said something at the beginning of my talk or during the rehearsal.”

So now it is several hours after Sunday evening service that Mr Geddes makes his way to Didsbury — arriving an hour before he is due to appear, to give him time for make-up.

It is again after midnight when Mr Geddes leaves the studio after his Sunday night telecast. He has a busy week before him. I asked him whether he was nervous in front of the cameras and how he managed to think of something new and interesting to say each time. “I’m not nervous,” he replied. “And many of the things I say are related to personal experiences … the stories one can tell most vividly are of things that happen to oneself.”

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One such person was John Ranson, so much so that he kept many mementos of his years at ABC in Didsbury.

Amongst them is this ABC Television transmission schedule for Sunday 28 July 1968, ABC’s last day on air in the north and midlands before management upped-sticks and moved to London to become the dominant half of Thames Television on 30 July.

With a system as complicated as ITV, where there were over a dozen companies serving around 20 distinct advertising areas, swapping some programmes, timeshifting others, networking still more, there was a lot of admin work. The key to the administration of ITV was the use of transmission schedules, detailing down to the second what each company would be doing when. 18 seconds for an announcement here, 28 seconds of commercials there, programmes coming in from one company, programmes going out to another… the transmission schedule governed them all.

For ABC’s last day, John made sure to get a copy of the schedule to keep – he worked in the lines department, supervising the feeds coming in and going out along General Post Office co-axial links as well as ITA microwave connections, so he was entitled to have one. More than that, he popped round and asked staff on duty to sign it, turning it from a memento for him into an important historical document for us 50 years later.

The end of ABC meant upheaval for all staff, even those who would still be doing the same jobs in at the same desks in Teddington as the hours of broadcasting changed. This disruption would lead to strikes and lockouts taking the entire ITV network down in August, but for now it was time to say goodbye.

For administrators Pat and Deirdre, charged with collating this document, typing it up and producing Gestetner cyclographs for everybody who needed one – across the entire network – saying goodbye was done on the last page, with a jaunty drawing of Rediffusion and ABC saying goodbye while Thames emerges beneath.

From memento to historical document to a thing of beauty across 21 pages and 50 years, it’s worth reading in full just to see how complicated and planned television was and is, and how the people behind television usually are the people who love television most.

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She is Lee Halls, head of the studio’s make-up department.

For her, those practically indistinguishable differences in makeup colours become subtle changes in black and white. With a team of four assistants, she makes up all ABC stars. Some she has made up many times.

This, I assumed, would be easy. But Lee quickly denied that: “I can’t take a note the first time I see an actress and never look at her again.”

Then Lee told me why: “Mary Peach has just come back from a holiday in Kenya. She is darker than usual. I have to counteract that with make-up.

“In one play, Patricia Heneghan may be wearing a light blouse; in a second, a blue dress. That can make a change in the make-up colour she wears.”

The lighting used for a production can make a difference. A bright, clear light beats down on Billie Whitelaw in the Time Out for Peggy series. If Billie were to appear in a dramatic play, the lighting —and also the make-up — would be different.

Even though many of the sets in this series are the same, Lee has to sit through all rehearsals, watching a monitor in the control room. By making many notes, she decides what type of make-up to give the players. Her selection is governed by the tiniest things: she will even notice what kind of background the actress stands against for one shot.

“It is surprising what a difference small things can make. Elizabeth London wore a pair of flashing earrings, during a rehearsal for Let’s Go Shopping. Half-way through she took them off, and immediately her face seemed darker and she needed a new kind of make-up,” said Lee.

A straight glamour make-up for a woman takes Lee 20 minutes. Men can he made up in less, for some need only a dab of powder. But men have given Lee some of her greatest problems.

“I usually have to make Neil McCallum look younger,” she said. “The other day, I had to make him look older and give him a beard.”

Having watched Lee working, I know that putting on a beard is not simple, but she has done things that have made me gasp at her artistry. A piece of string — hidden by sideburns — gave a handsome actor a cauliflower ear for a boxing role.

One of her most difficult jobs was to change Anton Diffring’s unlined features into the face of a 97-year-old man for The Man In Half Moon Street. Three coatings of rubber solution, gauze and wool gave him a sagging skin. It took Lee two hours.

Another Diffring problem was for The One Who Came Back when Anton had to have 16-year-old machine gun bullet scars on an arm. This was done by Lee’s 21-year-old assistant Jean Mackenzie. To help her, Edith Gibbon of the medical illustrations department of Wythenshawe Hospital, Manchester, spent a morning at the studios to show how it should be done.

Make-up is not confined to the studios. A girl goes out with the outside broadcast teams. Sometimes they go on location.

“That is when notes come in handy,” said Lee. Then, in continuity-girl style, she is able to make sure the make-ups for the live parts of the transmission are perfect.

Lee’s job begins long before the stars get to the studios. She gets her script at the same time as the producer. “I read it to see if special make-up is needed. For instance, if a boy and girl kiss I must remember to seal the lipstick.”

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An excerpt from ABC TV in Focus, a book given to potential advertisers in February 1963.

The pictures in television may only be waveforms to an engineer; but to the Director they are one of the plastic components of his art; to be moulded, selected, drawn upon at will.

They pass through to the Control Suite for his assembly from a variety of different sources. But, unlike sound which is fed into a programme from a microphone, the point of a pick-up stylus, or a magnetic play-back head, the initial television picture always starts in an electronic scanning device. The first, and most important of these in true television studio productions, is the camera.

In most ABC studios there are four 4½” Image Orthicon cameras; as many as six in Studio 1 at Teddington. And close technical links established between control centres allow extra cameras to be brought on to a set if specially demanded. Each camera is crewed by a cameraman who is solely concerned with switching lenses, framing the shot, and focusing on the action. Electronic control – the choice of picture density, contrast and brightness – is managed by the Vision Controller from the vision and lighting section of the control suite.

Here the cameras are ‘set-up’; their channels adjusted for matching performance during the next run.

Control is passed to the ‘joy-sticks’; simple-looking knobs that are designed to cope with final adjustments during ‘transmission’. Working closely with the Lighting Supervisor cameras and lights can then be adjusted for clear pictures in balanced sequences.

Beyond the ‘joy-sticks’ the pictures pass to the vision mixer and the banks of monitors facing the teams in the three control suite sections. From these the Director will make his final selection; cue the Vision Mixer in his electronic editing. And from these, through the check-point of the Technical Supervisor, will go the version to be seen on home screens.

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The answer was yes. To get an overview of his new, unexpected empire, Howard Thomas made a trip to Pathé’s headquarters in Soho. There he found piles of tins of film in no order; there was no preservation or filing in operation; the film was decaying in the rusting tins and nobody cared.

His first order to his new workforce was to reverse this. The film, all millions of miles of it, was to be index and preserved. Rushes, too, would be kept from now on. There would be no throwing things away: someday, film going back to the wars in South Africa it would be of use to ABPC, and, if not, then at least to historians.

This is why we now have the huge and wonderful resource that is the British Pathé archives. In that resource are two tins of rushes from the opening of ABC Weekend TV in Didsbury in Manchester on 5 May 1956.

They’re a mix of rehearsals and live output; they’re mostly silent, but what was captured in sound is fascinating.

Here’s what you’re watching.

• 0:01 Guests arriving at the Didsbury studios
• 0:17 The outside of the converted Capitol cinema with its new, illuminated ABC Television sign
• 0:32 ABC Television camera inside, filming the stage from the gods
• 0:45 Rehearsals for the ensemble finale of the opening variety show
• 0:58 The sophisticated lighting control grid
• 1:15 Jerry Desmonde and Thora Hird rehearsing
• 1:20 Continuity announcer?
• 1:25 The lighting rig in operation
• 1:34 Betty Driver and Jerry Desmonde feeding a dog chocolate. Please don’t do this
• 1:48 Floor manager or director in action
• 1:58 Guests arriving at the Didsbury studios
• 2:02 Howard Thomas of ABC and Sir Philip Warter of parent ABPC arrive
• 2:13 More shots of the outside of the studios and more guests arriving
• 2:27 The Lord Mayors of Lancashire towns ABC North serves
• 2:37 More shots of the outside of the studios and more guests arriving
• 2:47 Rehearsals continue in Studio 1
• 3:39 Betty Driver singing
• 3:45 More rehearsals
• 4:08 Jerry Desmonde and Thora Hird rehearse their skit
• 4:23 An outside broadcasting van
• 4:42 Pretending to repair a camera for the cameras
• 4:57 Camera rehearsals while the scenery is constructed
• 5:05 Sound boom operator and an electrician playing with his inky-dink
• 5:24 Ready Camera 1
• 5:37 Scenery assembled, rehearsals starting
• 5:45 The actual event – dancers amongst the diners in the studio
• 6:15 Jerry Desmonde comperes
• 6:22 SOUND! Derived from the television output itself
• 8:12 The first ABC ident chimes! And the start of some title music
• 8:18 Dancing for the guests in the studio. ABC’s actual output is likely to have moved on by now

• 0:01 Camera rehearsals; wildtrack of sound
• 0:42 Jerry Desmonde and Thora Hird rehearsing
• 1:14 ABC’s “casual” symbol
• 1:21 Camera rehearsals
• 1:34 Wildtrack of sound; no vision
• 1:53 Choreography rehearsals
• 2:46 Launch programme underway, filmed from off to one side
• 3:44 Jerry Desmonde pauses. Commercial break?
• 3:48 Back to the show
• 4:20 Sound boom operator and cameraman
• 4:28 Conducting the music
• 4:35 Live output: the town cryer makes an announcement; meanwhile, “station host” Edward Ward can be heard in the background – his voice is going out live on the ABC Network
• 5:27 The film camera keeps running in the studio as Edward Ward sends the televiewers over to an OB in Liverpool. The hand-painted background ABC logo is… wrong
• 5:36 OB welcome is over, back to the studio and APBC starlet Susan Stephen
• 5:45 The big announcement from Edward Ward
• 6:09 Cue Susan Stephen!
• 6:58 The opening variety show starts with an exciting ABC-based jingle
• 8:26 The show continues
• 9:37 The show ends

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This weekend sees the passing of a TV Studio that has made history. A history that spans 12 years of weekend programmes from an address millions of viewers have written to – ABC Television, Didsbury, Manchester 20.

Appropriately, the last show to be made in the studio is Hughie Green’s Opportunity Knocks!. Called ‘Goodbye to Didsbury’, it will be shown on Saturday. And on Sunday, I have the sad honour of closing down the station with my own programme of memories of people and events that have been shared by viewers.

It was May 5, 1956, that ABC Television went on the air for the first time in a cinema converted to a TV studio in the remarkable time of 12 weeks.

And what a programme to open with – the F.A. Cup Final, when Manchester City beat Birmingham City 3 to 1.

That first weekend went on with film star Hazel Court, Macdonald Hobley and Ludovic Kennedy reading the news. There was also the first showing of Robin Hood and the first weekend drama, The Last Reunion, with Eric Portman and Michael Gough.

Through the doors of Didsbury walked stars of show-business, leading politicians and top businessmen. The names are endless. Premier Harold Wilson, the late George Formby, Sir Donald Wolfit, Lord Arran. I could go on forever.

In Studio One came the birth of Armchair Theatre, a drama series that was to shake off the cobwebs of old-fashioned theatrics and make way for what some call, in derogatory fashion, “kitchen sink drama”.

But it made playwrights like Alun Owen, and helped Ruth Dunning to win an Actress of the Year award. It also saw the start of Billie Whitelaw’s great career in a comedy series called My Wife and I.

This Saturday, Hughie Green will be talking about the tragedies and the fun that has gone on at Didsbury studios. For there have been heartbreaks and joy behind the scenes.

I wonder how many people realise that The Avengers really started in these studios. In those days it was called Police Surgeon and starred Ian Hendry and Patrick Macnee as the mysterious agent.

(Editors’ Note: David Hamilton’s memories and those of the TVTimes caption writer are at variance with the established facts of The Avengers. Although the first – live – series did star Hendry, he was not playing the same character he created in Police Surgeon.)

It was in these studios that Mike and Bernie Winters became national names. And I will always have a tremendous affection for this cinema-turned-TV-studio because it was the place I first met Ken Dodd and found myself with a national name – “Diddie” David Hamilton. Ken, of course, couldn’t resist calling the studios “diddie Didsbury”.

Diddie it may be in some ways now but gigantic studios have, or are, being built all over the country ready for ITV’s new look which you will see on Monday.

But it has been a giant of a studio so far as paving the way for programmes in the past. Adult education started from here, teaching viewers everything from how to write correctly, to learning the background to their Sunday newspapers, to the geography of their own country, to simple cooking with Philip Harben.

The great days of rock ‘n’ roll began in Didsbury with programmes like Boy Meets Girl and Wham!! – those two exclamations were insisted upon – with stars such as Marty Wilde, Cliff Richard and the glamourous Vernons Girls. A young man starting his career here was guitarist Joe Brown, who later became a West End star in Charlie Girl.

To pop fans, one corner of Didsbury is almost sacred. It is the place where four young men from Liverpool made their first appearance before the nation. Yes, you’ve guessed it – The Beatles.

I well remember passing Brian Epstein and the boys on the steps up to my announcers’ booth and hearing Brian getting very angry with one of them because he hadn’t been to the dentist!

Another of my memories will always be the formation of ITV’s top, regular orchestra in the North, the ABC Television Showband with Bob Sharples. What a swinging sound those boys have made for people like Eamonn Andrews, Bruce Forsyth, Doddy and Matt Munro.

Unknown to most viewers, Didsbury has been the headquarters for the vast outside broadcast fleet of vehicles (until recently the biggest in ITV) that has brought viewers such sports programmes as wrestling, horse racing, rugby league and car racing.

These vehicles have enabled viewers to see programmes like The Blackpool Show and, years ago, Holiday Town Parade.

But this weekend it will all be memories. I shall take my place for the last time in the tiny announcers’ studio to bring you the final programme of a television era. And after saying my “Special goodnight to you” I shall feel sorrow as we lock the doors for ever on a building that has entertained a nation.

This article was first published on 25 July 1968 as part of the first TVTimes Granada (west of the Pennines) edition, for 27 July to 2 August. This was the last TVTimes to feature an ABC weekend. The article was not published in the east of the Pennines (ie YTV) region.

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In the midlands, the only economic option was to bunk up with rival weekday company ATV. Neither company had set its heart on the midlands and neither saw its ultimate future to lie there. With no real centre to the region (Birmingham was the official centre, but Coventry, Leicester, Nottingham and Derby all claimed to be more vibrant) both ‘Associateds’ felt that, with large London production facilities available nearby, the midlands was just too close to support two more studio buildings.

The result of this apparent lack of faith was the birth of Alpha Television. Based in the run down industrial area of Aston, a former village subsumed into the sprawl of Birmingham, the joint company provided facilities to both companies with an agreeable economy of scale from the beginning.

If the idea of joint facilities – nothing new in London or the midlands – was broached by ABC when starting operations in the north, no record remains of Granada’s response. Quay Street remained a Granada-exclusive centre, and ABC never operated from there.

Instead, the area west of the Pennines was scoured in order to find a premises that matched 3 criteria:

1. That it was large enough to house 3 studios;
2. It was already owned by ABPC or at least available cheaply;
3. If it was owned by ABPC, they would not feel the loss through the change of use.

Didsbury was the answer. This well-to-do suburb of Manchester was well connected by road and rail, close enough to get to the important centres of the region, far enough from the city to be quiet. Above all it contained a building that matched all three criteria, more or less – the ABC Capital Cinema.

The Capital was large enough for one main stage with audience on the ground floor, one videoing stage on the first floor, with a presentation and news studio (no more than a room) tucked away to the side of the smaller stage.

The building, obviously, was already in the family; the remaining criterion – that the parent corporation should not be put out by its loss – was fulfilled easily. The cinema operations of ABPC, while not loss making, were beginning to feel the pinch as tastes changed. The Capital wasn’t losing money – but it wasn’t making enough for ABPC to notice the loss.

To the sound of anguished disapproval from local residents, Associated British Cinemas announced the closure of the Capital, Didsbury; at the same time ABPC announced the location of their new northern studios. The two announcements concerned the same building.

The comparatively small space provided by the Capital Studios compared to the likes of Granada’s Quay Street and Associated-Rediffusion’s grand plans in Wembley were soon apparent. Space in an office block in the centre of Manchester was purchased for the advertising department – a building that to this day retains the name “Television House” and a suite of offices that now houses – of all things – the Independent Television Commission’s northern office.

ABC also went on to develop small news studios and advertising offices elsewhere in its region (the ABC cinema in Liverpool gave up an upstairs office to ABC Weekend’s news department, while ABC’s famously pushy advertising executives moved into Permanent House in Leeds, uncomfortably close to both Granada and Associated-Rediffusion’s own northern sales departments).

But for all this, the towns of Didsbury, Aston and Teddington were to be forever linked in the minds of viewers to ABC Weekend TV.

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When ABC Weekend TV upped-sticks and moved to London to become Thames Television, the famous studios at Didsbury were consigned to history.

Ironically, the last productions to be made at Didsbury were made by ABC on behalf of Yorkshire Television, who were had begun broadcasting from Leeds, reflecting the new geographical (as opposed to chronological) split in the north.

After production finally ceased at Didsbury – YTV having completed its Kirkstall Road studios – the building eventually ended up under control of a university, who used it for cinema and television studies.

All things end, and so it was with the Capitol Studios, pulled down to make room for senior citizens accommodation. One is left wondering if the new inhabitants are aware that they are sleeping, eating and socialising in the same space that once rang with the sound of Hughie Green offering opportunity a knock at someone’s door, Steed delivering a blow to an assailant, or even a man in a booth saying “ABC, your weekend television in the north”

Photos courtesy of Kif Bowden-Smith, Tim Disney and Hector Hill

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