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LEICESTER’S 70-year-old Mrs. Stella Sharman has had the greatest thrill of her life. Visiting the A.B.C. television studio at Aston, Birmingham, last Sunday, she spent the whole afternoon with her favourite TV personality, the 29-year-old announcer, John Edmunds.

The visit, specially arranged for her by the “Illustrated Chronicle,” was a great success, ending with Mrs. Sharman and John kissing each other as they said goodbye

Mrs. Sharman made the happy discovery that John, who works a seven-day week, five as a schoolmaster, two as an announcer, was even nicer than she expected. And. believe me, she had expected a great deal!

John has the knack of putting people at ease, says Mrs. Sharman. “If you had a trouble he would be the sort of person you would like to meet,” she says.

At her home, 8, Bradbourne Road, Mrs. Sharman had waited excitedly for the red letter day. Keyed up with happy anticipation, she and her husband, 68-year-old Mr. Robert Sharman, were taken by car to a luxury hotel in Birmingham, where they lunched with John Edmunds.

ARM IN ARM

Mrs. Sharman and John were like mother and son in no time. Later, at the studio. John walked arm in arm with her. Nothing was too much trouble for him. Everything he did quickly confirmed Mrs Sharman in her belief that his “gentle, kindly manner’ on TV was far from being skin deep.

She was sure he made an excellent schoolmaster. If her grown-up daughter and sons were children he would be just the kind of teacher she would like them to have.

TINY STUDIO

First thing John showed Mrs. Sharman was the tiny studio from which he made his announcements. She sat at his announcer’s desk, saw herself in his monitor screen, and examined his control switches.

Mrs. Sharman also saw the small fixed-position TV camera a few feet in front of John’s desk. This camera is similar to those used for televising programme titles.

She was particularly interested in John’s green dinner jacket and cream-coloured shirt, which he wears when announcing in the evening. “This camera does not like strong contrasts.” he says. Viewers see the green as black and the cream as white.

Later, John took Mrs. Sharman and her husband to the make-up room and the other studios, introducing her to the seemingly chaotic, overpopulated world of TV in the making.

Mrs. Sharman watched a rehearsal and had tea with John. He signed her autograph book as a souvenir of a very pleasant afternoon.

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On a visit to Birmingham, she was offered the piano for £12. She bought it.

Then came the problem of what to do with it. Her third-floor flat has stairs too narrow for even the slimmest upright piano.

“I moved into my flat two months ago,” she said. “But I have made up my mind to move out again. Now I shall hunt for an unfurnished flat. I don’t mind where it is — providing it is big enough for my piano.

“I know that as soon as I can have it moved in I shall be wanting to play it all day long.

“Whenever I see a piano I go all goofy and have to walk over and play a few notes. 1 can’t help it.

“I am often a pest. When a well-known pianist comes along to The Sunday Break I have to ask him to play his favourite piece — and then stand beside him to watch how he does it.”

Julie, whose 23rd birthday was last Sunday, has a quality common to young people appearing in the programme — a desire for knowledge.

Tactfully, she refused to say which visitor she has enjoyed meeting most in the past year. But she did talk of some memorable discussions she had had.

Such as talking politics with former Labour MP Elaine Burton. “I questioned her all lunchtime about her Party’s manifesto and about Governmental responsibilities towards teenagers.”

Talking clothes with singer and dancer Millicent Martin. “What a personality she is, bubbling over with original ideas. I picked up a lot of useful tips.”

Talking sport with former Test cricketer the Rev David Sheppard. “I thought cricket was a confusing game, but he was patient and explained all the points I did not understand. He made it sound really interesting.”

Talking about fame with band-leader Ted Heath. “He is a man of few words — until you mention his band. Then there is no stopping him. I wanted to find out what it was that had made him such a success.”

Talking home-making with rock ‘n’ roll singer Marty Wilde. “I met him first just before his wedding and he told me about his plans for the future and the furniture he and his wife-to-be, Joyce, were buying together.”

Talking theatre with actor and producer Bernard Braden. “We spent hours chattering about plays and people and his backstage practical jokes. He tells wonderful stories.”

Talking jazz with Methodist Minister Dr Donald Soper. “He was the last man I expected to know anything about modern music. But he told us he had played jazz and I found him very knowledgeable about modern musical trends.”

And just talking with poet John Betjeman. “Well, it’s impossible to talk to him about anything. You have to sit back and let him do the talking. He is a fascinating man with a tremendous sense of fun.”

And what about the club members themselves?

Said Julie: “Oh, they talk, talk, talk about anything and everything. The marvellous thing is that they are willing to go on television and discuss any subject. And they cannot check up on it beforehand because they are not told what it is going to be until the club opens on the day of the programme.

“They come from all parts of the country and different walks of life. They may not have always the ability to put into words exactly what they think, but they are not afraid to talk and give the rest of us the benefit of their own experiences.

“They are a vital part of The Sunday Break. Without them we might just as well shut down.”

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One of the least-known success stories of television is the constantly-growing interest in ITV’s religious programmes. During the last 12 months the Sunday night programmes between 6.15 and 7.25 have increased their audience by 40 per cent. Now they are regularly watched In 2,500,000 homes. One man who has played a leading part in developing religious television is

PENRY JONES

for six-and-a-half years religious advisor and producer to ABC Television and the creator of The Sunday Break, which returns to your screen on July 5. Another programme he writes about here is About Religion, screened at 7 p.m. on Sunday. Now Religious Programmes Officer of the Independent Television Authority, he writes here about the purpose of religious television—and its future

I KNEW that The Sunday Break had “arrived” the moment I saw the cartoon in a big circulation daily newspaper. It showed a TV repair man looking at a set while the lady of the house said: “There must be something wrong. I keep getting The Sunday Break on Mondays.”

Religious programmes have been going for a long time — About Religion for nearly nine years and The Sunday Break for nearly seven — and this is quite an achievement. Yet you wouldn’t at first sight call them popular programmes — after all they are neither horse operas nor soap operas.

They have included some first-rate — and deservedly popular — items. I shall always remember “Christ In Jeans” and “Image of Majesty” produced by Michael Redington for the About Religion series.

Then there was the award-winning film about the preparation of a nun called “Love’s Calling”.

My own work has been mainly with editions of Sunday Break and Living Your Life, and exciting work it has been.

You may recall earlier The Sunday Break with traditional jazz and discussions. I shall certainly never forget the long arguments before each programme with the crowds of teenagers, or the series on the various churches with Dr. Heenan, the Archbishop of Westminster, and the Bishop of Woolwich standing up to tough questions from young agnostics.

Or the superbly moving passion play “A Man Dies” performed by Bristol teenagers.

It is remarkable that as the number of possible viewers has increased, year after year these religious programmes have maintained a sizeable audience. I couldn’t pretend to tell you why.

In one sense I couldn’t care less about the “ratings”. You see, we have never devised religious programmes with the sole object of getting good ratings.

We have never said “Let’s put a little sex in The Sunday Break or a little sadism in About Religion just to get the viewers.” Anyway I hope that by now viewers can distinguish between the honest programme and the programme that is just a botch-up of spicy ingredients designed to entice viewers.

This doesn’t mean that religious TV should be dull. We have tried to be lively and interesting without sacrificing our basic concern with Christianity. In another sense I would be mad to say I didn’t care about the ratings. I’m delighted that more people are watching them. I’d like everyone to watch them — provided we didn’t have to drop the serious purposes.

Religion ought not to be a hole in the corner affair. Some people, including some church people, make it seem like that — as if it were some Sabbattarian segment cut off from the rest of life.

Religion may be like that, but Christianity is about the whole of living. That is why our programmes try to relate to everything in life.

Any man (most children, too) worthy of the name asks himself certain important questions:

“Is there a being or a mind behind things?” “Why and how am I different from an animal?” “Why do I worry about justice (or at least injustice against me)?” “Why is the world a bit of a muck-up?” “Is it worth doing the right thing?” “What is the right thing anyway?” “Do I live on after death?”

Basic questions — the kind the Book of Genesis asks and the Bible sets out to answer. Basic that is, not just to churchgoers but to all men. That is why I am interested in the ratings — if high ratings mean that religious programmes are not just hole-in-the-corner affairs for churchgoers only. I’d be interested to know whether this increase means that many people are helped by the way we discuss these basic questions.

But television does not stand still. It is always in ferment and neither producers nor viewers should get settled down, hardened or congealed into a permanent groove.

The TV producer — religious or otherwise — who does not see the sands of time running out on his favourite format is a dull, safe, unimaginative man indeed. The ratings may be good, but there must be new ways of doing things, of touching men’s minds and hearts.

Religious television must try to do several kinds of jobs. One is to provide quite literally, a service for people who would normally go to church. The regular morning services are not intended as a substitute for going to church, since clearly nothing can replace actually joining in worship with other people.

But there are many people ill in hospital, too old to go out regularly or looking after young children who are prevented from going out. For them the televised church service is a great value.

One of the by-products of church services on television is that people can see Anglican, Free Church and Roman Catholic services, and I believe that this has contributed to a greater tolerance and a more genuine understanding of our different ways of worshipping God.

Other religious programmes should try to state as clearly and lucidly as possible what Christians believe — give a Christian viewpoint on our common life and above all provide for the great debate about the meaning of things.

I would expect some changes therefore — experiments in style — in About Religion and The Sunday Break. I hope they will provide an opportunity for new young writers. It would be good to have a children’s programme on Sundays which adults could also enjoy.

Whatever we do in the future, I hope the rise in ratings means that people have realised that these programmes are not just a kind of religious propaganda — but honest programmes on things that really matter to everyone.

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

Programmes are moving pictures, music, voices-and captions, animated cartoons, still photographs, graphic designs. Studio cameras, gramophone records, magnetic tapes and microphones can take care of the former. But some other form of picture and sound device is necessary for the screening of filmed programmes like The Human Jungle, the animated triangle symbol that introduces every ABC production, complex caption and graphic design effects, and the slotting in of sequences that can be shot more easily and economically with a film camera.

The need for such a device led naturally to the development of telecine; in its simplest form a single-lens camera aimed at an image produced by a film projector. In its most highly developed form (a refinement of one of the earliest scanning devices used by Baird) it does away with the projected image and instead directs a spot of light – along a pattern identical to that followed by the electron beam that creates the picture on a television screen – through the film and onto a photo-electric cell. Each of these latest telecine units – there are three at Teddington – consists of a flying-spot projector, two machines for presenting 35 and 16mm film, and a slide carrier. All can be pre-loaded, and selected and operated from the control suite requiring the picture feed. Allied to each telecine unit is a caption scanning unit. This too can be pre-loaded and controlled by a Vision Mixer in any of the production control suites.

In it are two caption holders shaped like paddle wheels and each capable of presenting any one of sixteen captions, still photographs, or pieces of graphic design at the touch of a button; a VTR clock, an ABC-designed-and-built device for identifying video tape recordings and cueing the studio at the start of ‘transmission’ runs; and a roller-caption machine, used mainly for the moving ‘credits’ at the end of a programme. Each has its own light source and is scanned by a single vidicon camera through a multiplicity of prisms as it is selected and illuminated. As with other sources, the feed from each telecine/caption suite must be monitored; skilfully adjusted for perfect picture quality before being passed to the bank of pre-view screens in the Director’s suite. This is the Telecine Operator’s job. Following the studio through monitor and ‘talk-back’, alone in almost permanent twilight, he is alert for the cue ‘roll telecine!’

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