Twelve glorious years

I am extremely proud that I have been in Howard Thomas’s highly-successful television team from start to finish.

There is a natural feeling of sadness that this journey is now approaching its end. But what a fascinating and interesting time I have shared with the others who, like me, have been lucky enough to serve ABC Television throughout the company’s life.

Much of the excitement and triumph of the early years has been almost lost in the kaleidoscope of time. So many things have happened that there is a tendency for the memories of them to run into one another. Each is a story on its own but there is not the space to recount them.

Some of the early incidents would seem tame today and some absurd. Like the time we nearly lost an Outside Broadcast from a gas works in the Midlands because the communications engineer did not realise that gasometers rise when filled with gas.

In the first three or four years we successfully carried out so many “firsts” in television history that to record them would make most people raise the eyebrow of doubt or disbelief.

There has always been a varied mixture of emotions in life on Outside Broadcasts. The exhilaration of the open air on sunny summer days, and the misery of freezing fog and snow on the wicked winding road of the Pennines in winter.

The cold chill of being told in the middle of a televised church service that a high explosive bomb is hidden inside the church.

Above all, I think that all who have worked on Outside Broadcasts will value the wonderful comradeship. At all times we have worked as a team. One man’s misfortune was shared by all and many is the time that a programme would not have gone out but for the devotion and zeal of every single member of the team, often under appalling weather conditions.

During the entire period of ABC Television’s contract in the North and Midlands we have never once failed to get to an OB location, no matter how bad the weather or the road conditions.

We have travelled a million miles or more and contributed a surprisingly high proportion of the Company’s programme hours. We have established and maintained ABC’s Outside Broadcasts as the biggest and best amongst the ITV companies.

How can one select individual programmes for mention out of so many? I remember best of all the friendly fun of Holiday Town Parade which ran so successfully for the first seven years.

I can still see Joe Loss’s face when one Friday at the band call a waiter brought him some ham sandwiches. “I cannot eat those,” said Joe. “Oh, I am sorry,” the waiter gravely replied, “I forgot that you can’t eat meat on a Friday!” [Loss was Jewish — Ed]

I suppose that the most memorable highlights would be the great occasions. Like the opening of the Yorkshire Station in November, 1955 [sic — 1956]. The first-ever OB from the huge Anglican Cathedral in Liverpool which had previously been thought to be so big as to be impossible to light.

The first Communion from Coventry Cathedral with a mammoth transmission of three-and-a-half hours only equalled by the great Easter OB from York Minster.

Perhaps the greatest achievement was the coverage of the Consecration of the Metropolitan R.C. Cathedral in Liverpool last year. A three-hours’ ceremony which ended at 5.45 p.m. and was condensed by editing while the recording was being made into a 70-minute programme which went out over the network half an hour later at 6.15 p.m. A transmission controller complained that it had underrun by 20 seconds!

Now the finest and most specialised collection of OB men is breaking up and scattering to new places and new companies.

I venture to forecast that if they do not think so now, before long they will look back on their days with ABC as the most happy and satisfying of their careers and I am sure that they will be most lucky if they find an equal to ABC Television for the way they are treated and the respect given to them as individuals.

I also think that those ITV companies which get the benefit of the specialised experience and talent which these “OB types” possess will have cause to be grateful for their good fortune and may in time recognise amongst their best men the magic touch of an ABC training.

To all who have worked with me during the past twelve years, thank you and the very best of good luck to you in the future.

To Howard Thomas, whose great skill and foresight has guided and inspired us all, I take this opportunity to say a thousand thanks for letting me play a part in ABC Television’s “Twelve Glorious Years”.