30th anniversary of Breakfast Time

[Brock]

Radio 4's Today programme is running an item on this at the moment, with an interview with Russell Grant. Perhaps the BBC's most successful spoiler operation?

[Jezza]

BBC Breakfast had a retro clock for the last half hour...people started moaning on Facebook that they couldn't read it because it wasn't digital!

They also had the Breakfast Time sting just before they went to the local news, a nice touch.

I was 12 years old 30 years ago today, and i got up at 6am to see the first one, got up early again today to see this one!

[Simon36]

Despite a seriously weird bunch presenting it, I adored Breakfast Time. Remember that snowscene outside the window in winter months.

It is a very strange world though when Frank Bough comes across as the most ordinary of the people on the show.

[Roll ACR]

Ah, I was only 6 and I can't remember Breakfast Time. I only remember getting up at 5am on the first day of TV-am and sneaking downstairs, putting the telly on and then....my Dad obviously sensed the movement downstairs of number one son and came down, said it was too early to be up and certainly too early to be looking at televison. I had to go back to bed :-(

Is that true about people complaining about not being able to read a clock-face? Goodness me! That's reason enough for the BBC to stick with it for the good of the nation!

[Bernie]

I worked on Breakfast Time for most of a year. It was a great experience for me. The joys of arriving at ten in the morning and finding yourself on location a long way away a few hours later, followed by an edit to till three in the morning till you couldn't think straight any more. That's the way to get good at something.

And the time they decided to bring back the Daleks. My colleague the TV clips presenter David Wheal and I decided to pre-record his bit in VT, with him sitting between the 1" record and playback machines. We'd done this before, but this time it would feature a Dalek. So we ordered one up, and it arrived in the scene dock three floors below. The scene crew chaps said it was nothing to do with them, as it wasn't in the studio, so we had to do the work. We took it apart into its two halves, and heaved it up the fire escape (at Lime Grove). The top got through the door into VT fine, but we only found out when we got the base up there that it was too wide for the door. So down it came, and up the inside stairs and through a wider door. With the two parts re-united, and our secretary inside, the Dalek was a BT star.

B

[TK-JaKe]

I only remember getting up at 5am on the first day of TV-am

which, co-incidently, was my first day of Breakfast Time transmission having spent the first two weeks on the late shift as opposed to the night shift.

I so clearly remember the 'VT director' sitting with me at the 'multiplexer' as we watched TVam go on air and her saying 'now we've got serious competition'.

Serious? Really? 'The only rat to save a sinking ship' was a few years away, tho'!

[TK-JaKe]

I worked on Breakfast Time for most of a year. It was a great experience for me.

So many faces have floated though my mind over the last day, most of which I can still name!
The only Pres person in vision that I remember was a young lady, slender with a quiet elegance, but can't name her.
I think that segment wasn't in the original format but was added in the late spring;
I guess you were after me, I only did January to September '83.

You don't happen to remember the name of the studio director who set the whole thing going,
and taught the style to the rest, do you?
It's really bugging me that I've lost that name,
he was of the calibre of Beveridge and Morpugo, slightish, fair or a bit ginger.

[Jezza]

They mentioned someone called Bernie yesterday, he's worked on the show from day 1.

[TK-JaKe]

BBC Breakfast had a retro clock for the last half hour

That retro version was correct only insofar as it applied to the first weeks of transmission, as the PasB confirmed -

the clock soon migrated to camera left -

the graphics people stuck a cardboard disc over their monitors to indicate the clock position, to aid composition.

The graphics preparation area was a effectively a part of the new recording facility built as a mezzanine in the upper part of Studio F - the Beeb only ever used that studio as a scenery store - and was thus directly beneath Studio E, the usual home of Breakfast Time.

Strange, the things that stick in the memory!

[TK-JaKe]

They mentioned someone called Bernie yesterday, he's worked on the show from day 1.

They did indeed -
I dropped them a quick email, citing my connection with the early days of the show, asking who this guy was.

No reply - typical BBC, nothing but contempt for their audience and pensioners.
Where do they think they'd be today if we hadn't gone before?

[Bernie]

Well, it wasn't me. And currently I can't remember the studio director either, unless it was James Gould. The nice Pres lady was Helen Rowlands.

I very rarely actually saw the show itself, as I sort of worked out of sync with it. I'd look at the VHS later to see what time my piece had gone out. You knew you were on to a winner if you were in the 08.20 slot, and even better, the 0720 slot too. I only managed that once, with my film about people who were working on Christmas Day, and revealing the amazing fact that Ian McClaskill did the weather forecast in his socks to avoid squeaking - or some Ian-ish thing.

...actually, I just found it. The reporter is the excellent Nigel Farrell - http://www.tech-ops.co.uk/BT_1982.html

B

[TK-JaKe]

a) I can't remember the studio director either
b) The nice Pres lady was Helen Rowlands.
c) http://www.tech-ops.co.uk/BT_1982.html

a) Older than JG and possible he came out of a management post to do the start-up
b) Thanks - she was delightful; did she do some announcing,too?
c) Just getting 'missing plug-in'; will fire up the windows machine later!

....

2 hours later, acquired plug in for this MAC; all now well

nostalgia fest - 'TPC' on the clock.

[TK-JaKe]

.... my film about people who were working on Christmas Day ....

Do you remember the year?

Had we really abandoned direct-from-telecine transmissions by then or was it just a Christmas Day thing ...

I should know this stuff but .............

[Bernie]

I believe it was 22/12/82 . And no, I don't think we'd stopped films off TK, it was just reporter-speak to say "all the programmes" - though Flash Gordon was there, on 1" by the look of it. I did cheat a bit - the Queens Speech wasn't actually in the cupboard at that time, so we faked a label. I can recognise my handwriting.

Helen was an announcer, and later various management jobs. Don't know where she is now.

Sorry about the format not working. It's H264 to keep the file size down.

B

[TK-JaKe]

60 years ago this evening the North Sea breached the defences locally and the house in which I am writing this was under several feet of water ....

30 years ago this evening I set off for Lime Grove for my first ever night shift, working on Breakfast Time.

This morning I awoke to find that the successor to Breakfast Time had sent a reporter and single camera unit to do the intro to a package on the '53 flood standing on the sea defences just a few hundred yards from my home.

Did they really have to feature, though, the dog poo bin that so often contains the outpourings of Jake (and Dan too)?