Apropos nothing, a few snapshots of the erstwhile home of Nationwide, Tonight, 24 Hours, Breakfast Time and The Dimbleby Talk-In.
1) It’s 11th January 1954, and the Beeb’s new weatherman George Cowling makes his first appearance from Lime Grove. “He has been introduced in an effort to brighten presentation of the weather news.”
2) Forward 15 years or so. It’s the 1960s, which must mean a PR stunt involving a Magic Bus ride from outside Lime Grove with passengers The Who, a baby elephant called Eli, and two girls called Nicola Austine and Toni Lee:
3) April 1958: David is joined on the set of Zoo Quest by a youthful jumped-up self-preening squawker with a propensity for mouthing off. And Cocky the parrot. And Prince Charles.
4) Continuity announcer Sylvia Peters steps from a Heinkel bubble car on a chilly day in February 1957, to be greeted by Old Man Truscott, the Lime Grove commissionaire:
5) Richard Dimbleby, David Butler and co rehearse for their 1955 General Election results programme, replete with Puzzle Trail-style map of the realm:
Glenn Aylett
June 20, 2009 at 6:43 pm
I walked past Lime Grove in 1987, when it was being used for Breakfast Time and Newsnight, and it resembled a rundown cinema with a forlorn looking BBC sign. Apparently the place had become a so called BBC slum ( Broadcasting House didn’t look much healthier) and staff hated being posted here as the facilities were awful and some of the houses around the building had been turned into makeshift offices. However, before the mighty TVC opened in 1960, this was the most important television centre in Britain if not the world.