This transcript has been produced automatically using Otter, https://get.otter.ai/interview-transcription/.
It provides a basic, but unverified or proofread transcript of the interview. Therefore, the British Entertainment History Project (BEHP) accepts no liability for any misinterpretation of the content of this interview.
However, the BEHP wants to make every effort to improve the quality of these transcripts and would welcome any voluntary offers to proofread this and/or other interviews. If you want to help, please contact BEHP Secretary, sue.malden@btinternet.com.
Bill Ward Side 1
Alan Lawson 0:00
The copyright of this recording is vested in the Bectu History Project, Bill Ward, television technician since 1936 director, producer, programme executive, interviewer, Norman Swallow with Alan Lawson recorded on the 21st of January, 1997 side one,
Alan Lawson 0:33
Bill First, when and where were you born?
Bill Ward 0:36
Born in Plymouth, January the first, 1916 so that means that two days ago, my 81st birthday.
Alan Lawson 0:44
Education?
Bill Ward 0:45
Education was, first of all in Hyde Park kindergarten, I think it was. And then I went down to
Alan Lawson 0:54
Hyde Park London ?
Bill Ward 0:55
No, Hyde Park, the Hyde Park School in Plymouth. Oh, I see all in Plymouth, yeah. And I went to to, I think it was center, or center, or central comprehensive, or something like that. And from there, I got a scholarship to Hill grammar school. So I went from sort of public education into a private school. And I stayed at Hill Grammar School right up until I left the age of 16, good at sport and bad at bad at education.
Alan Lawson 1:23
Join the club. What were you aiming to do?
Bill Ward 1:28
I didn't know. I never had any idea. Hadn't the faintest idea? I got into into radio because I joined BBC Plymouth, 5PY, which was a local radio station BBC, of course, had to be in those days, 1932 ,32 and my father knew the chief engineer of the Plymouth station, and he said to him, What about giving my lad a chance? This is when I was 16. What my father was interested in was getting me into a job for life, if he could. And if you got into the BBC, you had a job for life. That's right, no doubt about it. I mean, if you kept me knowing your nose, reason to be clean. I mean, it didn't even turf you out if you did a minor in discretion. And one or two of the engineers down in the Plymouth IPY station didn't know one end of a bloody resistor from the other, but they were, they managed to get in, and they were there for life. And so my my father, sort of thought to himself, he was jobbing carpenter. He was a good carpenter. I mean, he was more than a company, a real crime. Real craftsman. He's a furniture maker and all of that. But in those depression days, 1928, 29 - 30 and learned about then. So, I mean, to get your lad into any kind of a job at all was magic. To get him into a job at the BBC, which was there for life was was, you know, like winning the lottery on the jackpot. And my my father knew the chief engineer, and he said "Give my lad a chance". He said, send him down to me. So I went down and saw David Curd, who was chief engineer, who later became deputy to the engineer in charge, Noel Asbridge, however, that's a later story, and he comes into the picture again a little later on. So he saw me and took me on. So the age of 16, I joined the BBC as an engineer's assistant, which is, make the tea and clean the batteries in Plymouth. And I was there for four years. And I took correspondence course on City and Guilds and past, I think, or something or other. However, come 19, 1935 this was 1932. Come 1935 and 1935 there was an internal memo came round seeking volunteers to join the experimental television service at Alexandra Palace. And I read this memo. I was now 19 I read this memo, and I said, that's where I'm going. That's Tomorrow's World. And I talked around the engineers down there and I said, Don't be a fool. You're throwing your life away. It'sa nine day wonder it'll never happen, except for one man called Len Walters. And Len Walters said, You're right. You go. I said, you coming? . He said, I can't come. I've got an aged mother, and I can't I can't leave her, and she won't move. So he didn't come up with me, but I applied and went for an interview in London. And lo and behold, who did I who saw me in London was David Curt, who had in fact been promoted from engineer in charge of the Plymouth station, up the hierarchy of the BBC engineering and he was then looking for the recruits to join Alexandra Palace. So he said, Hello. And I said, Hello. And he said, right, you're in so I moved and I went to AP on June the sixth, 1936 which is June, July, August, September, about four or five months before it actually officially opened and started on the installation. And that's where I met you. That's right on the Baird side, down, down the corridor and EMI were in Studio A .
Alan Lawson 1:37
What. What did you do? Did you have anything due with the Baird lot at all ?
Bill Ward 4:45
You remember the EMI engineers were down that end, and the Baird engineers were down that end, and never the twain shall meet. And there was real enmity, real enmity. And the name of the EMI man I remember, was Bernard Greenhead, Bernard, Greenhead. And the names, two names I remember of the Baird people, was you, yeah, and Terry, yes.
Alan Lawson 5:07
Paul Terry.
Bill Ward 5:07
Who was, Terry was a sound, wasn't he? Yes, senior sound. But he also ran the controller, to all intents and purposes yes,
Alan Lawson 5:15
Mercurial character,
Bill Ward 5:16
Oh, yes. And I was there were six of us, six technical assistants, TAs there was myself and Paddy Rigg, Frank Cresswell and Cyril Wilkins, Sammy Sampson and John Brockbank. And Paddy Rigg and I were allocated to sound Frank and Cyril were allocated to cameras, and they became dolly pushers. And Sammy and Brockbank went to telecine to start off with, with Newman, who was in charge of telecine, Sammy later joined cam and became lighting, senior lighting, concentrated on lighting, and John, who was the cleverest of us all, went into engineering racks and joined racks and went on, and eventually left the BBC and went somewhere else. But John was very clever. But those were the six of us. And what we did was we just did sound in both studios, Paddy Rigg and I alternating on different shifts. I never saw Paddy and he never saw me, because, you know, it was day on day off business. But I remember my deep the Baird days, of course, I had, I had a thing going for Jasmine Bligh, 20 years old, and this gorgeous, gorgeous, very friendly lady and me on sound, sort of getting closer, getting the mic closer . And I remember being remember spotlight studio, which was pitch black, of course, the spot just traversing the old photo electric cells picking up the return signal. And there were only three people in the spotlight studio, which was basically the announcer studio . There was the announcer or announcerette Jasmine or Elizabeth Powell or Leslie Mitchell. Leslie sort of started to concentrate on Picture Page and leave the announcing to the two girls. A stage hand that was Bentley, usually Yes, who also had a thing going for Jasmine and myself, we had great fun in the spotlight studio, especially in the pitch blackness. You know, hold my hand until we were on. So that's, that's the, sort of the early, early career, the early but
Alan Lawson 7:29
Then, then little later, you switched, didn't you from sound?
Bill Ward 7:33
Well, I will, we'll sort of ramble all over the place. Yeah, sure. I was an engineer. I was a TA to start off with. And 1937 I was promoted to fully qualified me maintenance engineer. And I think if the record is straight, I was the youngest me ever appointed. The age of 21 and I moved around the various operational, what I would call operational engineering jobs, as distinct from nuts and bolts engineering. I mean, the racks ruled the roost. They were the kings of engineering world. But the the not so clever engineers were operators, cameraman, sound. What I specialized on was the boom. I was the best boom, boom swinger in the West. I mean, that's my reputation. And cam, and I got on marvelously well, because if I could get the boom in the right place without throwing any shadows anywhere, which was the great problem, where's the key? Like cam, there it is. And we can't get a mic from there to there the United history. Can what the boom? I'll swing it. So I did boom. I did sound, sound mixing, all sound I then I went on to do a little bit of camera work, not a lot. But the other job that I love don't love doing because I suppose I was always artistic by nature. Was vision mixing.
Alan Lawson 9:06
Oh yes,
Bill Ward 9:06
Nobby Clark was the number one vision mixer, but I used to alternate with Nobby, and I used to do a lot of vision mixing. The One of the benefits that I brought to vision mixing was that I could read music. So any producer that wanted to do ballet or music or opera, what have you, and wanted to draw up a camera script on a score, would ask for me, because I could read a music score. So I'd read a music score with a camera script, the super mixing camera script. So I did visual mixing as well sort of visual mixing, but that took us up to the war when want
Alan Lawson 9:44
to talk about in the gallery, because a lot of people no idea what it's like to be in the gallery, certainly in the early days,
Bill Ward 9:53
A gallery, a gallery to start off. Yes. No different yet, because B gallery had a projection out where the the 35 millimeter camera was underneath, but a gallery looked sideways, and electronics, EMI control room had the vision mixing panel right at the very back, immediately in front of the vision mixing panel, and down a step was where the producer sat with senior engineer. That was either now the senior engineers, which later became toms, were Mark savage and Bertie bliss. They ran the first two shifts, and when those two shifts moved out into four shifts, they added Hall and Callaway, who also became senior engineer. I started off on Mark Savage's shift, and then I went on to call to Hall Morris Hall's shift. So in front you had the producer and alongside him the engineer. Now in the very, very early days, the producer did not have a PA or a secretary next to him. He did it on his own and did the talk back and just gave the instructions with the senior engineer alongside him. To the left of them was a grand gram phone the bank, and in front of them was the sound mixing panel with the sound control engineer just controlling volume on the right hand side, and left of him was the sound mixer mixing the sound mics. And that was in front of them was the two monitors. One was transmission monitor, and one was preview monitor. I'll tell you a story, which I've told several times, but we might as well go on on the record was the story of George Moore Farrell. I was and Clive of India. You know the story. I never heard it. We'd gone on a little now this must have been around about 1938 39 early 39 summer in that area. But George was doing a play on Clive of India, which I suppose was one of the early drama dramatized documentaries. However, it's Clive's life, but it was in drama form, and in them I was vision mixing. Mark Savage was senior engineer, and Basil Adams was floor manager on the floor. Bloody marvelous floor manager too. Basil Adams - saw him the other day, he says, fit as a fiddle. You know he's 90, really, God, you see him. Show me the other day.
Alan Lawson 12:30
Haven't seen him recently. Oh, geez,
Bill Ward 12:32
He's really fit however. Basil on the floor Clive of India, George Moore, Farrell and into the middle of this play, his drama documentary, George had built a montage sequence using all six available vision channels, which were the four cameras in the studio and two telecines. And I'll tell you exactly what was on every one of them. The two tele cines had, one had a loop of flame just all around wrong cotton reels and all the rest of it going round around, flames, flames, flames. The other had a huge, about 10 minutes worth of shots of the famous buildings in India, Taj Mahal, the rajas, palaces, Calcutta, you name it. The studio cameras had two cameras were set up. One camera was set up on captions, and the first caption was a huge caption with the tiny war in the middle of it. I think it was white letters on black . And you had your camera which didn't have any zoom lens or anything like that, just a fixed lens as far back as possible. So you saw the whole of this and a tiny, little unreadable blur in the middle. And on cue, the camera would track in as fast it could. And War came up on screen. War then you fade out and go back and do it again. When you did all that, then switched to various captions of the various battles of Black Hole of Calcutta, Plessy, whatever the dates were, and so on. Another camera was locked in on a close up of a British soldier in uniform on a drum, and that was the background sound prophet of the kettle drum. The other two cameras in the studio were locked off on neutral background shots of Clive and his generals and the Indians and the rajas and all of that. And the montage sequence was, fade up. The flames, superimposed the capturing, war tracking. Fade it out. Go across to a few shots to Taj Mahal. Take it out. Fade up. Clive of India, so on. Montage sequence, which went on for about, I suppose it was soon about five minutes. I suppose, because four to five minutes, it seemed like an hour, but it was like four or five minutes. However, we get to rehearsal of this, and George couldn't do it. He just couldn't handle the mechanics of putting this together. Fade up. Camera, fade up. flames, fade up. Camera, four tracking all. He just got lost. And so eventually Mark Savage said to him, Look, George, when it arrives tonight. We'll work it out. Basil and Bill and I, we'll work it out when it arrives tonight, on transmission, on air. All you say is montage, go and sit back and do nothing and say nothing, and we'll take over. And we rehearsed it, and we never got it right. I mean, it was just right balls up. And everyone was in fear and trepidation when we arrived at transmission. You know, is it going to work? Are we going to really bugger it over on, however, true to his word, George, we arrive at this part of the play, and George says, montage, go. Sat back and did nothing. Savage took over. Basil on the floor. Me eventually mixing. Fade up. Flame superimposed. Oh, a lot, a whole lot, comes through with a Kem face of Clive. Fade him out. Face of the Raj. Fade him out, gone. Plessy, Black hole. That whole works. It worked like a dream. It was absolute perfection. And at the end of it, we looked at George to say, all right, fade out. Fade Out. Four carry on cue action. He didn't say a word. So Savage. Looked at him, said, George. He said, That was bloody marvelous. Can we do it again? What it showed, of course, was the kind of spirit that prevailed at Alexander Palace then. I mean, George used to come in with full of ideas, but not never a thought as to how to put them from his head onto the screen. So everybody helped him. And he said, Look, chaps, we've got to start this. So I don't know what to start on, and the cameraman would say, Well, why don't we start on the lamp? Fade up the lamp, and I'll do a track back and pan down right and pick up somebody's face, and then you can queue him for what a lovely idea. And that was Alexander Palace. I mean, that fabulous, fabulous feeling of camaraderie that I only ever once since have had an experience like it, and that was during the war years when, when everybody got together, they had to, you lived together, you died together. But it was the same kind of spirit that, that fabulous spirit of of togetherness, one was one name I must mention, must mention, and that's DH, Monroe, yes, remember? DH, yeah, you will Yes. Well, DH, really ran the shop. He was the production manager. I don't what you call him in today's world.
Alan Lawson 17:07
He was supremo.
Bill Ward 17:09
Well, he was supremo, yes, I mean, he was the boss. And he was a busy, he wasn't very tall. He was a short, stocky little fella, and full of energy. God so much energy. I remember one day we used to, if you remember before the war, our pattern was to come in and do a play on a Sunday night and repeat it on the Thursday, and the same shift used to come in on a Thursday. So if it went well on the Sunday, you did one dress run through on the Thursday, and then you did transmission, so you repeated your play. And on this particular occasion, I don't know, I think I was also sound floor. I think, however, and I don't know whose play it was, but we didn't. We done the play on the Sunday, work. Well, we came in, we rehearsed it on the Thursday. We went to to dinner break, supper break, and Monroe was sort of going into the they got a call where he was on his sort of run around, and he walked into a control room, and the engineer said to him, we've had a major breakdown. DH, he said, how major? He said, Well, the bloody things packed up, and we don't know what. We don't know where it is. At the moment, you own air at half past eight, and this was about quarter past 7 ten past seven. Everybody had gone to supper break finishing rehearsal at seven o'clock. Seven to eight. Break, Eight to 830. Line up, 8.30 on air, and rax, a rax had blown up, and he said, Well, give me 10 minutes and I'll come back and see how you're doing. Came back in 10 minutes, and they said, It's major. The age can't do it. So then Monroe got hold of everybody on the station, all the stage hands, obviously, all the actors and actresses are in the play, all the technicians that were around, all the gray coats and brown coats, everybody. And if anybody was in the offices then too. And he moved Studio A to Studio B. This is we were now sort of Studio B was operating as an electronic studio. We moved Studio A to Studio B, all the scenery which the scene, hands, moved on, all the props, all the furniture, the whole bloody lot, reset it up in Studio B and went on air at half past eight in the other studio, using three cameras instead of four. Certainly there were no trade unions around them. That was DH Monroe. He came back after the war for a while, his doctor said to him, if you continue in television, you'll have a heart attack and you'll die. And he had to get out. He died about a couple of years ago. I think he never came back into television.
Alan Lawson 17:11
He lived very close to me.
Bill Ward 19:40
Did he ? lovely man I owe him a lot, because he took me under his wing. When I moved across after the war, I came back and Roland Price, who was a cameraman and went across to become a floor manager, said to me, why don't you move across to production and become a floor manager? And I liked the idea very much. So I applied, and I moved and came in under. Arthur Osmond, Oh, yes. And what was this other name? What was the name of the man in charge of presentation? Yes, went to Paris. Was started with fluent French. What the hell was his name?
Alan Lawson 20:14
He was the PR man too.
Bill Ward 20:16
That's right, yeah, it'll come Yes. However I came in, I moved across then to become floor manager.
Alan Lawson 20:23
But wait a minute during the war years What?
Bill Ward 20:27
I was a territorial, I'd become a territorial in May 1939 I think, and I joined the sections heritage field artillery unit just down in Haringey, How you doing? Fine. And trained with them, so I'd not gone into radar or anything like that. Then when War broke out, I was called up and joined the second battalion. The first battalion went to France, and I only missed going in the first battalion by the skin of my teeth. So I could have been in Dunkirk, but I missed that, and was sort of in this training in the second battalion, became a lance Bombardier and in charge of battery commander, signaller and all that. And then the call came through, said, You're being moved across to anti aircraft, because somebody in Whitehall had looked up the detailed paperwork and founded that I was a television engineer, So television, radar boom, which was then top secret, of course. So I was transferred across to anti aircraft, went down on a course Watch It in North Somerset, North Devon, Somerset, where they trained the operators. And I was made a staff sergeant three months course, came out and posted down on the south coast of Weymouth on an anti aircraft battery in charge of the radar unit there, And I went through the Battle of Britain. And then I was switched across to an experimental searchlight unit, which had a radar on the on the searchlight itself, 150 centimeter light, a big light, yes, and had an array that had sort of horizontal and vertical, and it used to follow the aircraft, get it in, get it right in the middle of its sights, without switching on when, when the signal was good, and they were following the signal, and you knew damn well that if you switch the light on, the bomber was on the end, then they exposed. And there he was, and all the other lights in the area just came in, and the night fighters latched on. That was a general idea that was outside in the New Forest behind Christchurch. And then after that, I was transferred to Remy and sent to the Military College of Science for a six month course in bury in Lancashire. Came off that course and was retained by the Military College of Science to become a lecturer, teacher of how to repair the radar, the British radar and the American radar, which was then coming in, and taught allied officers, Allied commission ranks, how to repair the equipment for Remi and had a Lovely War. I mean, played for military science rugby. I played for berry rugby club. I played for Preston grasshoppers as a wing forward. I played for Western command as a wing forward. I played Lancashire league cricket. I had a great war. You know, being a lecturer in the village of science, the nearest bomb dropped in was in Rochdale. I think that was only one. My name is Manchester. Marvelous time.
Alan Lawson 23:27
Well, you never covered television sport, did
Bill Ward 23:29
you? No, no, oh, well, yes, I did. Actually,
Alan Lawson 23:31
Yes, I think, I think now's the time, for Norman, to take over, because we've come to the end of the really, end of the war years.
Bill Ward 23:40
Yes, let's have a pause. Switch off, right. All right. This I was on the very first outside broadcast ever. Now, this was a three camera mobile unit which EMI built, and the first one was the Coronation of King George the Sixth. King George the Fifth had died, and this is February 1937 and we couldn't cover the Coronation from the Abbey. But what we did do, what BBC did do, was cover the procession, the processional route, and they chose the Hyde Park, Hyde Park in the Apsley Gate. Now the Apsley Gate in Hyde Park, which is now completely blocked off, so you can't use it. But in those days it wasn't blocked off. Was a three arch affair, really quite a wide three arch affair. And what they did with the public was to put out barriers outside the far arches. And the BBC wanted to place their cameras, their mobile cameras, two on a plinth in the middle arch to take the coronation coach going through, and one high, wide angle on the top of the outside arch, seeing the procession come down through Hyde Park and then turn and go down constitution Hill to. The Buckingham Palace. And so they built in the middle of the middle arch, a structure, a plinth, but they had two cameras, one facing into Hyde Park and one facing down to constitution Hill. And they had five people out there on the cameras, and the sound microphone was on the top of the plinth, and underneath they built sort of the area underneath a cubby hole where you went in and you had food and you had drink and you had a little L sound. And they took us out there, and the five people went five people, two cameras, one sound, one commentator, and the 16 millimeter man, Colonel Bray book. Braybrook, yes, and he was recording on 16 mil. Was the conversation. Yes, I can I remember to give you all the names the minute. But we had to go out there five o'clock before the crowds came in, because we were ruined out there once the crowd started to just couldn't get through. So we went out there five o'clock and waited to the whole process they'd gone through. Notes two cameramen. One was Bertie Bliss. One was Harry Tong were the two cameramen. The other cameraman was Roland Price, who was on the high camera Braybrooke was the 60 millimeter newsman. I was the sound man looking after sound and communications. And the commentator was Freddie Grisewood. And we five. And there's picture record of this in the archive somewhere, in the BBC archive somewhere We five went out there and did the Coronation procession. And when the Coronation coach came through, there was Harry Tong there. Well, he could have, I could have reached out and shaken her hand, because the King was on the far side of the coach. And then Queen, Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, now, was on this side of the coach, and I was close enough to her to shake her hand. Freddie Grisewood beside me, and that was it. I'll never, ever forget that occasion. And that was the very first broadcasting. And then, of course, later, I mean,
Norman Swallow 27:03
Very important occasion,
Bill Ward 27:04
it was Yeah.
Norman Swallow 27:13
When did you next go to Ally Pally?
Bill Ward 27:16
Well, yeah, I didn't stay on OBS. I mean, it wasn't an OB department as such, until De Lotbiniere ran the OB department with, oh, this is coming back after the war. It was quite some time before Dimmock came in because Philip Dorte was on OB and
Norman Swallow 27:36
Paul Ewing.
Bill Ward 27:37
PaulEwing absolutely still around. You know, this is after the war,
Speaker 1 27:43
but you had no more to do with obs before.
Bill Ward 27:48
No but after the war, I moved across November, eventually became a sort of floor manager and part time light entertainment producer, and then eventually light entertainment producer. I remember both Michael Michael Mills, not Michael Morris. Michael Mills and I were very keen on cricket, dead clean on cricket. And in those days, the BBC managed to get the contract for coverage of Test matches. And it was a huge stint for the OB boys, usually two of them. So what we used to do is to come to an agreement with the OB boys. So if we went down, we would get a pass and take our turn in the lb van, producing directing cameras for the coverage of the test match. And when we went in the van, we were up the commentators getting a marvelous view of the game. So Michael and I came to an agreement with the OB producers that we would spell them if they let us indoors. I was at the oval with the famous oval where Hutton scored his 300 and so many runs and beat Don Bradford may have been taken over by Laravel.
Bill Ward 29:05
Remember the commentator was EW Swanton, but
Bill Ward 29:20
after the war on the cross, I afterwards,
Norman Swallow 29:26
when you were having your service, when you came back, after that,
Bill Ward 29:39
came back to The very first the very first transmission when we came back was the same cartoon film, Mickey Mouse. Cartoon film. The first play was the man with the barnsman, which was the first, one of the first players that Baird ever transmitted in his 39 days. And. And that was the first day.
Bill Ward 30:04
It wasn't long after that, remember, again, under DH Monroe did a spell on floor managing, spell on presentation. Cecil Maddie used to use the young,
Bill Ward 30:19
enthusiastic floor managers to do load entertainment program, being typical BBC, they said, Well, fine, we're doing some training. So we will charge you, and we won't pay you, pay your name for money, and you've got some of the opportunities. I remember one, 110 minute starlight that Cessna used to get hold of young artists, a lot of them were visiting Americans who came across the play of clubs in the West End and television had no money to pay anybody anything. And Cecil used to tour the West End and look for those talents give the Americans the opportunity to do a little bit of television, again for peanuts. And he used to use the young floor managers to cut their teeth on a bit of directing, a bit of producing, directing. And I was given this one Starlight to do 10 minutes with a young American artist Institute. You'll be remembered, and it's one of all the productions that I've ever handled. You're never really satisfied, as long as you do. You always want to go back and do it again, because you can do it that much better. And there weren't very many productions in my life that I ever wanted to go back and do again, but this was one I couldn't fault it. It was absolute perfection from start to finish. The girl's name, she was a lovely, lovely colored, colored artist. Singer was Dorothy Dandridge, who later went on to play the lead in Carmen Jones. And she was the solid artist, total magic. But I did a lot of shows. DH had gone. There's another name that well, he should be grateful to yes man who never recognized it as he should have been on a BBC, never given the Accord which he should have been a real, real producers, producers man, two stories which involve me, assess those light entertainment producer I was. I was sort of floor manager, and I two light entertainment posts became vacant. They were advertised. I mean, BBC expanding now, they advertised, invited people to apply for the posterior. I was one and went to a board down down here in broadcasting house, or it was in broadcasting and there was a board you knew, typical BBC board, a little curve, table, one man, chairman in the middle, two on either side, and you sat facing them, and they all threw questions at you. And I was here and said, thank you very much. I gave the most up calling board. I mean, I was truly, truly dreadful. And I went out to think so to myself, I ain't going to get that job. I mean, I'll apply the next time. I'll have to wait a couple of years. I really was terrible out of nerves or whatever, I got the post because Cecil McGivern was on the board. I later learned that he said, I don't care what you think I want him. I've seen him at work. I know what he can do and nobody's capable of. And what he's what you see there isn't the man that I want, isn't the man that I know, isn't the man that is there I want him. And he fought and fought and thought, and eventually he they all gave, threw their hands up and disappeared. Said, All right, Cecil on your head. Be it. On your head. Be it. And I became a Latin producer, but only by virtue of assessment. Given the other story of assessment given is much later on, we'd moved down now to Lime Grove. We were in in the old limegrove Film Studio. And
Norman Swallow 34:14
when the 1950s
Bill Ward 34:15
it was 1949 I went down. I went down to 49 but we were down there, and King George the seventh, King George the sixth, died. And this, for me, has has something. There's a magic about it, because I'll come back to it in a moment, and he died. And if you remember, and many people won't, because they weren't around at the time, the television and radio services closed down for 48 hours as a note of respect for the death of a king, and so we were off air for 48 Hours, and it was a Thursday, we closed down, and I was wandering somewhere. I think the offices were in White City. White City hadn't been built, was in the process of being built, and I think there were some offices up there unsure about that. However, I was wandering on this Thursday evening at around about seven o'clock, and Cecil McGivern was wandering around outside his office or in the corridors, and he spotted me, and he said, Bill, I want you in my office now. So what he knew his office is, he said, Now what I want you to do is to we're coming back on air on Saturday night for you, that's when we return. Now I want to come back not to doom and gloom. I want to be coming back in a cheerful way, but it's got to be a cheerful way with dignity. So I want you to mount a the evening's program, come under your ages in light entertainment. And I want music and a song and something to cheer people up. But no, no, no, no, no fun, no comedy, no laughter, no, not laughter, but smiles. And your oin, suppose, I think so, he said, right on air, or whatever it was eight o'clock or 830 or seven o'clock or whatever, on Saturday night, back on air. That's when we real start your evening. Go on. I said, Christ Cecil, you know 40 hours. He said, I know gone. So I mounted the evening's entertainment night. Tell you what was in it. We did. I got hold of Eric Robinson and the orchestra, and we did music. We put new music to lot of uranicare's puppet silhouettes. Yeah, we got hold of some chorus master and a lot of male voice chorus. And did and mounted a series of sea sea songs and sea shanties, dressed in sort of Nelson type costumes of sailors around the caps and all that sort of thing. And so we did a whole medley of sea songs and sea shanties, because George the six was a sailor King. We put music to the interlude, one of the interludes, which was June night on moral reach. And in fact, that sort of trip down the river, the interlude film was, in fact, at moral reach. And Eric found you don't have moral reach. We got hold of a choreographer, and we did spectral De La Rose, the complete spectral De La Rose. We got hold of an up and coming pianist, and we played the whole of the Greek Piano Concerto. So that was the evening. I mean, there's a lot of lot of stuff that I think it might have been another couple of things. It was the forerunner of music. For you, it was exactly what Cecil wanted. And it was absolutely perfect for the return to pull broadcasting on the air, where it was special for me was that I was at Hyde Park on the very first outside broadcast when King George the sixth was on his coronation, coronation tour, coronation procession, and I was the person responsible for paying tribute to him so many years later when he died. And that, I think, was a sort of nice touch, as far as I was concerned. So I was able to pay tribute so many years later to the man who I was also involved with when he was Crow, crow King, Cecil. Cecil mcgiver was a marvelous, yes, I
Norman Swallow 38:32
agree. I got into television, from radio. I was in BBC in the North as a features producers and the sport. And again, you reminded me of this because my appointment sport, whatever was was also monopolized by Cecil, yeah, around the table, na Langham. And the interesting thing was, in those days, and well, 1955 where I lived in Manchester, you could only you couldn't get television, no. I mean, it should reach the Midlands, that's right. And so around my appointments table, I could say nothing whatever about television, yeah, sorry, I haven't seen any. Yeah. Strange those days talking
Bill Ward 39:15
about about people coming in from the outside BBC. I progressed, and this must have been around about 1950 51 some around about 52 perhaps something like that. I progressed to being considered senior light entertainment producer and head of light entertainment in those days was Ronnie Waldman. And I had three radio producers seconded to me for six months to be taught how to make a television program, how to produce television radio. The three names, they're interesting. Three names. One was Ronnie Taylor. There from the Norse, who did some television and then went back to be being a comedy writer, and he wrote for Al Reed, and he wrote all of Al Reed's scripts and a lot of others as well. Ronnie Taylor died early on, almost Barney Colan, give him nawani, Barney, who later came from Leeds north. And I told Barney, and Barney did Giselle frontier leads musical and all of that. And the other one was Duncan Wood, who came up from Bristol, who became comedy producer and worked with Steptoe and Son and Hancock and all those. And those three were in my office for six months, sitting on my shoulder, sort of watching how I did programs. So I taught all three of them. And strangely enough, and I had many thoughts about it, Duncan died a week ago, last Saturday, and is being buried this afternoon at Mortlake cemetery. And I nearly said to you, I want to go down, but I decided I can say to you one of
Norman Swallow 41:06
the things interests me at all, interestingly, actually, of course, but night entertainment, which we tend to associate with you in those days, despite all the other things you did later on in Life, it seems, I mean, did you slip into it accidentally? It's interesting. Why was I allowed entertainment? I mean, you've told us how it happened and how you given these assignments. You didn't necessarily ask for them or want them. They came your way in those days, in the early days, yeah,
Bill Ward 41:40
I think that in the very early days when I was a floor manager, this is after the war, very early days after the war, Cecil Madden was the only senior man who gave encouragement to young, young floor managers and enabled to cut their teeth. And Cecil was light entertainment, so the only shows you had an opportunity to do were light entertainment. And you naturally, I being knowing a little about music. I mean, I never followed well enough a music career my mother, when I was born, something like that made me go to a piano teacher, and I learned to play the piano, and I was entered for various contests in the music Plymouth Music Festival, which came up year after year. And on one year, I won a silver and I won a bronze medal for piano playing so I could read music basically. And I haven't touched a piano key for years and years and years, but I wouldn't mind going back and tickling the arteries again. However, it was because of that that I moved across to do and being called for called for by many producers when they were doing music shows. Philip Bates was one who did you did a lot of ballet, and I think in a minute, we'll enter some names, and why's names like The drama producers and the people like Christian Simpson. I
