Gerald Chambers

BEHP transcript Disclaimer

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.

Roy Fowler  0:03  
The copyright of the following recording is vested in the BECTU history project.

John P Hamilton  0:10  
The copyright of this recording is vested in the BECTU  history project. Today's subject Gerald chambers are senior floor manager with experience at AR TV Rediffusion television and London Weekend Television. Gerald is now retired. The interviewer is john P. Hamilton, a member of the committee. The date Tuesday the 16th of November 1993. Our recordist is our esteemed Chairman Roy Fowler. And we're all you know that will add some supplementary questions. This is tape one, side one. Gerald, you and I have been colleagues in Independent Television since 1957. I think we first met and we're fairly Yorkshireman. Tell me about your origins when and where we were born?

Gerald Chambers  0:58  
Well, I was born in a small mining village in South Yorkshire called Highland common at number five Elm Street on the 10th of August 1927. My parents were working class in fact, there has been a dichotomy all through my life. The fact that while being born of working class parents way back in 1793, an ancestor of mine George chambers founded the firm of Newton chambers and

John P Hamilton  1:46  
my ignorance what the new shadows

Gerald Chambers  1:48  
do what well, Newcomb chambers started out as I am found the chamber with engine the chambers, part of the, of the family, he was a master founder, I've been able to find out and Newton supplied the capital. And they leased this piece of land from the Earl of Fitzwilliam, because they had found there were outcrops of iron stone and there was a water supply to drive the mills etc. And therefore they in this valley called thorncliffe, they set up this firm of Iam founders, which subsequently developed into pits collar is coke making plants and the making of pig iron as well as

John P Hamilton  2:45  
and rapidly then you mentioned the village but most people

Gerald Chambers  2:51  
were talking about it honestly. It's between its equidistant between the towns of Sheffield, Barnsley and Rotherham. We're sort of in the middle of that, that triangle. The only reason I mentioned about the firm coupled with my working class parents is because all my life I felt this kinship to the firm which blithely in my youth, I felt I should be part of, especially in financial and managerial sense. It seems to be something very much akin to, to me, as opposed to my parents and my brothers. All of us worked at the firm, but none of them had this attachment to it in in in that sense. So

John P Hamilton  3:50  
you have you have two brothers.

Gerald Chambers  3:52  
Yes. Younger brother and an older brother.

John P Hamilton  3:55  
You're the middle one. So um, where did you go to school was education.

Gerald Chambers  4:02  
Education, education, as far as I was concerned, was very sparse. Due to a lot of illness in my in my youth. In fact, I was told that I could have died in my first week of life worried but for the fact that my grandmother said, Give him some whiskey, that tradition which runs to this day and I had my first whiskey when I was one week old. Anyway to answer your question because of a lot of illness mainly in the winter, which caused a lot of chess troubles etc. my schooling was was very sparse. I went to the local went to the local Junior mixed school, and then to the Middle schoolers, as you call it these days, and then I went to senior boys Modern School and left at the age of 14 to go to the firm of Newton chambers.

Unknown Speaker  5:13  
Oh, you found your?

Gerald Chambers  5:15  
Oh, yes, I mean, we

Unknown Speaker  5:16  
did two brothers one.

Gerald Chambers  5:17  
My brother my brothers worked there. My, my older brother when he came out of the Air Force eventually became the secretary of the firm. But by that time, due to various changes in management structures, it was not nearly the sort of firming had been in our youth. What was

John P Hamilton  5:38  
it from that job, then? You did? We both have an area. I was ahead of you because I'm older you are, but you did national service.

Gerald Chambers  5:49  
Yes, I was in the, in the Air Force from 1945 to 1948. I had been at Newton chambers studying accounts at the local tech, as well as being in the accounts office. And unfortunately, for me, because I was wanting to get away from this work, when I got into the RPF, I thought this is my chance, especially when I was recommended for commissioning in the regiment that I would then get away from accounts. However, the commissioning came to naught. And I still stayed on in the counts in the Air Force. And so never ever got away from it. After that, I went back to New chambers, and within the accounts office again for a couple of years until I got fed up. And I then immigrated to New Zealand.

John P Hamilton  6:52  
Ah, right. Well, before we get on to New Zealand, where was your first touch of showbiz in this was it Newton che my amateur group or something similar?

Gerald Chambers  7:01  
No, no, I can remember taking part in something which was a kind of pageant of industry, which they, they had I think it was probably towards the end of the war, but I don't really know. Other than other than going to Sheffield Playhouse every other Saturday I say every other Saturday because it was a fortnightly Rep. And other than my interest in going there, I never took any part until I came out of the Air Force. And then the local village set up an opera society and and a drama group for the opera society I designed and painted the sets and helped with makeup. And with the drama group I acted.

John P Hamilton  7:56  
And that was the first step. The first step in the right direction. Were you a movie buff? Did you did you go to cinema as well?

Gerald Chambers  8:04  
Oh, yes. I was taken by my uncle. Because here again of the hard times in the in the 20s. I was brought up by my auntie and uncle. My uncle was my father's brother and my aunt was my mother's sister. Two brothers married two sisters. So therefore there was a very close connection. But to all intents and purposes, while I had two homes to go to my uncle was primarily surrogate local for renters surrogate father. And he I remember took me because he was a great movie buff. And he took me to the local pictures, which I think was the kind of a Toyland and we saw some Ruritanian light musical comedy with Nelson Eddie and Jeanette Jeanette. Dang it Yes.

John P Hamilton  9:10  
So you were born in the sound booth Yes. Sound was not to mention of course sound radio Did you listen to radio? Oh,

Gerald Chambers  9:17  
very much so. And the wall timeshares and yes, a lot of the the I was an avid listener to to radio and also was very well used by my uncle for carrying the accumulators up to this local shop that used to charge riccione

John P Hamilton  9:43  
well, so New Zealand then pulsewave coast RF. And how did you get to New Zealand we do go on Australian immigration.

Gerald Chambers  9:54  
Basically it was a was on my my uncle My father's elder brother had come over to England to see the grave of his son, who was also in he was in the New Zealand Air Force had come over here was a bomber pilot and crashed on on takeoff at a station somewhere in Oxford, and was buried in our local churches St. Peter's tankersley. And he came over to to see the grave used to recount how good New Zealand was. And at that time, in the papers they were adverts for would be immigrants to go out to New Zealand for 10 pound for which you had to do government service. So looking at the map, I realised that New Zealand was about as far as I was ever likely to go for 10 pounds and being the Yorkshiremen I am I thought, well, that's good value for money and I emigrated and went out to work in a bush station called kayang grow which is 30,000 total total chain from Penn pushing to chopping down trees.

John P Hamilton  11:15  
Wonderful. Wonderful. Now, did you continue the theatrical theme and newsy? Well, the theatrical,

Gerald Chambers  11:21  
theatrical theme and in New Zealand, started up again when I moved up to Auckland, and join the Auckland Repertory Theatre, which was an amateur group. And then I moved into the Auckland University drama group and was in the lady's not for burning with another actor who is now back in England called Barry linen. Who made I'm sure people will have heard of. And from there, I went on tour with the community art service, which they have in New Zealand, which takes theatre theatre to the outback, and you go on tour, and you do a different place every night. And I not only drove the cast bus while someone else drove the set around, I used to drive the cars and play the lead. And I could show you was a very new zealand equity. Oh yes, I had to join New Zealand equity.

John P Hamilton  12:36  
What did you do with a broom? We all know the answer to that. So you joined equity your first trade union

Gerald Chambers  12:45  
was in was in was in New Zealand as an actor, as an actor. And I still have my card signed by a Mr. Jacques Fleming's, a good Scotsman who was in charge of equity in New Zealand.

John P Hamilton  13:04  
How were things in New Zealand just briefly, I mean, things are pretty bad. Still in the early 50s, in this country with rationing and so on, until 5152, it lingered on the wall time. What were things like in New Zealand,

Gerald Chambers  13:23  
oh, compared to the Yes, land of milk and honey, but strangely enough for a country, which is so agricultural. At that time, they only had two types of cheese. One was called mild and the other was called strong. The sort of cannon bear roller and a few other things. completely unheard of. Plenty of lamb and mutton, in fact, on on tour we were billeted with, with people who thought their idea of looking after as well was to give us the equivalent of what we would call a Sunday lunch, which in England would be primarily roast potatoes and around and leave that out there. It was mutton and pumpkin. And if you've ever had mutton and pumpkin seven nights a week, but apart from that there was so much food in New Zealand compared to England, it wasn't true.

John P Hamilton  14:36  
So you put on little weight loss. Yes.

Unknown Speaker  14:40  
live well.

John P Hamilton  14:43  
The merchant navy figured in your life. Even the New Zealand period after it did it not?

Gerald Chambers  14:50  
Yes. In in 1954. I'd heard about commercial television being I'm about to start in, in England. And so I thought, well, this is the thing to do get back to England and get into the business. It's obviously going to expand. At that time I was looking at it purely from an acting point of view.

Unknown Speaker  15:22  
Then I happen

Unknown Speaker  15:23  
to standardise.

John P Hamilton  15:27  
Let's just go back jold on your acting experiences in New Zealand. You've told us a little about it, driving the truck. And so I mean what you recall your major parts

Gerald Chambers  15:43  
Well, I played numerous parts in in Auckland Repertory Theatre, which was, which was an amateur group. I played many parts. Having an English accent out there was a great importance. And having had the experience of seeing really good acting in England, it gave you a base for the whole business of acting, and therefore with Auckland repertory I did a lot of parts, both character and I mean, I really can't, you must remember, we're now talking about 1952 and 53. It's a little hard without all the paperwork to remember the the part by doing the video, but I played Nicholas in the lady's not for for burning. And the I played the, the young poet lead, I think it was Philippe in the lady Amanda luthier, which we took on on tour. I also did some short story reading as uncle Gerald on to Zed v. in Auckland, but that was that was very short lived.

John P Hamilton  17:21  
No, no radio plays.

Unknown Speaker  17:22  
No, none. Obviously

Unknown Speaker  17:23  
there was no television. No,

Gerald Chambers  17:26  
I couldn't. I tried. I tried very hard to to get into radio announcing. Both I I don't know why. I don't know what there was a bias against the English getting too far into the professional field. There was at that time, there was always this feeling out in New Zealand and for all I know it may still be there now towards immigrants have we had seen so much, which was so far in advance of with New Zealand had to offer that we would naturally refer to something that we done or seen back home. And they hadn't seen it or heard about it and therefore there was antagonism. How much

John P Hamilton  18:19  
were you paid?

Gerald Chambers  18:22  
When, when I was on tour, I think I got about nine pounds a week. I don't know

John P Hamilton  18:29  
what the currency was then it was either.

Gerald Chambers  18:32  
It was pounds, pounds, shillings and pence in those days. It's now dollars and cents. But I was paid about nine pounds a week on tour in 1952

John P Hamilton  18:43  
wasn't bad as well.

Gerald Chambers  18:45  
No, but don't forget that out of that we were meant to cover all our expenses. All the the audience's were were terrific because I mean we were going to two places in the in the outback of the North Island. Which even the Kiwis hadn't heard of. I mean, we used to play in, in farmers barns and local village halls and everything else like that. And they were very much an agricultural community who came to to see us and we were probably the only theatre they'd ever seen. Or maybe for some years we're ever likely to see these stones one nightstands

Roy Fowler  19:35  
and Western material.

Gerald Chambers  19:37  
Well, if it's suitable I wouldn't say the quality was worse than the material was certainly West End. At the time, there was another touring company, which was formed by New Zealanders called Richard Campion. He and his wife, Edith, who had both been to Rada. And they came back and formed the New Zealand players. And they went on tour, also, but that was much more widespread over both the the north and south islands.

Unknown Speaker  20:15  
How many would you?

Gerald Chambers  20:19  
Oh, I would, I would think, probably 50, or something like that.

Roy Fowler  20:26  
To see.

Gerald Chambers  20:28  
They didn't pay anything. Because this was part of the community art service. In other words, this was run by the government via the education budget, I presume. And, and this was how it was sent out.

Roy Fowler  20:47  
Do you remember if they were travelling cinema at the same time?

Gerald Chambers  20:51  
Yes, they were because I was about it just reminded me that one of the places I played was the, the hole on the forestry camp where I had first worked to kangaroo, we worked in in that hole. And when I was in the forestry service, every week, a truck used to drive up from Rotorua, and back up to this hut, which had a couple of holes cut in it. And they would fix the screen at the other end of the heart. And then they would beam the film for the week, with the projector outside on the back of this truck. And that truck used to go to to other places as well, it didn't just come to our logging camp

Roy Fowler  21:41  
16 mil.

Gerald Chambers  21:44  
I would think it was 35 mil from from the quality of the of the film, it was quite good.

Roy Fowler  21:50  
One last question for me. JOHN, was there any native New Zealand film industry? production?

Gerald Chambers  21:57  
Well, yes, there was the National Film Unit in in Wellington, with whom I made the film later, later on in my career as we're out there.

Unknown Speaker  22:12  
So

John P Hamilton  22:13  
we're around chronologically in 1954? Yes,

Gerald Chambers  22:19  
yes, before 919 for years, that 1954 was was when I joined the merchant navy out there with a view to getting my ticket, because it was very much the same thing as as joining equity, you you had to get the job to get the ticket, you had to get a ticket to get the job.

Unknown Speaker  22:45  
The story

Gerald Chambers  22:47  
this was a this was the same in, in the merchant in the merchant service. However, they would need they were needing they were needing more more styles. So therefore, they they open the gates and I signed on as an assistant steward and eventually worked my way up to on one ship, because I went on three or four ships while local ships while I was out there,

Unknown Speaker  23:19  
and particular line.

Gerald Chambers  23:21  
He was the union steamship community. And on one of them, I was head waiter for for a while. And then

John P Hamilton  23:31  
I can't prove it.

Gerald Chambers  23:33  
I've got all the documents, so improvement and equity. And I'm a Siemens union man. And, and then I came ashore from from one of the ships, because I found that the the New Zealand Film Unit was needing people for a film which was showing how people could come from all parts of the world to New Zealand, and within one day of their arrival, get to anywhere of the beauty and tourist spots. And they have this promotional film for it and we went all around the country shooting this film, which was then eventually which presumably I was performing as you

John P Hamilton  24:23  
probably know the location catering.

Gerald Chambers  24:27  
I remember I remember one of the location locations, which was very beautiful. Absolutely. The best hotel I'd ever been to in New Zealand which was in Milford Sound. Unfortunately, it was later burned down. But two of us went in this light aircraft, the lady who was playing my wife in the film, and the pilot. We flew in this light aircraft from Encore Queenstown, and we flew over the mountain range and we saw this sort of hotel down below but I couldn't see a landing strip. And being xR f it rather troubles me that you know, I know life can be dicey but to land without landings trip is not really the best of things. However, I pointed this out to Popeye Lucas, who owned the small airways company, and he was the next Battle of Britain pilot. And he said not to worry, I know my way around here. I thought well, I hope to god you too. And we actually came in and landed on this dry river bread right by the right by the hotel. And I said, Well, this is this will be fine. Fine Popeye, we've we've sort of landed okay, but what is there some water coming down here? When it's time for taking off is it in that case we stay here it was as simple as that. So when the when the steam is streaming right out we then we then took off and came back to civilization that after that film, it was then back to the back to the merchant service again.

John P Hamilton  26:25  
Where are your travels take you at sea? Did you travel far? Or is it just around the island?

Gerald Chambers  26:30  
We did it we did it. I did quite a few trips between the North and South Island from from Wellington down to done Eden. But most of the time on the model y we did a triangular voyage of going from Wellington to Sydney, Sydney to Auckland, Auckland to Sydney, Sydney to Wellington, it was that kind of a trip. Which if you look at the map takes you most of the time through the Tasman Sea. And and that's ruffled See, you soon find out whether you're a good sailor or not and a version of this. Anyhow, I paid off from the motorway because I was told. And for the life of me, I've been trying to think ever since what was the ship I paid off for to join because it's now been scrapped. But at that time, it was coming out on its maiden voyage. And all the old hands told me because they knew I wanted to go home and I got a ticket. And they said, well, there's always a lot of chaps on a maiden voyage because they are so rough, that they use the term shoot through and go up to the bush and live on a Maori par until the ship has sailed, and therefore the captain will be wanting sailors he will take you on purely for the for the trip that

Unknown Speaker  28:10  
you did that.

Gerald Chambers  28:11  
I Well, I tried to do that. But the the captain said he was not going to have his record spoiled by taking on staff, freelance staff you might see. And so therefore he was sailing without the proper complement. Anyhow, I managed to get on another ship, which was going to be sailing home because fortunately that that morning that I went down to see the chief steward one of the stewards had broken his legs. I got taken on and I went back all through the Pacific Islands, etc. And through the Panama Canal back to England. By that time it was 1955 and commercial television has started. And I think we're about to go into their first redundancy before before before before I ever meant to get into the business june july 1950.

John P Hamilton  29:09  
Shortly thereafter, you and I met in 1957

Gerald Chambers  29:16  
Yes, I did. I had been doing some extra artists work and during the course of that I met a young lady who knew the chief engineer at Rediffusion Bill cheevers bill cheapest and he had been given the job by this American company smithkline and French of adding to the nucleus on their colour television unit of adding to the nucleus, some staff purely to help out during the tour of England. And I was then signed on as floor manager on on that June. It. And that was where you and I met john. But yes, you came and we're working on that.

John P Hamilton  30:05  
That's To recap, the company I was working for at the time was associated Rediffusion. For bill chief as your contact was chief engineer, as you rightly say, we were recruited on the basis that we took our leave from the company. And were replaced by other people. Obviously, I was heading to section so I had to be replaced by somebody to go out on this exercise was misaligned in Frederick other or no other people available. Well, BBC had staff but obviously PPC prevented the people from doing it. So we went out on the road for quite a long time, actually.

Gerald Chambers  30:43  
Well, I, I was, I was with them full time for just over three months.

John P Hamilton  30:50  
Yes. during which time, we covered sessions in Manchester,

Gerald Chambers  30:56  
London, Manchester, Edinburgh, Newcastle. And the four main venues back to back to

John P Hamilton  31:04  
London, again, most interesting part being dealing with a colour unit, which others had experienced. That was basically an American unit brought over from Pennsylvania. Yes, a producer for which, and the director of which were American and the two engineer,

Gerald Chambers  31:19  
yes, the engineer, the producer was called Paul Schmidt. And the director was dick gets. Most of the engineers if I remember, rightly, in typical American fashion, they had very foreign sounding names those and Greek monogram was Greek. Through that unit, I'm very pleased to say I managed to get my English ticket to the AC t t, which then enabled me to, to go on the vacancy list at HQ. In case there were floor manager cases where

John P Hamilton  32:03  
it was probably the first time you bought headphones. Well, Joe, this was this is your first, your first stint as a floor manager.

Gerald Chambers  32:10  
This was my first time as a floor manager. And as you say, the first time I had worn headphones and was listening in to directors and producers, screaming in my ears.

John P Hamilton  32:23  
They were very interesting session. We call them all very well, indeed. From the medical point of view, though, very interesting. And the television point of view, they were interesting as well, because, of course, we were firing things by microwave link from the operating theatres where the events were actually happening, of course, the operations to larger premises elsewhere, I think was the first use of colour radio links in this country.

Gerald Chambers  32:53  
I think so. And when one looks at the equipment, which we use now, compared to the size of the equipment, which the Americans brought home, with the moment that the the, you know, the technical change, which has come about has been absolutely marvellous, it's unbelievable how they've miniaturise equipment.

John P Hamilton  33:19  
I remember we worked extremely well with those guys.

Gerald Chambers  33:23  
Very, very nice, professional people to engineers were brilliant to get on with was very hard work,

John P Hamilton  33:30  
was it not?

Roy Fowler  33:31  
It was very early to

Gerald Chambers  33:32  
bring everything down with the alcohol. Yes, yeah, it was going. And I used to have to be talking to the surgeons and doctors and other people trying to put them into the picture of how television would sort of would work from their point of view and things they would have to, to do and and the way we would ask them to illustrate certain aspects of the, of the work and and for me, it was very, very interesting because it was really

Unknown Speaker  34:11  
dependent.

Gerald Chambers  34:13  
I mean, they were I mean, I can I can remember out at Hammersmith when they were first showing the the blood transfusion machine which they had at that time languishing. Yes, and I just forget how many gallons of pig's blood we had to put into this machine to, to make it work and to and to show the effect of it. And there again, in the medical field when you think of the changes which have taken place in the medical field, I was terribly interested because I've always been interested, as I say from this lifetime of illness of things medical. Just a small sidelight on on that. was the fact that I found that as a television person dealing with top line medical people, how generous they were with their thoughts and answers to, to our questions. I wish when I go to my local GP now that they would also be a little more committed to putting over communication. Yes,

John P Hamilton  35:29  
there are a lot of very splendid ladies and gentlemen involved in that exercise. After that three months experience, which must have been invaluable to you've got yourself onto the vacancy listed Soho square. How soon was it then before you joined us at a our,

Gerald Chambers  35:47  
I think in the front, I think I'm, I think I had to wait for about three months before a vacancy came up. Just as another sideline to, to to my first show, when I was being interviewed for the for the job with smithkline and French. I remember going to television house Kingsway. And there was another chap with a beard and myself waiting in sort of an empty room. And then this chap went in and was there for hours and hours. And then came out and I went in and I was only in for about 10 minutes. And so I came out and I thought it will the length of time the other chap was in there. You know he must have, he must have got the job you must have been working out is the conditions of his contract and everything. So I went home to two hamsters and within about five minutes of getting there, I got a telephone call from the guests to tell me that I got the job. Anyhow, big numbers, the guests was the American director. Anyhow, later, when I really got to know him, I said, Well what happened to the other guy? And he said, Oh, I said he was there for a long time. And he said yes, he was there so long. He talked himself out of the job. The The unfortunate thing from my point of view was that when I went to Rediffusion, the first man I worked with as an assistant for manager was this same man with the beard. Hey, Nacho cane Archer, the by name. And I was meant to to realise that while I may have been lucky to get the smithkline and French job, I was very unlucky that I got it instead of him. You were you were

Roy Fowler  37:55  
much competition for jobs at that point.

Unknown Speaker  37:59  
Yes.

Gerald Chambers  38:01  
In fact,

John P Hamilton  38:03  
while it may I interject here because I will live through it we will recovering from the 1956 redundancy. The first massive redundancy after the all the initial losses, the DI d v suffered particularly Rediffusion as one of the flagship companies, building Wembley studios, converting the television and all that stuff. And as a head of a section then in sound, I haven't lost a third of my staff. And obviously, we've spent a lot of time training them. And when things started to pick up, we wanted to try and get them back. So there was not just vacancies. We were trying to be very selective, obviously in who we brought back in. So for a complete outsider to get in at least Joel had an end to knowing Bill jeevers and a few other people that did met on the on the colour exercise.

Gerald Chambers  38:49  
Well, I was difficult. I I was about to back, john up in what he was saying about. They were weeding people out because they'd seen the quality of their work previous to the redundancy. And therefore, they had gone and they were not terribly anxious to take some of them back again. I was very lucky in the sense that a lot of the people who subsequently I found on joining Rediffusion were heads of Section like john and Vic Gardner Campbell was head of cameras and various other people like that, for whom when I came to my board with Rediffusion I was able to quote them and i i think that gave me a great fillip to getting a job

Roy Fowler  39:55  
close to the union and is first of all redundancy And rehiring

John P Hamilton  40:02  
well as sadly No, very, very little. They were still AC T. Of course, they hadn't added the T for television edition. And they didn't really organise in the studios until after the 1962 equity strike, which we haven't got to chronologically as far as Joe was concerned. And it was only thereafter, not because of the equity strike. But during the same period that actt started to organise properly in ITV and agreements, management, we're beginning to accept them. And we'd like to recognise agreements. So although Gerald was a member, obviously, very early on 1957, it was some years before they had any influence. So they really have no bearing on the we went along with the principle of first in last out when the redundancy occurred in 56. And that would general throughout the companies that were operating as early as that cost, many of the ITV companies were yet not yet on the air. And we took them back on the same basis by and large, but we were selective and have the opportunity to be selective with the dross, as Gerald says, that we'd collected in the early years when everybody was trying to jump on the bandwagon. So very little union influence, but nevertheless, you joined actt in 57.

Gerald Chambers  41:29  
Yes, yes, I joined aact and

John P Hamilton  41:31  
in to do the

Gerald Chambers  41:32  
colour exercise. No, no, it was after that. But that three months working in the job. gave me the qualifications to enter rebrand the union.

Unknown Speaker  41:50  
Yes,

Gerald Chambers  41:50  
I was able to, I was able to quote that I was also able to quote a lot of names for reference for to backup. My wish to join the union.

John P Hamilton  42:03  
Yeah. So you can mean then as an assistant floor manager, yes into still then associated Rediffusion working Of course, between the three main weather Wembley studios television house, Granville. Outside broadcast. Yeah,

Gerald Chambers  42:24  
I did. I never. I went I went down to the Granville once. And I think after that it paid close. But I said

John P Hamilton  42:34  
they just identify it. For those who may be listening to this in the years the GM was a converted musical theatre, while I'm green, from Broadway converted the vast expense and not terribly successfully into a television studio. But at least it houses some of the better shows of those days like the Jubilee show and so on. Audience shows it gave it gave us a venue which would hold about 350 400 people in the audience,

Gerald Chambers  43:05  
because in those days, another studio six, there was no such thing as the kind of audience seating which we now have in television studios.

John P Hamilton  43:15  
And it was our equivalent of what ttv had in the Midlands at Aston and in London, that Hackney Empire and wood green Empire It was Rediffusion audion Studio

Roy Fowler  43:29  
master just it might be interesting to have a better description of the the interior the old audience seating section remained, is that it? And the cameras were on the old stage. Oh, yeah, yes. Well,

Unknown Speaker  43:44  
not really raw. Yeah.

Roy Fowler  43:46  
Just to in picture of my own recording for

John P Hamilton  43:49  
the project. I think I went on alarmingly quite long. About about the Granville because I figured it wasn't a happy memory for me from the sound point of view. I have to say the theatre was very old, it was very decrepit when associated Rediffusion hired it. It took a lot of refurbishing. There was some lovely old tattered Maroon fittings and seating and so on and some of that was kept but it was stripped out from downstairs. in its entirety. We kept turning to the balcony and the gods for audience seating. A pit was built to the right hand side of the auditorium looking at the stage the stage area which had a rake on it, which didn't make life easy for cameras. There was no way of removing it. It seems the camera guys just coped and pedestals were rejigged rebalanced to straighten the cameras out Would you believe?

Roy Fowler  44:49  
Let me stop

John P Hamilton  0:50  
Tape ident This is tape one side two, talking to Gerald Chambers, jumpy Hamilton interviewing and in full flow about the Granville theatre studio sitcom associated Rediffusion in 1955. We were talking about the ground rule. The orchestral pit was one of my main concerns as indeed was the acoustic treatment of the place and we spent a lot of money in stripping out some of the old fabric walls particularly in the audience seating area, to dedmon had built in echo when we moved in there, it was very nearly as bad as Albert Hall, because a lot of a lot of tiling about. We did that spent a considerable amount of money and as we all needed to have some leave, I went off on leave and came back into my horror found that the chief advisor commander Haynes of Central Rediffusion services, decided they didn't like the colour of the acoustic tiling, which was plain white acoustic tilings and that had them painted with pink gloss paint. Why nobody stopped him doing it in my absence. I never found out that there was a

Unknown Speaker  2:08  
big, big

Roy Fowler  2:11  
What did you say you didn't mean?

Gerald Chambers  2:15  
And then he Dedede him. He wrote my favourite man investment time. And we had to do it all again. There was no means then there was no such thing but with paint strippers, of course, but nothing. The acoustic tiled was the vibe. So we had to start at square one again, all of which put the whole exercise back a considerable time force programme people screaming and shouting and stomping their feet.

I'd say I only went down the the ones and from my dim recollection,

Unknown Speaker  2:46  
it was paid working. There were

Gerald Chambers  2:50  
I don't remember the camera out front in a pit. But I remember cameras in the wings.

Unknown Speaker  2:56  
Yes, they shot from

Gerald Chambers  2:57  
the wings shot from the wings back onto

John P Hamilton  3:00  
the APM an apron was put in and there was a central tracking path built a raised pile down the centre of the theatre where the where the stalls had been originally. On the right hand side looking at the stage I'd had dug out to accommodate an orchestra. And we did some amusing tests with the lovely Billy terman tool called Rediffusion. them was still associated with jack Hilton. From the light entertainment point of view. They were jack Hilton productions for associated Rediffusion jack was the entertainment advisor to the company in the early days for the first four or five years. And Billy turned into Of course, was in partnership with jack and virtually had taken over the jack Hill band when jack became an impresario and I've worked with Billy in radio before that I knew him well and his lovely man and I persuaded him he brought the band in free of charge it was in their own interest of course of all the Hilton productions own interest because they put some of the early variety shows in there not least of all was a an old time music all day show called the Jubilee show, directed by Peter Croft and starring many people who went on to greater fame and fortune later. Technically, the place was run by the Chief Engineer there and guide in generals and lovely SRF pilot called Fred tacey. At the full fly officer Kate moustache and manner to boot knew everybody in aviation, he went into the aviation industry after he left Rediffusion but without Fred bullying, the place would never have got on the air. Literally, despite the setbacks occasioned by our friends from Central Rediffusion services, the control rooms it was Marconi though the original Marconi mark one cameras originally with turrets, of course. I managed to squeeze a couple of booms in there all those a very little room to track them. But they were useful from the racking point of view mo booms to get out and into the auditorium. The acoustics were never good. My sound guys is to go mad trying to get a decent balance out of the orchestra. Despite the fact we did quite a lot of tests say that the controller was a lash up at the rear of the stalls. The eyeline was practically negligible. You can see what the heck was going on. And you relied enormously on your floor managers to get the thing though, but say jerell says himself, he didn't work there very often. So we don't get quotes from him. So we'll return to your job. So he spent most of your time either at Wembley, then on television in studios seven, eight and nine, or at Wembley in 123. And four,

Gerald Chambers  5:55  
eventually, yes, in nearly no.

John P Hamilton  5:58  
Studio three was sent this week,

Gerald Chambers  6:01  
lots of outside broadcasts

John P Hamilton  6:03  
not to match our broadcast with the then Marconi units well, three Marconi units and one pi unit, known affectionately as sweetie pie, is non standard in the set up for a very long time. And so what kinds of shows while you're working on that?

Gerald Chambers  6:27  
Well, there are things like gyms in where you'd be in in studios, seven and eight in television house. And we used to have to run the the cameras through the commercial break from one into another to get the we should explain that technically, to get the shot sudio

John P Hamilton  6:54  
seven stroke a was was unique in being two studios, one slightly larger than the other, but certainly no bigger than 25 feet by and that was 17 that I recall and the larger one, which was at the front of television house for those of you who are noting Kingsway towards the Kingsway side, and studio eight which was literally a box and not very much bigger than 18 feet by 16. But it had common control room. And originally it was equipped with RCA cameras. And they weren't madly efficient. They had very unreliable dollies, they were smaller than the Marconi cameras which was a plus in very restricted areas. There were three only and they were cabled. As Joel says into either one side or the other through the CC us and the vision mixing panel which was a very primitive Mark only five like the sound equipment, the more primitive five

Gerald Chambers  7:56  
level level cutting channels and a couple of high level channels are taking TELUS any feeds on whatever the vision makes any sense point of view. And you had to travel the cameras literally from one side to the other if necessary. But some remarkably interesting thing about that was that this this corridor between the two was also the main corridor as it were through the building to get to studio nine which was in the in the basement. And and people in their daily life of going through this corridor quite often used to get moaned down because there's suddenly a camera on the floor manager and the and the camera come hurtling around on this door to get into the other studio because we didn't have a lot of time and for some

John P Hamilton  8:49  
reason in the building point of view it wasn't possible to iron out that there was a stack

Gerald Chambers  8:53  
there was also yeah

John P Hamilton  8:55  
out of one studio but the other one in the centre corridor was raised and for some reason or another they could never lead lead out. hump the thing uphill and then downhill at the other side but

Gerald Chambers  9:05  
i mean you know when you when you think back to, to that kind of making television and making television now it's unbelievable. Really but the I must say the the artists and the people were in the in the main fun to to get on with and it was amazing what what could be done in the way of television what could be got out of the system.

John P Hamilton  9:35  
Every Friday night, Friday night, relatively large variety programme came out of it called try this girl with Sheila Matthews as a star may remember. And a relatively large office there's about a 10 piece crammed into the smaller as a two studios bed early an early example of feeding sound by loudspeaker fall back into The other studio for the artists to perform to in this country and in our experience here a two studio transmission with the set and the principal artists in one half and remote band.

Gerald Chambers  10:15  
One the principal electronic pizza I remember was in there was a girl dancer in in seven who was dancing I think on a blue coloured floor against the blue psych and that was superimposed over the picture in that was coming out of eat. So it appeared as if she was dancing on air

Unknown Speaker  10:44  
very, very early and I

Unknown Speaker  10:46  
don't know how the engineers that comes in.

Unknown Speaker  10:49  
But it was fake it was

Gerald Chambers  10:52  
but my most of the most of the shows I remember doing in nine this week, which was the programme I was very much interested in, at that time, both as far as working on it and meeting politicians and and the content of the programme but also the the show I hated going on, which was on a Friday night and it was Ready Steady go. Now amidst all those screaming people who were invited in and the the, the guest artists who were all the sort of early early groups etc. and and with the indiscipline that that went with them at that time for a former manager it was hell

Roy Fowler  11:49  
is there any anecdotal material about two series of shows politicians you encountered on this week and

Gerald Chambers  11:58  
there will be the the fun and the dirty thing about Ready Steady go was that in the afternoon, we we quite often record the number which the the artists was then going to to mine to on the on the show and I forgotten the name of the the artists now but she made a point of Oh was appearing barefoot Sandy, Sandy shore and I think her agent was called Evie

John P Hamilton  12:39  
leave your turn like he retail overlay TV

Gerald Chambers  12:41  
and formidable yeah a very formidable lady and we we've been rehearsing and Ed Taylor and Sandy Shaw we're we're obviously having their difficulties over over certain things anyhow we went into went into a lineup as far as I knew the artists gone into into makeup which she had and and then we we came to time to record and I went in and found that she had left makeup she doesn't wear what she couldn't find anywhere I looked in the canteen other dressing rooms everywhere you could think of and so eventually I went up to the front the front door and and said to some of the people in reception Have you seen Sandy Sue on this? She went out about 10 minutes ago. I said did you see which way she went? Anyhow To cut a long story short I founder calendar somewhere down at the bottom of the old witch and and drag the back to the studio. Where upon this, Evie she she used words earlier. God saw

Unknown Speaker  14:13  
Yes.

Gerald Chambers  14:16  
told her to get on that bloody stage and do Stop messing around. We got halfway through. We got halfway through the recording. And then somebody said, Oh my god, she's got her shoes on. So we had to because this was the thing about always singing barefoot. We had to stop go right back to the top the perishing shoes often. That's that's one thing I remember about.

John P Hamilton  14:51  
Yes. Perhaps should have explained studio now was a very strange studio in shape. It was triangular with a Double Door, the pointed end. Not quite triangular. What the trapezium Yeah, whatever works out that geometrically. With two spiral staircases, either side, and the balcony, all of which, and the corridors and the same doc through the double doors. And the dressing rooms were all used by the directors of Ready Steady go, which my wife definitely shared well was the original begetter. In the course of the five years or so that it ran, every mortal inch of that studio was used on that particular programme. earlier on in the studio's life, it had been used in a similar way by myself and other directors on call for caps, where you couldn't afford the sets. And there was that bleak period when the company was rocky in the early 60s as well. We did exactly the same thing as they'd done on did later on RSG and use the corridor areas and anywhere at all, that gave you a variation of backing for whatever number, singing whoever the artist was. But all the great artists of the 60s of course, pass through that studio. Particularly with RSG, as it became known,

Gerald Chambers  16:16  
it was a song called cats, I first met Kent Walton, and then also a girl who was one of the the dancers in the in the troupe who went on to fame and fortune later millison Martin. And the reason I remember her was she had the smashing figure and, and face but the most spotty back Oh, dear,

Unknown Speaker  16:44  
you may want to cut that out.

John P Hamilton  16:47  
She killed it.

Gerald Chambers  16:49  
It's so personal.

Unknown Speaker  16:51  
Later when he was

Roy Fowler  16:53  
one of our politicians,

Unknown Speaker  16:55  
yes.

Gerald Chambers  16:56  
Politicians. In in, in those early days, were very much more disciplined, I think than they are now. Now they have got so used to television, but in those days, they were rather frightened of it. And then therefore anything you said to them as a floor manager, they were very much more inclined to go along with and agree to the now where they will quibble about, about various things,

Unknown Speaker  17:39  
they've all done their training courses.

Gerald Chambers  17:41  
And in those in those days, they were, you know, they were kind of scared, you know, sort of, who are all these people around here, what do they all do? And also what am what am I going to be asked by the interviewer? And am I equipped to give them the answers, they were very much more nervous in those days. The The only chap who never changed throughout all the years was Dennis Healy, who is, as you know, such a large larger than life character, who would always come in and say good morning, good evening, or whatever, good afternoon to whoever was was there and usually told the joke and and got everybody laughing and in a good humour. You know, whether you were a labour conservative voter or communist or or anything he would, he had this neck of a making his presence felt and also getting you on his side

Unknown Speaker  19:00  
of the piano.

Gerald Chambers  19:02  
And he removed but, but he never, he never changed in the whole of the times that I met him.

Roy Fowler  19:09  
Was it the times look different toward these characters? And

Gerald Chambers  19:14  
yes, that there was I think I think there was a lot of difference on our side. And and also a lot of nervousness on on their side. Sort of totally different to the way things are at the moment. Now.

Roy Fowler  19:40  
worlds colliding.

Gerald Chambers  19:41  
Yes, it was, I mean, it was you know, sort of one lock really not knowing what the other was really about and, and, and to, I mean the kind of mentality that took you towards showbusiness. And and ultimately to television was totally different to the mentality that took you into politics.

Roy Fowler  20:08  
Were they held in better racial regard than they are now with a universally despised?

Gerald Chambers  20:14  
Oh, I mean, I think I think they were very much more universally acclaimed in those days, as I say, because of, you know, you have this deference to these to these people coming in, who as far as you were concerned, were, you know, the government, the establishment, the, the top of the country,

John P Hamilton  20:40  
I think professionally as well. I mean, we all treated them as as the amateurs that they were from the broadcasting Yes, we are, I hasten to add extended film people, yes. And they appeared like Dennis alien, and few others, who are frequently appeared not constantly. And therefore we treated them as we would most people with, we were deferential to them, because we were trying to help them. So sit here, this is your microphones. And in case they didn't know anything about it, which most of them didn't, then there was,

Gerald Chambers  21:10  
there was one man, I remember who I believe was belonging to the National Front and being interviewed, along with two other guests. And as john says, we tried to treat everybody in a professional manner, whether we agreed with their politics or outlook on life. We try to treat them all the same. And apart from myself, speaking to this particular person, and, and the interviewer, neither the producer or the director, or the other two on the show, spoke to him and ignore the messages were relayed to him. Via myself, the interviewer naturally had to just speak to him, but but just nobody else would, would even say good afternoon to him. It was I felt, I felt it was terribly bad. Because I could hear comments about his, the particular party that he belonged to, coming down from the box. And I, you know, I felt that in the boxes, antagonism to this particular to this particular person that they somehow felt they had to have him on the programme, and I felt it was very bad that the, the people should be treating him in that, in that sense.

John P Hamilton  22:52  
Right, we jumped ahead of ourselves somewhat earlier in talking about registering guns. 1962 was a very significant year in ITV, I've always thought because I'm sure you'd agree, largely because of the equity strike, where the artists withdrew the labour, because of the age old argument about payments, artist payments, and so on. They wanted more money, and the companies have recovered from the earlier years. And we're making what then were not terribly spectacular profits by today's standards, but we're pretty good. The strike lasted a very long time, it altered our programming a hell of a lot. And so much as we have the drop a lot of shows that had been established, and the artist weren't available. And we put in a lot of things, experimental programmes, like the famous here and now series. Many short, we only worked on many of them. Yes. And we you and I worked on a lot of them was a significant year as well, not as we said earlier because of the equity strike, but because of actt beginning to be organised and recognised by the companies. I think starting with the first directors agreement, if my memory serves me, right, where you as yet an official Gerald,

Unknown Speaker  24:07  
no relation at

Unknown Speaker  24:09  
eye drops do it or whatever.

Gerald Chambers  24:11  
I think I became a floor managers Rep. During the time of that first strike at at Wembley, which if I remember rightly, was settled by Harold Wilson, and the now Lord Goodman.

John P Hamilton  24:32  
Yes, you're absolutely right. Meeting

Gerald Chambers  24:34  
I could remember is going to a very strange meeting where where these two people at the Central Hall were thinking was very good, we're concerned. And it was during that time, that there were lots of lots of union meetings taking place at Wembley in the garage, not the garage, the the car park if you remember the the back we couldn't get we couldn't have it. Meeting, a union meeting in the studios, we hail rain or shine, our union meetings were held in the car park outside. And I think it was at that time when the the people who were in the the union at that time, were trying to get it more organised on a sectional basis. And it was at that time that I think the Don Quixote side of my nature, wanting to tilted windmills came out and, and I stuck my hand up for floor managers Rep. I might add, I had no competition for the job. The, the rest of the lot, were pretty spineless. As far as I was concerned, what were the issues? Well, the, the, the the issues and in the main, as I say, remember it apart from sort of pay and conditions was it was really sort of, for recognition by the management of the Union. I think at that time, the union was kind of floating along through life by the grace of God trying to do things and and, you know, wherever they could get some organisation into it, but they were, they were fighting against a background of, of people who were a completely alien to, to show business and be alien to the whole thought of the lower deck having a say in anything because if you look back, you will find that all of the hierarchy of Rediffusion it was if you transpose them from the warship, Belfast, if you transpose all the upper deck into television house and said right there you are, all your captains and Commodores, etc, run a television company. They had, they had no idea, I think what television was about, and they had no conception of the people who worked in television who were in the main, like myself, come into television from all the various strands of the show business. And so they, you know, they couldn't understand these, you know, these, these television chaps, you know, these showbusiness chaps they are they are not at all, you know, the kinds of ratings that we're used to sort of bossing around. In fact, the the 13th floor at television house was known as the bridge, the fourth floor, the fourth floor, I beg your pardon? I'm thinking of, I'm thinking of the sound London weekend if they are with the 13th floor.

Unknown Speaker  28:12  
Yes. Yeah. The john green

Gerald Chambers  28:15  
probably help out more on this because of that time, he'd more experience of the company and more experience of the background, and I got more into it later on.

John P Hamilton  28:25  
Yes, the senior management in the early days. Yes, we were written by the Navy as we know. redoubtable Captain Brown, we just general manager, and various commanders in charge of various sections and administrative Lea Captain Fisher. But I have to say, Ben Fisher was a very nice gentleman and wasn't a problem in the same way as the superior Captain brown where he was, but we mustn't forget, it wasn't all bad. No, they didn't want to recognise unions. They had to recognise the to you on that key very early on, needless to say, because the guys just down tools, if they didn't, nothing happened, studios ground to a halt. And they've been several Wildcat strikes. In the years between 55 and the period, we're talking about 62. But there were a lot of good drug and people as well in senior management in the Lloyd Williams and for what it's worth the drama melons and people who had come out of broadcasting on films and so on, and they're the people who kept the programmes together. And they're the people who were the loyalty because they had employed as a programming since I would have been in television at all, had it not been for Lloyd Williams, for example. No, I saw basis.

Gerald Chambers  29:40  
I think in I think in that sense, you are able to, to add more to it than than I can because you had been with people you mentioned in the programme in a sense and therefore knew about them. I'm speaking from someone coming indeed called from the street. Not knowing anybody, and these were all the the people who I saw, as you know, being the head of the thing running the show, as a company not not as running it from a programme sense,

Roy Fowler  30:20  
this is your interview. So it's interesting to get you this,

Gerald Chambers  30:23  
this is a very well covered. This is strangely enough, during that during that time, I went on a holiday to to Brazil. And and during that time they had a resin revolution this was a 1964 which grounded all the the aircraft and I had to send the cable back to two Rediffusion requesting extension of of leave, due due to the due to revolution and aircraft or like restore aircraft or being or being grounded. Ever After whenever I passed the the head of personnel who was another Captain john may probably remember his name better than

John P Hamilton  31:24  
Captain Fisher.

Gerald Chambers  31:26  
No, it wasn't I don't think was Captain Fisher, Sam southcom. And big bluff. x conville. Seaman. Anyway, this other captain, whenever he saw me would immediately say to me, where are you going on the holiday this year chambers, I think for a start, and this is what I'm trying to get out as far as the mentality of the people who were running the place. The fact that in their eyes, a rating was going out to Brazil on holiday was completely foreign to them. We must be paying them too much. If they can go out to Brazil on holiday. And B he would then chide me, each time we met by saying where are you going on holiday this year? chambers? Because don't think you can pull that stunt twice.

Unknown Speaker  32:21  
In any kind of fashion.

Gerald Chambers  32:23  
Oh, no, this was no this is this was serious. I mean, you know,

John P Hamilton  32:27  
if it was beneficial, more of a sense of humour, then you give him credit for the very funny manager.

Gerald Chambers  32:32  
Well, I You see, I I wish I could think of the name of this. He was a

Unknown Speaker  32:38  
guy bloomer.

Gerald Chambers  32:39  
No. No, he was a captain. And he was a big bluff. Typical.

John P Hamilton  32:46  
But not that tall. But he was a big red face.

Unknown Speaker  32:49  
Well, maybe maybe he was anyone.

John P Hamilton  32:52  
He was, oh, maybe it was Assistant General Manager in staff brackets in bracket staff.

Gerald Chambers  32:57  
I wonder if there must have been Yes.

John P Hamilton  33:01  
He was never sure wasn't replaced after he died suddenly in harness, Ben. That was

Gerald Chambers  33:08  
and then there was a mother Everett, who was in charge of outside broadcasts, I remember

John P Hamilton  33:12  
and especially events his name and rank. Indeed. Yes, but he learned he learned fairly rapidly Robert

Gerald Chambers  33:22  
II I think that was probably because he he was probably only a left handed commander or he was not a captain.

Unknown Speaker  33:31  
good jobs for the boys.

John P Hamilton  33:35  
Well, I suppose so yes. Before that, oddly enough, before we came into Rediffusion boundary had a formidable reputation the Navy had been General Manager of the Bracknell New Town, a breathable, square one. I don't know whether he'd always been in the Navy himself, whether he's actually had any connotations in building construction work or towns or whatever, the faintest idea that that was the job he came from into associated Rediffusion and largely on a recommendation from the associated newspaper side, despite the fact that Rediffusion as I said earlier, Commander Hanes there was quite a strong naval thread in the engineering side Rediffusion who obviously merged with associated newspapers to form the company. But I think it was when the associated newspaper side that Tom was appointed as General Manager. We will back to you though, Gerald, and you will become floor managers retina actt wise. And in 6364, they were really beginning to get organised and recognise. I think I'm just a normal set. In saying that the directors agreement, which specified how long people should train before they became directors, the company, of course needed people to come up through the ranks at that stage. I'd done it in 1960. But quite a few people who we know, as directors letter day came up in those years 60 to 6364, after the directors agreement was signed, and then came, I think, the general agreements for the rest of staff pain conditions. When did you become more official? In other words, when did you become deputy shops? Was it in the Rediffusion days? It was surely

Gerald Chambers  35:51  
Yes, I'm I'm very bad on on dates, that that's something that's something I should have looked through the the, I paid more attention to, to looking up programme background rather than have caught them. The chronological point of view unions have, but

John P Hamilton  36:16  
maybe it wasn't until LWT, you became officially a student.

Gerald Chambers  36:21  
Yes, if I remember, rightly,

John P Hamilton  36:25  
like Tony Barton and Bill Smith were the students.

Gerald Chambers  36:28  
They were they were really the the top people in really, really, it was in it was in London weekend that I

John P Hamilton  36:40  
will be going back to they came

Gerald Chambers  36:42  
much became much more with

John P Hamilton  36:47  
Gavin wood

Gerald Chambers  36:48  
with Gavin Waddell it began unionism then began as it were to, to take off in the sense that there was so much to be done, and organise from a union point of view that we had Gavin Wardell as the senior shop steward. And then they had two deputies, myself for production. And they had one for engineering, but whereas I stayed on the production side, the the engineers seem to they were, you know, they kind of took an interest in it took it to a point, and then, you know, you'd find someone else. So in the main, I think, as far as unionism was concerned, it was looked upon mainly as Gavin ngmodel. And myself and and he and I attended most of the attended most of the meetings,

John P Hamilton  38:02  
we've dealt with, we've jumped chronologically quite quite a lot, actually. And quite a lot of significant stuff. I think, from your point of view is that, and certainly from my point of view in the same company, in other words, who we were talking about 1964. Union being organised and so on getting getting better from that point of view, until 67, when we found that we were going to lose the franchise in the next year. And that, I'm sure you remember, Joel, put a very different aspect on working from all our points of view. It was a fairly horrendous year trying to negotiate terms and payments with the management. Yeah, at that time, Union nose, john butcher, was in the driving seat as shop steward.

Gerald Chambers  38:51  
Yes. And it was in the ground. It was in that time with with john butcher. That I think I, as it were got more and more involved more and more involved.

Unknown Speaker  39:07  
You could

Gerald Chambers  39:09  
you could call it in a, in a way it's sort of kind of self preservation. Because lots of people at that time, had come into the special performances department come in, at a much younger age than unless experience of life and the world then I had come in, or be it I was still very much a junior as it were in in rank, but not in not an experience. And so therefore, I think a lot of them didn't really realise the importance of what was going to happen to their lives that the you know, losing a franchise and losing a job but and Did you know to take me a long time to, to get into the business, I did not fell into the, the the idea of, you know, going out of the business again. And I think therefore, that this was one of the reasons whereby the strengthening one's ties with the with the union, you felt you were going to have an input into some form of decision of what's going to what is going to happen to us. And I think it was mainly due to that kind of support that ACTA got from the various people, that they were able to work out the terms and conditions of where we went. Once Rediffusion had gone, where we were going to go to and where they then got the insistence that whoever got the new franchise, that staff at Rediffusion had to be given the first opportunity to either go to, to the newly formed Thames, and to London weekend, or any other station in the network. That was,

John P Hamilton  41:20  
nevertheless the show had to go on this Bible and come back on that, obviously, a transition. But the show has to go on. Do you remember what you were working on? Then? Tell? Did you do very much major drama?

Unknown Speaker  41:39  
Yes.

Unknown Speaker  41:43  
Just slight pause. Yes. Really.

Unknown Speaker  41:49  
We now return from lamps, Gerald, which I think we all enjoy. Roy,

Gerald Chambers  41:55  
most excellent.

John P Hamilton  41:57  
talking over lunch, we will have to slip back in time a little and talk about your waiting activities, and particularly the rich. Not that we had a rich light lunch. Oh, yes. But tell us about the Ritz. Now we're going back to 1956 when you got back from New Zealand, and ITV had had its first redundancies and you're doing other work?

Gerald Chambers  42:21  
Yes, well, as I said when when I first came back from New Zealand the idea in my mind then was to to get into commercial television. But also it was within the bounds of getting into commercial television from the point of view of acting, which was really all my previous experience had been towards acting in those days, I'd never ever thought of or heard of such thing as floor managers, I knew what stage managers were in the theatre, but I did not know of floor managers and therefore, my idea was to come back and get into working in television as as an actor, however, it wasn't to be I I did a few bits and pieces of extra work. In fact, I I worked on a series which has been put out by Rediffusion which was all about the the people in the resistance with a lady called Sarah Lawson, who was the who was the star. And we did quite a bit of the exterior filming in the garden of Ronnie Marriott who was also a director of Rediffusion. At that time I did these I did these bits and pieces and and was still solid really getting nowhere and I was getting older and therefore through a friend and through my love of cooking and with my previous waiters experience in the merchant navy. I got a chance to join the Ritz as a trainee manager going through all the various departments and I went through reception and the grill room waiter and first floor waiter and was about to go into the kitchens when the call came again to to go back into into the acting and I did a ready break. Marshall for Carol rice, who went on to become a very famous director, and then I got a chance through children's film foundation with their production manager Johnny Goodman and director john Krish

John P Hamilton  0:04  
Job identity. This continues the story of Gerald chambers We are now on tape to side one. We're talking about your work at RIT. But also doing extra work in films you've made a commercial for ready Breck directed by Carol rice, very famous name in film direction.

Gerald Chambers  0:31  
go on from there. And and after that I got a job as third assistant director with the film foundation for for children's film Foundation, the producer was Johnny Goodman and the director was john Krish. And it was, it was called a scrap gang. And it was about three young children who were going all over London, pushing a big, old fashioned brass bed and the various escapades they got up to the, the leading men, for want of a better term was a young lad called Fraser Hines who then went on to to be one of the stalwarts of Emmerdale farm.

Unknown Speaker  1:29  
And he's done some direction in his time as well. And

Gerald Chambers  1:34  
after that, I then worked as the third assistant on the Edgar Lustgarten murder series with a chap called Peter wine Greene, who was well known in ACD circles. He was very keen union men. But I believe as since since he died, and I'm made this series of films and that was really prior to joining sk smithkline and French

Unknown Speaker  2:22  
Yes, right.

John P Hamilton  2:24  
Well, that was an interesting episode, sort of dropped out in the film. The Last Guardian series was semi documentary based on real cases,

Gerald Chambers  2:40  
and they were they were real creators that he sort of did the promo and the epilogue to and then in between was the the stuff construction, the reconstruction of crime.

John P Hamilton  2:51  
They were very popular in cinemas, I remember seeing quite a few of them. And of course, they were then rerun later on on television. So that's a digression. Because we're talking about food and started with the story of the Ritz Shall we pick up then with 1967 and the transition year, the change of franchises the loss of franchise Rediffusion and the beginnings of LWT. Rediffusion died on the last day of June 1968. And after a lot of heart rending, which we mentioned earlier, the choice was given to the staff or not a choice. The choice was given to the option was given to the companies to redeploy, re employ, the staff have Rediffusion either around the network or preferably, obviously from a domestic point of view in London at either the tow company's terms television, Monday to Friday, and the New London Weekend Television company, which came into being when a TV lost the weekend in London. How different was the setup from your point of view ago?

What do you remember of that? traumatic? Well,

Gerald Chambers  4:07  
as far as I was concerned, it was a very happy time for, for me in the in the sense that the seniority, which I had been always on the verge of at Rediffusion. And which I felt was my due in, in, in my experience. And the shows I'd worked on but for one reason or another due to I think, certain feelings of antagonism on behalf of senior management in Rediffusion I never was able to To get my seniority and

John P Hamilton  5:02  
when seniority and grading we're talking

Gerald Chambers  5:04  
in my grading,

John P Hamilton  5:06  
as in television some people may not be aware of there were grades, various degrees of grading,

Gerald Chambers  5:14  
yes, in all the options, cameras, light in our room particular section, there was a system floor manager, floor manager, senior floor manager and subsequently way on in time in London weekend supervisory floor manager whereby you could be a supervisory floor manager. And depending on the size of the show, you could have a senior floor manager to ordinary floor managers and maybe in the system floor manager and your charge on that one particular show depending on the on the size of it. And it was my in Rediffusion days, senior floor manager was the highest grade that you could get on to which as I have hinted, I was, I felt held back by various people in in management.

John P Hamilton  6:15  
Well, not just in middle management, but within your own section as well.

Gerald Chambers  6:18  
And within the and within my own section as well. And the controller that say

John P Hamilton  6:26  
the in my history, I told him what I considered the truth about people who held me back and because of my time, and I'm sure you're probably referring to your then head of section. Yes.

Gerald Chambers  6:37  
Well, my then head of section was a man called Leonard Swinson, yes. With whom, in the beginning, I had a good contact with but over time, I felt that while he was head of section in an all round experience of the business, I had known far more about it than he had and we came to, you might say verbal blows as to how one carried out the job and the staff and the other. As a consequence, I feel I was held back a long time. However, when it came time to be interviewed by the personnel officer Roy van Gilder at London Weekend Television. I said I very much wish to go to the company. But and I explained to him about the manager matter of seniority, I said I felt I had every right to join on the same terms as Leonard Swenson and john West, who were the two seniors to me in the section. He being the excellent fella that he was quite agreed, and I was taken on. Albeit, these other two chaps still stayed his head and to yc of the section is still joined on the same terms as a senior floor manager from the start of London Weekend Television as they did so I therefore thought that you were in a way I was starting off on a on a level footing with them. Yes.

John P Hamilton  8:32  
Yep. Yes, it's a difficult period. It didn't get any easier later on. No,

Gerald Chambers  8:40  
it did not get any easier later on. Because I I, I found that for all the fact that as far as the company was concerned, I was at the same stage of seniority as these other two. Though, the one person in particular who was head of Section had a backhanded way of dealing with the wrong cards.

John P Hamilton  9:14  
Well, of course, yes, in various categories

Gerald Chambers  9:16  
and so on in the type of shows that I went on in the lack of backup, when I needed it from a section head in dealings with with other departments. For one reason or another. You know, I had a feeling that I shouldn't baby be censured about certain things, and I got no backup.

John P Hamilton  9:44  
Now the word changes, major changes in working patterns and LWT gels whether or not I'm infrastructure became different managerially. There were people like Bob Haley, for example, who became in charge of operations.

Gerald Chambers  9:57  
Yes.

John P Hamilton  10:00  
post that we had not experienced before Rediffusion. It may have happened in other companies, but it hadn't been in our experience at Rediffusion. He was not your best friend in any way, and tended to take the side of lens swainston in any disagreements that arise between you and he,

Unknown Speaker  10:20  
yes.

John P Hamilton  10:22  
stymied on two counts, you

Gerald Chambers  10:24  
see it's it's it's it's a, this man that had been given this senior position. He was like halfway between section heads such as Len swainston. And the director of productions, Peter Castlereagh, he was what you might call the working head of all the various sections through which things had to be filtered before it ever got to, before we ever got to Peter county cameras, sound candles, lighting, is everything. But he was also he was also a chap who had been working as a sound operative on a boom in the studios when I had been a floor manager and probably had some time to take him to task about various things on the on the studio floor. So it was a very hard road to hoe with somebody who had now jumped up those cups of pieces, where by one point I have been in charge, and now and now he had come into a position of much greater prominence. So I was, as it were fighting a backlog of whatever antagonism may have been built up by this man on the studio floor. And also, as I say, ahead of section for whom there was sort of chalk and cheese, mentality view on lots of things.

John P Hamilton  12:10  
Indeed, yes, it wasn't general that this company though, this was a particular

Gerald Chambers  12:16  
No, this is this is very particular to me. And, and, and these two people, I mean, it's one thing to, to have a fundamental dispute with somebody about working practice with somebody, two rungs up the up the ladder with support from your head of section, but to have no support from your head of section and a fundamental dispute with someone two rungs up the ladder, who in quite a few cases, some of my disputes, had a union leaning in other words, there were there were things I was disputing in the sectional sense, but but they were also a fundamental bearing on work practice within the company, the visa visa union, therefore, I was sort of fighting on on the union front, for the sake of for the sake of you might say everybody in the section and for myself in in particular

John P Hamilton  13:33  
section section,

Gerald Chambers  13:34  
I was still the I was still I was still the floor managers, etc. Yes. Right. has indeed. So therefore, you know, I ran into antagonisms on on both sides. Yeah.

John P Hamilton  13:48  
But there are a lot of changes apart from your personal conflicts, there are a lot of changes within the company happened in the first year at LWT. also fairly traumatic. You may recall Michael peacock went theydon Crawley went from upper management and john Froome. And the Murdoch money came in. Yes. I'm probably proved to be our salvation at LWT grave danger of having the franchise removed at the time.

Gerald Chambers  14:19  
It certainly certainly did from my point of view, and even more later on when I had much more contact with him, the fact of john Freeman entering the company. I'm sure probably the Murdoch money was essential to the company. However, my one and only confrontation with Mr. Murdoch was when our general manager at that time Vic Gardner was bringing round a group of people Who were obviously interested in London weekend or beat at that time, I did not know, they were interested from a point of view of putting money into the company. But big garden was bringing these people around and brought them through a red light into my studio, whereby I then turn around and in slightly acerbic terms, it sets the court the proper way to, to put it, ask them to leave, especially as the general manager was smoking a cigar at the time, along with along with his some of his guests. They did leave. But there again, that had a very great back on effect in the sense that From then on, I was a marked man as far as the general manager was concerned. So I was not only on union terms, but also in in, you might say, sectional terms of doing my job properly, as I as I thought, without fear or favour of telling everybody that they had no right to be walking through a red light on a recording studio. But there again, one might have expected that I might have got applauded from the general manager. Instead of waiting, I got lots of boots up the ass, their offer thereafter, was their immediate. No, they were not. They were not immediate repercussions. But not all that long afterwards in in conversation, it was was put to me that there are two ways of of doing something. And I had done it the wrong way. As far as I was concerned, as the senior floor manager of my as my experience, I considered whatever they may have said that they were in the wrong.

John P Hamilton  17:15  
Absolutely as well.

Gerald Chambers  17:17  
It happened to be the general manager who I told my

John P Hamilton  17:20  
company he do saying that there will be no smoking in studios and that people will not walk through red lights. It was a bit stupid as a general manager to do both, wasn't it?

Gerald Chambers  17:30  
Yes.

John P Hamilton  17:31  
Production experience. Yes, somebody would work on the floor himself. Yes. Good thing in his days, no camera.

Gerald Chambers  17:38  
But here again, you see as as opposed to the antagonism I got from Bob Healy. The same thing was was true of the garden that that he had also, being a senior cameraman when I had been in charge of a studio subject to your discipline, subject matter discipline. People went on from their positions, I didn't go on from from mine, and therefore old scores could be settled.

John P Hamilton  18:12  
But these things apart is so did on, obviously, as we all did, we need the money, folks. Yeah, there were lots of interesting programmes, whether or not we had a change from the sports point of view. And you and I worked together many, many times. Under the old world of sport format. Long, long Saturdays was very early rehearsals and lots of outside broadcasts of all kind. You prefer to be outside rather than inside there?

Gerald Chambers  18:44  
Yes,

John P Hamilton  18:44  
the world is what studio job was

Gerald Chambers  18:47  
the world of sport was a

John P Hamilton  18:49  
studio john kerry and Jonathan

Gerald Chambers  18:51  
studio was a media manager. It was a harrassing job. But I mean, that I that I didn't mind. But there again, you were, you were dealing with inflated personalities on the on the path of some of the presenters and, and others. And it it was much more preferable to me to be dealing with with the real world out in the out in the open or indoors, as we so often did with Ken Walsh, Walton and during the wrestling matches.

John P Hamilton  19:39  
Yeah. Well, the proliferation of course top back through decades into presenters is, in this period of time, didn't help the floor managers case. No, as far as any way whatsoever,

Gerald Chambers  19:52  
as far as I'm concerned it it completely undermined one of the main functions of being a floor manager. Because you you felt you were, you were being just a Cypher, which I suppose you were anyway as, as a floor manager, transmitting requests from the director to everybody. But then with the advent of direct talkback, you felt like an escalated Cypher, because you weren't, you weren't quite sure whether you were going to pass something on, which you felt was what was being required, or whether it was really going to be countermanded by the director. And also, because of this facility, it meant that instead of the, the commentator, putting requests to you, which you then pass on to the, to the director, they were then completely cutting you out and going going straight on. Now. Now, while this is this is fine, if you then come to the understanding that the the floor manager is going to be denigrated to be doing nothing other than what he is actually given an order to do. So he uses no self knowledge or whatever, to, to do something. But you, you're you always felt that if you missed out on something, it was your fault. If even if you missed out on something which you hadn't been told to do, so you always felt as if you were being bypassed. So you never knew when when, as it were to carry out your to carry out the function which in olden days, you would have you would have done with a dump?

John P Hamilton  22:21  
Yes. Because the top back was you were unaware of what the director was saying. Yeah, very difficult. And it was difficult for directors point of view as well to know how much to give you to do and how much the direct talkback would be responded to. I mean, there are still cases as we know, because of inflated personalities, where the presenter concern may not have taken too much notice of what the director was saying. Anyway, exactly. The only emphasis then come by the floor manager, shorter the director leaping out of the seat charging down to the studio and putting one on. Yeah, the presenter.

Gerald Chambers  22:54  
And, and, and, and also certain presenters got so inflated. They at times almost seemed to be directing the show of telling the director what he was to come to come to next, which must have been not at all. Happy as far as he was concerned, this

John P Hamilton  23:17  
aggravated the situation because of the the influx then of editorial people as well. Not only did you have a producer, we had an editor and you had the several programme assistants responsible for the various segments of the programme. Exactly. For Speedway, one for racing, one for whatever. All chipping in on top back as well. Yes, that really was practically the demolition of floor management. As such, was it not?

Gerald Chambers  23:44  
Yes, yes. I mean, the the times when you were the direct link between the director and what was happening on the floor in In other words, you were the floor manager you manage the floor? Yes. The these the these days were what gone?

John P Hamilton  24:07  
Yes. But yeah, it was more prolific in sports.

Gerald Chambers  24:12  
It was more it was more prolific in

John P Hamilton  24:15  
light entertainment. Obviously, you can't feed every artist we're taught back. So yeah, I can do

Gerald Chambers  24:21  
Yes. No, I mean, you came you came back in into your own and and having been on the acting side of the business, I was probably more sympathetic to the artists than maybe other floor managers might have been because I'd actually been in. I'd been in their shoes so I

John P Hamilton  24:44  
have that. Relatively golden era. LWT with upstairs downstairs. In the late

Gerald Chambers  24:51  
George Cole Malabar time and

John P Hamilton  24:53  
time. The Barker show

Gerald Chambers  24:58  
the new Scotland Yard With Raymond Francis a

John P Hamilton  25:01  
very. Did you work on many of them?

Gerald Chambers  25:03  
Oh, very many I've worked on, on lots of them. I was certainly on the system then. But I, I had a very close connection with Eric Lander and Raymond Francis, because we've slipped

Unknown Speaker  25:21  
back

Gerald Chambers  25:22  
and said, sorry. Yeah. Well going going on to I was only going to slip in an anecdote that about new Scotland Yard, Raymond Francis, but going on to well, the DVC was from particular, the they used to come in on a Thursday afternoon, and we would rehearse until nine o'clock and then rehearse all day through Friday, and then put the show out live on on a Friday night. And they'd been out doing some exterior filming down at the seaside on on Thursday morning, and seemingly, they got trapped by the tide, and they'd all got a wedding and everything. And going up to the dressing room to call Raymond Francis to come down on the Thursday afternoon for the start of the rehearsal. Trying to put a bit of levity into the situation. I said, you know, we'd like you down in five minutes. King Canute if it's possible. This for the one time in the whole of the years that I worked with was Raymond Francis who was you know, you could have built a house around him while he was working and it would never have made any difference to him. For some reason that he then just just blew his top what had happened on the filming must have been even too much for him to bear. And the thought of being called King canoe tried to push the waves back it's been said to him by the system for men tuples too much but I'm too on to London weekend. I then have most happy memories of working with George Cole on Malabar times series upstairs downstairs with with that lovely Angela badly and Gordon Jackson lovely lovely people to to to to work with Angela Angela, especially a more more lovely, homely delightful person to work with yet to come across Well, I mean which there are not there are not a great deal of all the artists I've worked with who I can speak so fondly of as some of those i've i've mentioned the it's amazing the amount of people I meet and in the course of talking about in the course of talking about television they they mentioned about people who they obviously like watching and they say oh we must or she must have been delightful to work with therefore if you if you only knew you know how terrible

Unknown Speaker  28:50  
well

Gerald Chambers  28:52  
what one of them who really who really got me and that we're working on a show with Arthur ASCII and lady's name anyhow it was someone of the same era as very well known.

John P Hamilton  29:25  
In the celebrity period,

Gerald Chambers  29:26  
yes. And she she was actually in, in, in in radio a lot in the archers but well known in musical comedy etc before which is you Matthew Jessie Matthews course

John P Hamilton  29:47  
not the art

Gerald Chambers  29:52  
and, and in in in that same company was the The young pop singer with the was had dark heavy black makeup around her eyes nesties justice Springfield and Jessie Matthews and arthroscopy were down before the call time as all pros usually usually are. And I then had to send for Miss Springfield, Springfield. And when she came down, you know, I said, Look, you really should be able to make it if if artists of this nature can can make it. And her her only reply was, what's it got to do with you stupid get. And I thought, well, that just about maps it out the difference between the two areas of showbusiness. Likewise with another notorious likewise with another lady, Nina Simone, who came with her with her group of gentlemen. And during the, during the rehearsal, it had come to the point where the the band have to have a break, it's all part of the Union agreements and everything and the director being aware of this said, right, General Break, break the boys for 15 minutes, and we'll carry on marking out places with with Nina. So I stopped the studio and said, you know, take 15 boys and have a break. Whereupon Mr. Moon said in very angry terms, Jo to call my boys boys. It took me quite a while to, to to understand what what she was about. And I said, Well, you know, I'm sorry, but that is the phrase we use in in England, it's got no bad content at all. They are men boys, we may call them that and we would have been just the same if they were white

John P Hamilton  32:35  
boys of the band.

Gerald Chambers  32:38  
Anyhow, she is reading a racist thing and she was reading a racist thing.

Because you know, the the boys over there, it's how they spoke to the black. So you Come here boy, you know and she was reading. However old they are, they will refer to as boys. So I gather have never been over to America, at that time in my life. And, and it took me a little while to anyhow come the delight of the show, the same lady who had been giving me a rollicking about the way I spoke to her band had to rely very heavily because on me because every time she went off the circular days, which was about 18 inches high off the floor, she went off to her dressing room. And, and there I presume, consumed some alcohol because each time she came back, she found it harder to get on the stage. And each time she'd finished her number found it even harder to get off so that at the end of the the day, the the person who she'd been having a real go out if I decided to somehow rather position myself in another part of the studio. I doubt whether the show would have carried on beyond halfway she was by recruiting. Yes,

John P Hamilton  34:11  
Simone. anymore reminiscences of that period. Let's go we're coming up to an interesting, an interesting period. Interesting, probably for the wrong reasons. 7879 was the lead up to the strike. The infamous 11 week strike in 1979.

Gerald Chambers  34:32  
Yes,

John P Hamilton  34:34  
the discontent arose mainly from while you and I remember this well, because we work together on the whole problem, did we not so I was still a directors representative, together with David Edelstein, who was now much vaunted and gobs of other things elsewhere, currently with sky television as we speak. And Judy Eichler of Texas television producer of this week and And I basically got to work quite early in 78 and the beginnings of 79 on a new payment structure for programme staff. Yes, particularly, producer directors. In the past, just to recap, we've gone along with the annual increments, negotiated by the union. They were in monetary terms, in other words, pounds, shillings and pence, later, decimal amounts of money. And our attempt to get recognition for overtime. May mainly which directors did quite a lot of planning of programmes and travelling around and so on and which hadn't been payable up to that time. We decided collectively that we should go for a percentage increase year after and to get some recognition in terms of time off in lieu days off in lieu payments. This precipitated quite a Houhai in the companies. Yes, did it not, which really

Gerald Chambers  36:04  
led to not not only not only with the, with the companies, but but with our own Confederates. The I remember, quite a few directors, wondering what the hell you were up to. And there was certainly a lot of the other people because by that time, I was a deputy shop steward. And there were a lot of people on the production side who were also wondering what I was up to, but in a way we were trying to bring around to a whole new structure to to deal with, to deal for everybody. Right? It wasn't that we were just sort of pushing our our own grades. We were trying to build a whole new structure for for everybody. And I think lots of people saw it in very narrow terms as to just how it would affect them and even devious and, yeah. And, and it, it really wasn't helped any by the fact that the management also distrusted what we were involved. So we

Unknown Speaker  37:19  
cost them a lot of money.

Gerald Chambers  37:21  
We were Yes, he was going to cost them a lot of money. But I mean, as I think you and I both detected from the from the point of view that it was it was going to cause them a lot of less disquiet within the in the company and would make it an easier living and an easier way of working things out. But unfortunately, it took a little time to

John P Hamilton  37:50  
morale was pretty low, wasn't it that that period which which really gave led directly to the strike? Yeah, in fact, negotiations have been going on down many, many times. People became so despondent about the whole thing, when it was mooted that we should withdraw our labour. Very, very few people dissented. Yes, it did happen. Although London Weekend Television notoriously, was against take industrial action as that. Yes, we'd always said the show must go on, if possible,

Gerald Chambers  38:23  
if it

John P Hamilton  38:24  
had happened in the past. Oh, Joe, particularly You and I are involved. With the awful stable boys strike. In racing, when you and I were heavily involved in doing racing for the network. At which time they transport general Workers Union enrolled actt as members of the druthers, and tried to with get our labour withdrawn and in fact, many companies it did happen. We sold it on we have experiences with picket lines and so on. And that sort of attitude. That was in 1973. Six years later, things have not changed very much. Our brother workers at LWT usually insisted on trying to carry on with the job.

Gerald Chambers  39:17  
Ga was better than more war. And And And strangely enough at LWT, we found ourselves between the devil and the and the deep blue sea because the the the rest of the network union wise, were very much against us. Lots of individual people. Union wise in London weekend, were against us, and also London weekend management because of their tie up with the network management. They were against us. So really, there was we were We were really on our own, we could do we could really get no, you know, no backing and support from from anybody.

John P Hamilton  40:09  
We're lucky though, in dealing with Roy van Gelder, who might be one of the most reasonable management men when it came to labour relations that certainly you and I have had any dealings with,

Gerald Chambers  40:20  
I think, either I think without john Freeman being such a wonderful Chairman, and, and Roy van Gilder being such a wonderful personnel officer who, while he fought his corner, like mad from from a management point of view, I was felt fortunate in a very gentlemanly and courteous way you will never ever made to feel you Oh, god, it's a bloody union people coming to see me again, you will always address courteously, and you may argue the toss across the the table like mad, but at the end of the day, at the end of the day, you know, your your your remain friends and, and, and and could speak to each other and it was all, you know, you'd you know, you sometimes wondered why it was that you were hacking the way you you were, but you were really arguing on behalf of a whole group of other people. A lot of whom I might say, if, if I hadn't have thought of the of the larger scheme of things, I would have felt very inclined to say, well, you can get some of you not. Because Yeah, the support you've got was absolutely minimal. At that time. It was a it was a very busy time for for me because while Gavin as a shop steward governor, Gavin ngmodel could get time off from his section to go to Union meetings. And one thing another. I found that in, in my job of running shows that I virtually had no lunch times or dinner times because one was slipping in Union meetings in in between in between those those times and and and you know, not not not that you're wanting someone to fly a banner and say how good you were, but I really don't think a lot of people realise the amount of work that you know, was having to be done in between working?

John P Hamilton  42:50  
Absolutely. Yes. And it was almost your best day or two days after. It was a glorious month on the inglorious 12 when we actually went on strike,

Gerald Chambers  42:59  
yes. My birthday had been on the table. Remember? Yes. And stood on the pavement?

John P Hamilton  43:07  
We were rejected from the building lockdown. Yes,

Gerald Chambers  43:09  
we you. We actually had to go out onto the common pavement as opposed to been and then

John P Hamilton  43:19  
all areas meeting. Nobody could really believe that it was happening. And off we went through 11 weeks. Yes. During Joseph has worked harder during that 11 weeks in terms of meetings, and so on. And strangely enough amounts of paper that flew about and ridiculous statements by Yes. Mainly on the radio, many of which I've recorded I'm happy to say having my own personal archive quite ludicrous. I'll

Gerald Chambers  43:48  
play them doing one of these. Now, it was it was amazing during that time the the amount of work that one one did I mean for for lots of people going going on on strike meant that they went and got secondary jobs. And I know of quite a few excuse me in the floor managers section who who got other jobs in that time during during one brief period, when when I wasn't organising things or going down on the picket line or trying to get things printed. I i thought well just for the hell of it. I'll go along to the to the labour exchange and find out you know what kinds of money I can get as a single man because we were getting no I was getting no strike pain or disease. And as I went along to the I suppose it would now be called the DHSs.

John P Hamilton  0:07  
This is tape to cite to Gerald chambers continued.

Gerald Chambers  0:14  
So I went along to the DHSs and waited for quite some time in the queue behind Irish mothers with half a dozen sorting those kids and and ladies,

John P Hamilton  0:31  
single mothers,

Gerald Chambers  0:35  
the ladies from the Caribbean and from Pakistan with their, with their broods and eventually got to a counter and explained my my position where a pile I was told that as a single man, and as a professional, it was understood, as far as they were concerned that I should have put money away for this kind of contingency. And my last remarks because this was the the one and only time in my life that I've ever been to apply for, for benefit. reply was, so you're saying that I can starve and it doesn't really matter because I'm a professional, but anybody else they have to be fed. And so that was that and you duly paid your taxes. Elia died I did since he is since the age of since the age of 14, I'd been paying my in my taxes and I thought oh, this is a marvellous savings club This is now the

John P Hamilton  1:45  
there is no justice to

Gerald Chambers  1:46  
the minute you. So it was he was saying back to back to the picket line and doing everything. One thing I've always thought about that strike is that ever since and I am sure at the time, or or be it other than the feeling and and various odd noises on the line. I have always had the feeling that my phone has been bugged since that time, because it was very political. Yes, it still it still to this day. I pick up the telephone and get a clear dialling tone dial out clear noises happen or something rather and I put the phone down and I pick it up and get a clear, dialling sound again and the second time I dial he goes through. So I would love to have somebody scan my phone or you can be scammed

John P Hamilton  2:54  
close friendship with your friend in the road. No, I

Gerald Chambers  2:57  
didn't know he. Lord Bancroft came in much later

John P Hamilton  3:06  
on bankrupt former cabinet secretary and lovely man, we've had some joyous meals at Joe's place in the past. But back to the strike in 1979. We achieved our objective Yes, we achieved our object in the end when the strike was settled. Oh grades, thereafter qualified for percentage increases in monuments. And we directors call things contrived at long last time off in lieu payments and day off in lieu adjustments. I haven't taken time off as you could, or being paid if you couldn't. And that was a major, major step I can tell you speaking as a director affected at the time, my wife also a major step in the whole structure.

Gerald Chambers  4:00  
Television grades thereafter. And if you if you remember, john, that when you and I were running up and down stairs and and seeing personnel, staff and other and other management staff, there are a lot of your fellow directors who who could only see the money in the hand that they may have been getting prior to that. Albeit it may not have been the full recompense that they were really due to, they could only see it as money in the hand that they were somehow rather going to lose took a long time for strength which was also very upsetting to, to me working on on on this project because a lot of these same directors, who I was giving my time up To try and help their cause, were quite often giving me hell. Through, over talk back about about various things, and you know, sort of, you know, where have you been, I might just rushed in or something like that. And he was all on it was all on their behalf.

John P Hamilton  5:20  
Oh, the industry is full of in great directors amongst others. And quite a lot of them most people like the narrow chief executive of London Weekend Television, who was only an editor at that time. But attending the meetings, is a very low life in the features department.

Gerald Chambers  5:42  
These are life in my estimation,

John P Hamilton  5:46  
problems. I remember him coming to quite a few of the meetings, but never understanding anything you said. I've always been convinced that that's part of his success in life, that he's been to higher and higher strata meetings, and nobody's ever understood. And just Yeah, yeah, and it's been I've been through on more occasions. But we mustn't digress. Nevertheless, we continued to do some quite good shows, and you and I probably work more together thereafter. For whatever reason, in sporting context, you have a particular talk, we had a particular really good Marvel's relationship with with Ken Walton. Kent, for people who don't know Ken Walton goes back to the very early days of ITV. In fact, he was the first commentator as such by ITV before wrestling started, for which he became famously known as a football commentator, amongst other things, and was heavily involved in ITV News coverage of Wimbledon, which many people forget that we ever had any involvement in Wimbledon that we did in 1956 until 1964. And of course, was the presenter was a disc jockey in his own right on luxenberg and was a presenter of call for caps the well known record programme of 1956 to 1961. He also then became the voice of wrestling in this country. Gerald, you and I worked on many wrestling content, you always looked after him better than any other floor manager, which is probably why you did more than anybody else. Tell us about Ken's from your point of view.

Gerald Chambers  7:36  
Well, well, from from my point of view, he was he was always the gentleman who, who I could respect he was he was he was not your typical, loud, show business type person. He is he's very quiet in his voice and his manner. But he has also got that kind of steel in him. But I recognise from someone who's been in the services, I think there's something about people who have who have been in the services that it just, it just just something to them. And you you've got to been into to recognise it. And I think because of this and because I've been in the RF and he had been in the RF way before my time because he was a flight left and an air gunner. And it was one thing to be an air gunner, but to live long enough to ever be promoted to fly leftenant meant that he would, you've done a lot of pee, done a lot of sorties, but also be bloody lucky. And this was also something else that I could respect about him, although apart from the fact that I think I once mentioned to him that I had been in the Air Force. I don't think he ever mentioned it at all. He was just something I knew. But there's also something about him that he he got to know that in the in the dinner break, he would have been left to his own devices because he would arrive. After we'd done all the setting up and checking out of the mics and everything else like that. He would arrive just as we were about to tip Ate for dinner. But because there was nobody around as it were from the wrestling side from the promoters etc. He really depended for company on on the television people And whereas, most television people like to go off in their dinner break for proper meal etc can choose to just like to have a drink, which was fine as far as john P and myself and and john scrim and Joe were concerned in the sense that we, he was in a fellow director of wrestling, and therefore it because of this, we ended up different pubs all over the place. Where, where lots of times, we'd arrive too early, just as they opened up. And they hadn't got things like sandwiches arranged and things like that. So I arranged to to get a passel of sandwiches for for the crew, but which was sort of down in accounts terms to to Ken to the I would always make sure I got these freshly made sandwiches from LWT before going out to whichever location we were, we were going on. If it was the location that didn't start out conveniently from Waterloo, then I would get the myself on route I kind of took that on as my kind of part of the action that that was down to me to, to arrange that for Kent. He

he thought this was marvellous that he should be having these, the fact that he used to have a Guinness first to start off with and then would would graduate to a lie tale. And he would only really have these two drinks before the evening. And out of this big parcel of sandwiches, which were down to him, he would probably only have a couple and all the rest would be at by director, floor manager, PA, just the group of us who was there and we were talking the Burke's name, we were talking about it. And and Kent, Kent, I think, thought that because from the weekend production team, were looking after him like this because he had during the week dates with other production teams from other television companies. And he got none of this treatment at all, apart from which, as he's an inveterate smoker. There were times when he was forever. We were forever going to places where we couldn't get hold of an ashtray. They just, you know, they just went around. And so I used to always carry an ashtray around for Ken which was put on the on the table right by his mic. For him written under these other piece of tape, I'd put Ken's ashtray Do not remove and he, I mean, it was such a such a simple thing. But he used to think this was magic that he was being looked after. like this and that therefore we we built up in a great rapport which I'm pleased to say is still you know, still going on. I saw him a few months ago in his home wallets in spring, you'll see the sun was out and everything not not warm enough for a swim in his pool, but we had a delightful lunch together with his with his lovely wife Lynn. And, and that's Ken Walton to me, a perfect gentleman. He could do his job excellently well, but with no bombast at all as per the usual television personality for perfect

John P Hamilton  14:54  
Pro. Yes to work with. We should have explained briefly that Professional wrestling was a large part of sports transmissions, particularly the Saturday show well the sport, but recorded not only for many venues, outside venues halls, around the southeast where we operated, but also up now in the country, where, as Joel touched on, the programmes would be serviced by in Yorkshire television, if you're doing wrestling from Leeds, my Yorkshire television, from Manchester by Granada and so on. He didn't get the same treatment up there, as he got down here, which makes for a very special rapport, but he was worth it. Because he kept him happy. And we got better programmes for that reason. What else? There was a transition period after the settlement of the strike,

Gerald Chambers  15:48  
just before we leave can defy if I may. JOHN? Aye, aye. I only remember a couple of times when he ever kind of lost his cool from being a gentleman. And that was a couple of times when a couple of PhDs who win new elections to the production systems who were new to the show would quiz him over over the air on his private talkback would quiz him about you know, what round is he going to go down and Kent? You know, it is it is it is a big rigging the alleged rigging of results and and the only time I've ever known that man lose his temper with anybody and even then it was only a very cool caustic remark back. And then finish was a couple of times with with Kent. I thought I had to put that in because I'll say he was so unflappable in in everything else that the only time I've ever known him register any sort of emotion in that sense, was when these stupid pa is asked about what what rounds are gonna fall in. It is fixed, isn't it,

John P Hamilton  17:26  
not just a stupid pa is it was the stupid public as well. Used to try it sometimes. Because obviously, we went to pubs. It was invariably early in the evening, got the shows in voting started at 730. And we have to be in the seat, quarter past seven or whatever. And we invariably did two programmes in one night, in the record days, the latter days. One time we used to do more live that on occasion in the problems, silly women have come up. We've got to be in the audience later and said, Oh, man is last week when they put that chapter on the back. You could see 130 named rarely and all that. And Kent, I've saw on two occasions demonstrated on people and say well try and get out of this and just put them when you screeches finished and say, well, don't ask me silly questions in future. chastised,

Gerald Chambers  18:22  
I can. No I can also remember women who did it, not men. I can also remember one night at Wembley Town Hall, where after the show was over, we had a big rigger, who has as always was called tiny. I don't know what his other name was, but I mean, he was he was, you know, like, six foot six foot six inch tall at about as wide as as wide as possible. And we have this particular American wrestler who was on the on the bill who had a favourite sleeper hold. And he was he was tiny was talking to this wrestler about this. And he was also saying to Ken, you know, there are common so Kent, realising that, you know, a demonstration is far better than a whole load of chat to route to this American. I forget what his name was. He said, Well, sure. Sure him. Hank. Let's say his name was Hank, you said was showing Hank and Hank just went over and put his thumbs down the side of tighten his neck and next thing you know, tiny was blacked out and slid off the seat of the on the floor and then woke up about 30 seconds later and can turn around and said, Now about that sleeper, hold tiny. It does work, doesn't it? But that was but he wasn't as tough as any the the charge hand of, of the of the rigorous charge hand and the big chat with glasses and curly hair. I have seen that meme go up a ladder into a common tree position at races with a camera on his shoulder nmrt Ernie Martin Yeah, so went to 10. And and for you and I to try and lift that camera off the floor, just stop the flow would be nothing he would he would go up a ladder to a common tree position.

John P Hamilton  20:44  
I offer a lot of characters a moment ago, I don't think we've I don't think we've talked to any in the history projects. To my knowledge. I think we're really onto some time. There's still a few of them. And he's dead sadly. Is he? Yeah. So he died some years ago. But there are some around Terry Watson was a great character as well.

Gerald Chambers  21:05  
Yeah, form and

John P Hamilton  21:08  
I'll be, I'll be read.

Gerald Chambers  21:10  
But I think

John P Hamilton  21:12  
wonderful people can Terry

Gerald Chambers  21:13  
would be better. He was even more whether you had the more the flow of

John P Hamilton  21:18  
language gift to them. Yeah, I don't want them to tell you when we say Oh, he's probably around someone. I'm sure he is. I'm sure he's surviving.

Gerald Chambers  21:27  
So getting back to sort of other Jordi, joy, yes, lots of church services together in live dome, which I used to, which I used to look forward to very much. Because I used to partake in it in all the services because in order to have my position where I was in, able to be in the eyeline of the vicar at his pulpit and everything I had to sit in the, in the front pews and and get up when everybody else didn't sing the hymns and go through behave, behave like the congregation and I really used to you select it, john used to come in for a while and do the the warm up and then go in into to help with the balancing of all the sound and everything else that was going on. And I was virtually left in the church in charge to keep the atmosphere up and talk to everybody and everything. And I I found that I used to get a great deal out of Sunday mornings. I mean, it was hell getting up at the time one had to get up to especially as I'm not the best. But I don't think I was ever late for a church service yet wherever we were. And I got a great kick out of it. And and the some of the amusing times we had afterwards with the because having having a little Sherry or something. Yes, if you remember the Roman Catholic fathers in in belsize Park, yes. I think there was a touch of Irish had few drops of Irish can conceive that one. But my my, my fondest memory of church services was going over in 1974 to do the Remembrance Day service in a place called Hill trage in Belgium. And I went over with Mike Gibbons and was it during my given was the director produced Yes. And a group of 12 Chelsea pensioners and we were taking them over to this in the very early part of the 14 at war, it appears that regardless of which country they belong to, if any soldier was killed, he was buried in the local church yard where to where the battle had been. And as opposed to later when the segregated them had all the Germans together, all the French together all the English together etc. Anyhow, we went over to do this combined church Service and Remembrance Day, and it was linked up with with London. So you had part of the ceremony going out from London. So part of part of it going out from From her traj. And, and the finale of it all, was when they queued through, from the bugler in in London to the bugler in artrage. And they both had to be going, sort of at the same time at the same note, and how trage was sort of superimposed over London, as it had been, throughout the whole of the, of the programme. And we, we did all this, within 24 hours, we set out from London went over there, set the whole thing up. And I remember on the first evening, walking around the graves with Mike Gibbon, and all the top brass of the British Army of the Rhine, who were there because they were dead, scared, that a whole mess up was good to be made up of this by these television types. And so therefore, they were all on hand to just say their piece. And in the end, Mike Givens the director said, Look,

because he'd never seen the graveyard before. He knew nothing about it until we got there That afternoon, and therefore was trying to make a plot out for the cameras, etc, etc. And he said, I'm never going to be able to do this, Gerald, with all these army people. on my back, he said, for God's sake, will you take him out tonight and and entertain them? So we got the we got the troll Trent, Chelsea pensioners in with the sergeant Smith's and they were having a great old time. And the sergeant Smith secretary said, Well, you know, you must come around later and see us all tonight and see how they, how the chaps are. And so having been told to entertain the top brass of the army. I said, Well, you know, can I have some help, and I got a fellow Yorkshiremen, Charlie Warner, who was in charge of sound to come out and help me. And we wined and dined these three officers and we went around to all the various messes the corporals mess, we even got them into the sergeant Smith where the the the sergeants Miss secretary said, this is unheard of. So you cannot bring the officers in here unless they have a specific invitation. I said well do me a favour invite the bigger said they're all here as I want them to see the Chelsea pensioners and everything else. So eventually we we entertain the the army and I think I got to bed at six o'clock that morning and was woken up to do the church service at 7am meaning feeling slightly feeling slightly, slightly, slightly poorly. And everything. Everything worked like clockwork, the Chelsea pensioners who would be in on the town all the night before and everything they were all there on parade and marvellous. And everything, everything went off. You couldn't have you couldn't have had a better show and everything in the link up with London and was all absolutely marvellous. And I will always remember that because Henri onroad back, we've been told that we could only take a certain amount of drink back to England and the customs people have been pretty fierce on the way out checking through all the passports and everything. So I was in fear and trauma are about the skiing game back. And everybody had them sort of duty free on their seats and everything and customs people came on board and I said look, please don't disturb those 12 Chelsea pensioners at the back of the bus. I said they've had one hell of a 24 hours. It's been bad enough for me at my age, but these guys have 80 or 90 years old. As you know, can you leave them sort of sleeping in his head? Well, you know, we've got as I said, Look, we've had no time to get more than maybe the odd bottle somewhere. had no time we've only been here for less than 24 hours. So said alright fine. As we drove through the customs at Dover on route back to London, a great cheer went up from these old contempt balls. What I didn't know was they had been given so much booze by the sergeant's mess for their Christmas party at the Chelsea hospital with all their mates who hadn't been able to come to Belgium. So they've been given all this ring, which has been stowed away under the floorboards of the coach. If the customs people had found me, I think I'd probably still be in jail. And so that, that was that. And another reason why I remember it so well is the the following year, I was on the Remembrance Day service covered by a director called Paul Smith, who I got on

very well with a very, very nice young man. But it was at a church at were in hartfordshire. And it's like the smallest church you have ever, ever beaten. And I thought, what a difference last year, we were out in the graveyard in Belgium. And this year, we're in a very, very tiny church with just a small Cross of remembrance outside by the Lich gate.

John P Hamilton  31:23  
You'll see here office on the Belgian trip, the senior British officer there was a john mogs. Yes, who later became Chief of the Defence Staff. Yes. And as we speak in November event, the second week in November, sadly, in the paper two weeks earlier, he was mugged and all his silver nicked. Because he fought he fought them off despite the well I've villains from these ancient sister in law,

Gerald Chambers  31:50  
to my knowledge of the, from my knowledge of the man as I saw him, way back in 1974. That is par for the course I think he would have had to go, yes,

John P Hamilton  32:00  
he did his best. Yes. He's now obviously much, much older. Yes. prom and also john, never mind commenting on our times in which we live. So we're rolling on through the 80s, whether things improved, and they're not from your personal relationships within for management, to the degree

Gerald Chambers  32:26  
to a degree in the sense. By that time, you might say, because after the strike, one thing I was meaning to say was that john Freeman, formed the staff Advisory Committee, whereby you had the all the top management personnel from the company, and all the top union people, shop stewards and Deputy shop stewards all meeting to talk about the general general agenda of things as they can turn London Weekend Television. And so this puts unionism on a much higher level than normal. I mean, there was still the day to day, what you might say. Minor was about different things, but this is going on. Yeah, this is, you know, and, and how they could live on, on no less than 5000 a week. And you know, I mean, they were the

John P Hamilton  33:41  
classic cases,

Gerald Chambers  33:42  
the the amount of money they were earning, I knew they were there. But I mean, the amounts of money they were earning, they were the they had to be seen to be believed. And anyhow, no doubt they thought they were worth it and everything else like that. But everything was put on a much higher scale. And we were able to talk about to management about such things as I had been a great believer because I taken out private medical insurance. I was a great believer that this was a kind of adjunct of if they couldn't give us a raise in salary, then they could give us things like yeah, things either. Anyhow, they they said the the they couldn't form I don't know what reason now. So then, then the bullet report came out and I was mad keen on, on becoming a working director. Because this was his own idea that I'm sure That the staff could become directors of the, of the company I had also bought, because at that time the shares were private, they were not on the, on the market. And and I had, I'd been able through the company Secretary Sarah law, I'd been able to buy a small parcel of shares, which I hadn't bought for the money they were going to bring me in because there was so small that the dividend was mounted to nothing more than, let's say, half a week's overtime. But it did enable me to go to the annual general meetings and talk to the management. About about things are proposed the the Union and the and the company. And then, as I say, I couldn't become a workers director, because this is one of the few things which I was amazed that john Freeman, who I would afford, would have been all for it. Who has a good socialist, for some reason or other was very much against it. And so that, that never got through. But while it didn't go through, what I did get them to put through was workers shares, the staff shares, which people got a certain percentage of each year, as a bonus, for which were all very great, that was one of the things which I was able to push at the staff advisory level. And I think it was because getting back to your point about relationships, I think it was because I was then mixing with management at such a high peak. Like that, that somehow rather the, the pressure was laid off a bit down below, I still, I still had to do my soul had to do my work. And I like to think because of the attention, I like to pay for to work that I I did it as well at that time as any other time. But in that sense, the pressure was was taken, taken off me.

John P Hamilton  37:42  
You did a lot of the welfare side of LWT as well with Margaret with Margaret

Gerald Chambers  37:47  
Amanda. Yes, the thing that was another thing, which just not myself, it was the kind of joint effort but we were able to set up the charity trust, whereby people who'd fallen on hard times left the industry and fallen on hard times, it was a kind of recognition of the fact that there had been instrumental in making the company what it was, and the state of safety was in everything. And I then used to go around visiting members of the staff who had fallen on on bad times and tried to arrange some monetary help for them or other help. I mean, it's funded by the company, it was funded by the company. And I remember with a lighting director, we did lots of things as far as getting him invalid chairs, Terry Davis motor neuron disease,

John P Hamilton  38:50  
he died a company

Gerald Chambers  38:54  
and also jack painter, a carpenter, who suddenly from being a very strong alive man around the studio has got some kind of infirmity, multiple sclerosis. And so the dad that made that made unionism, in my sense, have some kind of great mean. Correct meaning other than just purely going for pay. I'm just just going for higher pay. Absolutely. She'll

John P Hamilton  39:28  
be more. You very, very strongly associated with the programme weekend. Well, girl,

Gerald Chambers  39:34  
yes, that back when I was on the very, I was on the pilot, not only the pilot, but for all the weekend wills during the period, covered by Peter J. And Brian Walden. Apart from the every third Sunday, i o or rather, I could do three weeks and then I To have it off, I used to neglect that at having to leave while other people could go on the series and never be taken off it. I liked that programme. So much that I used to think of it is my series, but was never allowed to do it every weekend because other people were allowed to do their shows, but this persistent niggle is this this is the one of the last persistent niggles eat could quite easily have been got around, but this was the this was the last final throw the dice as far as Swinson was concerned that and, you know, unfortunately, as it were, there was a union rule which protected him doing doing this thing. So, I had to put up with put up with that. I also had to put up with the the fact that on the show, which I respected, which I enjoyed working on. So much. I ran foul of David Cox, the the executive producer, because for some reason or other, he did not want to give anybody on the studio floor a credit. Now, he give a credit to everybody on the programme, but nobody on the floor and because and this here again, was where I was attacking it from a union point of view I was saying but you know, I represent the floor. It's not that I'm wanting a floor managers credit for me journal chambers as a floor manager is for the floor manager to have a credit pool for everybody. Because the Ava's alive, show people people work their guts out to get that show up on a Sunday morning. Live. And and I mean, it was not easy. It was not just the sitting down to hand that it is now with Brian Walden. You know, I mean, when I mean,

Unknown Speaker  42:33  
when you're calling

Gerald Chambers  42:34  
to materialet when you got audience groups, discussing things and relief maps of the four cans and people coming in and demonstrating where the troops were at No, it was it was not very tricky, very, very tricky show. But I never got anywhere with with David Cox until the until the the last show I ever did, which was a weekend world special of the of the end of the miners strike. And by that time, I'd sort of officially retired but 8585 but i i asked whether I could come back and and do that because I'd been but I think the whole way through. And as a slap in the teeth in the green room after it was all over. Cox who then presented me, he said, I know you've always wanted one of these when he handed me a credit card, helmet for managers credit card.

John P Hamilton  43:49  
So what do you think was the champion but in that period fund 73 programme first started?

Gerald Chambers  44:00  
Yes. 85 to 85

Unknown Speaker  44:03  
years? Yeah,

Gerald Chambers  44:04  
yes. I

Unknown Speaker  44:06  
saw a lot of every politician,

Gerald Chambers  44:09  
every politician and I've been to some money not worth anything I've been to. I've been to Downing Street in Downing Street quite a few times three times with with Margaret Thatcher. I've been in there with practically every Prime Minister there has been other than Ted Heath strangely enough. Never.

Unknown Speaker  44:31  
Oh, well.

John P Hamilton  0:04  
This is tape three side one. Continuing the Gerald Chambers story. We were talking about weekend world and your long association with it practically its entire life 73 to 85. And we must have met every politician from 73 Callaghan.

Gerald Chambers  0:27  
Yes. Then the Callaghan, the end of Wilson, Healy. And we didn't have we didn't have Wilson on the programme. But

before he was he was Wilson was Prime Minister in 74. to Germany during the World Cup. story written on my memory, Wilson and Kissinger and Frankfurt World Cup match. That's another story. Hello, hello. hallahan was 75. So you live through you miss just mentally. So you got Wilson Callahan. Yeah. Throughout

Yeah, I remember going to do an interview. I can't remember who was doing it for London weekend. Or it may have been even in Rediffusion times with Wilson. Anyhow, I know. We went down to two Downing Street, and it was our unit with our interviewer. But also, it was it was the whole setup was being used by the BBC and Robin day was interviewing Wilson for them. And I remember that he was such a bumptious bastard, even in those days, that he would he was asked by me to leave the Cabinet Room while our man in the field Wilson and and he wouldn't allow I told the director I said he won't leave for me. And the director whose name I've really truly forget, for the moment did not have the guts to come in and tell him to to get out. He told me to tell him to get out and I said I have done any work. So he stayed in listening to our man of course interview Wilson and and that that gave me a little insight into Mr. Robin deeds so Robin is

Unknown Speaker  2:49  
strong.

Gerald Chambers  2:51  
I can I can remember the the first time Mrs. Margaret Thatcher came to be interviewed on on weekend world. And if you remember, it was in, in our large studio two with nothing but a great big cyclorama. And, and two chairs. And she, she came in and sat down and I sorted the sound and putting the mic on and I was chatting to her and and they were taking still photographs of her. And I was chatting to her trying to I was trying to put her at her ease. And all the the grid, which we saw a lot of later came out and she looked around and in very cold terms said what a round of a place this is. And there's not even a bowl of flowers on the table. I said well, that is the way this set is. You know we have to deal with every occasion which is likely to come forward on this show. It happens to be this way that there's just two of you in an interview position, but you know, we have to encompass a lot within and ever after that. Once she became prime minister, the eight plus eight was always said her place at 10 Downing Street.

John P Hamilton  4:36  
Understand that I thought was Prime Minister I think I'll probably feel that same way. City in the future to push it into three ventures for the 200 shows

Gerald Chambers  4:48  
a rally. He went into three once it became more than Yes. While ever it was weekend world. Yeah, it was always too. So

John P Hamilton  4:58  
you live through the period with Peter And then the message to, to inform and all that. Yes. Which is brought our lives.

Gerald Chambers  5:07  
Yes. Yes. The, the strange thing was, which I mentioned to to Brian Walden later, during, during one of the weekend wells that that Peter J. Held, he was having this discussion with a group of experts, about 20 of them in this seating arrangement. And on the front row, I noticed this small but very erudite gentleman who I'd never seen or heard of before and thought you're a bright cookie. And that turned out to me, Mr. Brown was that He then took over from Peter Jake, when he was, and that was when he was in, in government, he was a junior minister or something like that in in the Labour Party and the Labour Party. Well, with was with john birth, he was sort of around as the as the exec producer, and everything. You see it mainly, mainly, mainly to, to, to David Cox, and the and the director of the of the day. And the thing is, Roy, you see that I would only ever come in on the show. On the Sunday morning, I arrived blank at eight o'clock on Sunday morning, between eight and 12. We had to knock a show together. People, people like David Cox would be in the box. Not so much prompting but throwing questions to Peter J. Although he threw in my remembrance, he threw far less of what Peter J should be what questions be TJ should be asking the questions that he ever did to buy Walden because I don't think that would have gone down with very well with Peter J. I think Peter J was felt he was enough it was his character to practice the view. He knew. He knew as much about the sort of economics and everything of what was going on then Cox ever did. However, Cox interjected a lot more with with Brian Walden. But at that time, you see mine. My background of Cox was such that there were other there were other producers, and he was sort of the executive producer. And really, my only contact with him stemmed from telling him when he could come in, when we were on air, because he was making changes towards you on air. And, and before him, having to be told when he had to leave the studio, because we were about to go on, on air. And really, john Burt was a figure in the in the background, who was head of features, from you know, from, from my point of view, I've never really had anything much to do with him. I had something to do with him. When he then sort of went up in management. And, and, and came on the

John P Hamilton  9:15  
director of programmes.

Gerald Chambers  9:16  
Yes. Yeah. came on the thopter. Micro grade. And he took Michael grades place on on the committee on the committee. Staff Advisory Committee, yes. Advisory Committee. And, and one got to, to know him a bit more than that.

Unknown Speaker  9:36  
He meeting about

Unknown Speaker  9:40  
well, there's a

Gerald Chambers  9:43  
apathy, strange, strangely, innocuous person. I mean, when I when I look back, and think of him and and where he is sort of got to today. I can Don't ever think of him as being the kind of Machiavellian creature in the background, you know, sort of grey really pulling Yeah, pulling strings and manipulating people because he never in my world never never came out to the front and one really had anything much to do with him. So this one was aware of him and was aware

John P Hamilton  10:27  
that there was raising meetings and the office level with with all the people connected with all the shows that I'm in the Jain hills, and things like that, that will terrifying rose, I understand. All the room was very strong for that effect.

Gerald Chambers  10:44  
Yeah, but as a, as a producer, director yourself, you were probably more aware of that than Oh, yes. Then the lie was because really, that you know, those kind of arguments and things have been over and done with by the time

John P Hamilton  11:03  
this is a former manager, you're just

Gerald Chambers  11:04  
there to do by the time it got down to to me, but because of my longevity, you may say with the with the show, I probably saw more of the upstairs side and and had contact with the, with the various producer of the day as it as it were, you know, that there was there were a couple of other chaps who were producers and kind of senior researchers were always around on a Sunday morning, whereas the man himself who Roy's asking about, he wasn't there. He would be sort of setting his policy and having his discussions with everybody during the week and

John P Hamilton  11:55  
you're going on particularly well with Walden.

Gerald Chambers  11:57  
Oh, with here again with with Ron Walden. It was a similar meetings of minds like with with Ken Paulson, it was almost as if I could probably so mentally close to him that he was almost that before he was ever likely to ask anything. I was sort of anticipating. And I think that on the, on the weekends when he didn't have me, he'd have other floor managers, to whom weekend world was just another show, as opposed to me who really wanted to be on it and, and was so keen to know who we were having that weekend. And, you know, what, what was devout what we were doing? And in lots of cases, during rehearsals, I would argue not not argue but sort of discuss with, with Brian, the pros and cons of really what the programme format was about, which I think was why when he made that speech at my farewell party, he he said that he made some mention of the floor and he said the floor more knows more about what's going on than than you believe, you know, they you know, they they're not just, you know, sort of walking around they they are actually thinking about this idea for posterity on the on video for posterity. Yeah. And, and also the, the writer he gave me in his column in the Evening Standard. I've often said to people afterwards, you know, when they've been all about their various things. I said, Yeah, well, you know, I don't think your retirement was featured in the in the Evening Standard. They may have got other plaudits, but they didn't have it in the, the national press, as you may say, but no, Brian was another man who like Ken was, I immediately warm to and, and and got on so well with so well. So well with him. It was absolutely marvellous.

John P Hamilton  14:35  
So he retired in 85.

Gerald Chambers  14:37  
Retired in 85. In 83, I'd had open heart surgery to have an aortic valve replaced. Went back to work. But after a couple of years, I found that once the surgeons have been that far inside you You're never the same man, you were before. And, and, and I really couldn't keep up with the, with the pace of television. It was also,

Unknown Speaker  15:15  
again,

Gerald Chambers  15:16  
going through a phase of change. As far as I saw, it was all going into a much more modern, upbeat type of television. Which really, I couldn't come to terms with them. And I thought, well, as a single man, why am I? Why am I doing this, and on top of which, when they put this transplant valve in my heart, they're told me that it had a kind of shelf life of 12 years. before it had to be done again. You know, they said it may be longer or it may be less, but 12 years is just about the, the medium term for it. And I thought, well, I was lucky to get off the table the last time the next time I may not. So I have tried to make as much of the 12 years in in May 94, I will have had 11 of those 12 years. And so I've been filling my time and in between with

John P Hamilton  16:32  
while you travel in play, still love to see don't you renew? on some? Yes, certainly fantastic voyages. Since you retired?

Gerald Chambers  16:40  
Yes, I've, I've been around the the world twice, couple times, and, you know, friends in New Zealand and Australia, and funnily enough, next February, I shall be flying out to to Singapore and Australia for another month. And then in March, I saw pick up a ship in Sydney, and drift back through the South Sea Islands up to the coast of Mexico, and Los Angeles. And then you come down to Panama, and go through the Panama Canal and come back to England, as you did it more as as I did it. 1955 after going through the Panama Canal again, as I didn't in 55. And just in time or being well to to take a group of people from London weekend, to the D day beaches. The beginning of May to celebrate the 50th anniversary of D day,

John P Hamilton  17:55  
right. You live a very full life after that.

Gerald Chambers  17:57  
I have made no plans.

John P Hamilton  17:59  
You always have your final thoughts on your 30 plus years in this rather strange industry? Well,

Gerald Chambers  18:09  
I wouldn't have been without it. I wouldn't have been without it for whorls both from the people I've met the shows I've worked on and also the input which I think I was allowed to, to have into unionism in the sense of trying to help the rest of the people under the banner of unionism tried to make things better in television I'm I'm certain that nine tenths of them who are working in television today have no idea how the working conditions came about. And on top of everything I am I am pleased to have been in it when it was live of because the best of the day because there's

John P Hamilton  19:08  
see it now yeah the essence of telethia but

Unknown Speaker  19:14  
television

Gerald Chambers  19:17  
television at the moment when I when I go into into London weekend now and I meet the occasionally you meet a face you you recognise. It is only occasionally but a passing accountant in my in my day of working in in television now that the the South Bank there was an atmosphere around in the air of evening bad times as well as good times as if you were really producing something as if people were really hyped up about that. There was a buzz going on, they were working on x y x y Zed and and you know, really, they were they read up about it. I look at the people going around now and the the few I, the people I speak to they're all like sort of living ghosts, they are people walking around zombies, that's a far better term. They didn't really appear to have anything much going on in their life at all they're probably are working in television. But having said that, you you is full stop. At a really

John P Hamilton  20:41  
very sad array.

Gerald Chambers  20:42  
It is very sad, I really a terrible glueing comes up when when I go down there. It's only when I get into someone's particular office with a group of people who I knew from the past. And you see the same spirit around in those people as there was before. But the nearly all people who have retired and come back, you know, being on the Excel committee.

Unknown Speaker  21:13  
They're all the

Gerald Chambers  21:14  
exception of one person. They're all people who've worked and left. And when they are all together, there's a buzz. But you don't get that buzz from the people in the workshop, as it were. And it's it's terrible. It must be I can only think you must be a terrible life on these days to be to be working in television. It seems to be

John P Hamilton  21:39  
Yeah, seems to be for many.

Gerald Chambers  21:40  
That's if if what I see now, when I go in as a visitor, if that is life in television now. I think I would want to be working somewhere else in some other kind of job. Although for the life of me, I can't think I'm too happy. Oh

John P Hamilton  22:04  
well, no equity.

Unknown Speaker  22:07  
Yes, e TT.

Gerald Chambers  22:09  
Yes. I've heard quite a few cards.

John P Hamilton  22:13  
Thank you very much, Gerald.

Gerald Chambers  22:15  
It's my pleasure. Thank you very much. And thank you Roy for attending on the technical side and and asking questions.