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Pudsey Loop
The Pudsey loop was completed by the G.N.R in 1893 where it diverged from the main Leeds-Bradford line. This outlines the importance of Pudsey's manufacturing & woolen industry - so much so that the G.N.R took a staggering 14yrs to move heaven & earth to reach the town. Huge cuttings & the 616yd long tunnel at Greenside where constructed along the steeply graded climb to the town... along with the largest man made embankment in Europe, Smalewell embankement still offers a fantastic view across the Leeds-Bradford border 80-100' high in places. There were 2 stations at Pudsey... Lowtown & Greenside. Today there is only a short section of track(bed) still visible. The one great feature that still remains is the deep cutting & retaining wall alongside Station Street/Carlisle Rd. - this soon to be filled in.

Also used to bring in coal.

http://www.secretleeds.com/forum/Messages.aspx?ThreadID=298&HighLight=1

http://www.flickr.com/photos/phill_dvsn/

http://www.lostrailwayswestyorkshire.co.uk/Pudsey%20Loop.htm

Richmond Theatre - History
First theatre on the Green was The Theatre Royal in 1765

A theatre is said to have existed in Richmond as early as 1715. Another one called the Old Theatre was built on the slope of the hill in 1719 on the site of an old stable for donkeys; its licence was forfeited in 1756, and ten years later a new theatre was opened on the Green where Garrick House now stands, the prologue for the occasion being written by David Garrick. Edmund Kean acted here in 1817 and took a great fancy to Richmond; he became the lessee of the theatre in 1831, and took up his residence in the house connected with it. He died and was buried at Richmond in 1833. This theatre was pulled down in 1886, and another one built in 1889, but it was not found to pay. A new theatre of varieties has been lately erected on the little green adjacent to the large Green.

The Theatre Royal, Richmond Green : 1765-1884The theatre stood on the south-west side of the Green, at the top of Old Palace Lane, on a site adjacent to that now occupied by Garrick Close. The first manager (also thought to have been responsible for its erection) was an actor, James Dance – known on the stage as ‘Mr. Love’. The interior design of the theatre caused widespread interest. The lobby was as spacious as in either of the theatres of Drury Lane or Covent Garden. The unconventional dark panelling of the auditorium helped to focus attention on the lighted stage when the curtain was raised. Most of the audience was accommodated in boxes. There was one gallery and a large orchestra pit. The theatre first opened on 15thJuly 1765 with the comic opera Love in a Village. A special prologue was written for this occasion by David Garrick and was delivered by the manager himself. Within a year of the theatre’s opening, the stage was enlarged and other improvements were made. George III and Queen Charlotte became patrons. On their first visit, three of the boxes were formed into one for the reception of the royal family and suite, other boxes being erected on the stage to assist in the accommodation of the audience. During the first 30 years or so of the theatre’s existence, many famous actors appeared on its stage, including Mrs. Jordan, the elder Macready, Mrs Baddeley and Charles Dibdin. In October 1807, Sarah Siddons played her celebrated role of Lady Randolph in the tragedy of Douglas. In 1831, Edmund Kean became the lessee and took up residence in the house adjoining the theatre. He had played there on a number of occasions earlier in his career, during Klanert’s management. He was now past his prime, however, and his declining health had increased his long-held desire to manage a playhouse in some salubrious rural area. Richmond seemed ideal, though, as he still felt bound to fulfil engagements elsewhere in the country and in Ireland, his health grew worse rather than better. His death at Richmond on 15thMay 1833 marked the end of a legendary era of heroic acting in the British theatre. (See Local History Notes: Edmund Kean at Richmond). lighting was installed in the first half of the 19thcentury, probably during the management of Miss Desborough who took over the theatre in 1837. Perhaps the most prosperous time for the theatre in the Victorian period was during the 12 or 13 years from 1858 onwards. There was now a new generation of local nobility to act as patrons: these included the Duke and Duchess of Teck and the Duc d’Aumale. Plays produced at this time included East Lynne and Jeanie Deans. The last proprietor was John Russell, whose first season opened in July 1880. After an initial success, attendance quickly dropped and the shortage of actors willing to play at the theatre led the unfortunate manager to engage street entertainers, which did nothing to please the diminishing audiences. In the early 1880s the old playhouse was finally closed and was demolished in 1884. Garrick House was built on the site, but was also demolished in 1961 when Garrick Close – a development of 6 houses - was erected. The New Theatre/Theatre Royal : 1890-1899In 1889, F.C. Mouflet, proprietor of the Greyhound Hotel in George Street and who also owned the Assembly Rooms of the Castle Hotel, converted the banqueting room of the Castle Hotel into the New Theatre. It opened on Easter Monday 1890 and changed its name to the Theatre Royal in 1891. By 1910, it was being advertised as the Cinematograph Palace – Richmond’s first cinema and in 1915, it was the Castle Rooms. By the 1950s the Castle Assembly Rooms had become a popular ballroom and were reopened in 1952 after extensive renovations. Another facelift followed in 1966, but by 1971 the ballroom had acquired a rather dubious reputation. Although still popular, it was closed down in 1981 after many complaints by local residents and the owners decided to operate it only as a public house. The Castle was demolished in 1984 when the whole riverside site was redeveloped to a design by architect Quinlan Terry and was opened by Queen Elizabeth in 1988. Richmond Theatre : 1899Mouflet decided that what Richmond needed was a purpose-built theatre. So he acquired a site on the Little Green next to the public library and commissioned Frank Matcham – the leading theatre architect of the day – to design it. On 18thSeptember 1899, the Richmond Theatre and Opera House opened with a performance of Shakespeare’s As you like it. theatre went through several name changes until 1924 when it reverted to the Richmond Theatre. – the name that still is used today

Blind-backs
others were built so that they looked like ordinary houses from the outside with a central porch. In fact, these were two blind-backs, each consisting of four single-room houses, probably accommodating 30 or more people.

TOTP - How the Show was made
Many people put much more into making TOTP than I did, but this will hopefully get things started.....

I was a camera assistant on TOTP in the late sixties. We didn't realise that what we were doing would someday be classed as history, so all there is in my diaries is "TOTP 0930-2230", and no mention of the groups that featured each week, nor any stories of what happened on the day.

My job was to drive a Vinten Heron camera crane, see here - http://www.tech-ops.co.uk/page83.html. It moved by electical/hydraulic power with steering either on the rear or on all four wheels. A small catch was that if you were driving forward in four wheel steering and turned the wheel to the left, the machine went to the right. You couldn't call yourself a real Heron driver unless you could do a figure 8 in four wheel steer. Another problem was that the two Herons assigned to the TOTP studio were early models with a small power lever, which was incredibly sensitive and would jerk away from rest at the slightest ham-fistedness. We had to drive these machines to an incredibly tight precision. I remember Donovan's Hurdy Gurdy Man where my cameraman started on a close-up of his eyes and zoomed out, from which I had to smoothly pick up a sideways track out to a long shot. Very very difficult, and live on BBC1 too. Later model Herons with pedal accelerators were sitting idle just up the road at Television Centre, but the powers that be wouldn't swap them. I never knew why.

Here are a couple of stories from TOTP in the late sixties...........

When The Crazy World of Arthur Brown came in to TOTP to play “Fire”, it was done as a post recording, because Arthur wore a real fire crown. Someone had decided also that the studio would have smoke in the air (very unusual then), so they got a special effects fellow called Bertram in, who had probably been at Lime Grove in the Gaumont- Kalee days. He brought a large machine on fat wheels which was, in fact, labelled Gaumont-Kalee. It had a delivery tube a foot in diameter. Bertram tended this machine all day, to the amusement of the floor manager, who kept asking if he’d be ready. When the kids had all been chucked out, the moment came - the floor manager shouted “Now, Bertram” - and the tube belched an enormous amount of smoke, so much so that the Heron driver, me, couldn’t see the ground to see his marks, and neither could anyone else. Arthur’s crown was extinguished, and we all waited 20 minutes till we could see again. The clip that is still shown is take two, with much less smoke and a chastised Bertram.

One day during the live show, the Heron I was tracking, ground to a halt with 28 bars to get to the other end of the studio. I leapt off, and the crowd pushers helped me get the machine down the studio in time. Then we realised that the cable guard had jammed into the floor and taken a long gouge out of the lino. It stayed there for several weeks, and had a lead part in The Man in the Iron Mask, a Sunday afternoon serial. Eventually they re-laid the flooring, but not very well, and it bulged around the edges, making for some bumpy tracks. One night after the kids had gone, The Rolling Stones came in to play Jumping Jack Flash. During the recording the crew’s top Heron driver (me again!) spun the machine round, and completely ripped out the squares of badly laid lino. After that they had to take the studio out of service to do the job properly.

Bernie Newnham www.tech-ops.co.uk

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BBC Logo
http://www.tvradiobits.co.uk/idents/bbclogo.htm

Friday 19 September bbc2 ap

Moira Stuart
http://www.gazette-online.co.uk/download.asp?docid=580302 pdf

London Gazette June 2001 Birthday Honours Supplement 16-June-2001 580302

BBC Resources‎
Set up as a commercial company in 1998,[1] BBC Resources Ltd provides TV Studio facilities based in London, UK, and Outside Broadcast facilities based in Langley (close to the M4/M25 junction) along with network Post Production facilities in London, Bristol and Birmingham. As one of the largest production facilities in the UK, it employs around 1,100 staff and has an annual turnover of around £125 million - although it does not own any studios[2] - its assets being staff and equipment.

It was the first of the BBC's commercial business-to-business divisions to be set up as a limited company and is currently a wholly owned subsidiary of the BBC.