Richard Greenough spent 35 years working for the BBC and ATV, between 1948 - 1983, now in his 80’s he has written his memoirs about his life working in the fledgling years of our great industry. This is the latest part of our serialisation of his professional life as a designer.

At Wood Green I designed a show for Jimmy Jewel and Ben Warris. There was a sketch with them in a boat. For this we filled the orchestra pit with water. A plastic liner was made and this worked very well except I had designed steps to get down into the water but these were made of wood so they floated up! We also had an inverted periscope to get an underwater shot. This worked very well during the rehearsal but by the time of transmission the water had become very cloudy. As this had worked well we did it again in a later show but this time the plastic liner sprung a leak and the water began to get into all the electrical wires under the stage. Panic! Bob Craig, the stand-by carpenter, volunteered to go down into the water so I lent him my bathing trunks which were in my car. Somehow he managed to stem the flow and the show went out live. We did not repeat this mistake.

Between 1955 and 1960 we were spread all over London with studios in Wood Green, Hackney, Highbury and Foley Street, W1, with scenery stored near St Pancras and offices in the West End, Kingsway, Upper Regent Street and the head office in Great Cumberland Place, Marble Arch. For some time we had been looking for a site to build a television centre. ATV had in 1955 bought Elstree Studios, the old National Studios which had been let to Douglas Fairbanks Jr. who made films for television. It was decided that these could be converted to television. They consisted of four studios, ‘A’ 76 feet by 74 feet, ‘B’ 79 feet by 74 feet, ‘C’ 115 feet by 79 feet and ‘D’ 117 feet by 79 feet, all dimensions maximum wall to wall, an orchestra studio and dressing rooms, and rooms for wardrobe and make up. A number of old buildings were pulled down. We built an ‘L’ shaped, six floor, office block together with seven large rehearsal rooms, 74 feet by 33 feet, which could each be divided into two. A Technical Block, 85 feet by 83 feet, a single storey Transport and Outside Broadcast building, 444 feet by 88 feet, were also constructed.

For the scenery, a three storey block, 305 feet by 82 feet was built with, on the ground floor, the Props department for the storage of stock props and for the reception of hired-in props and also offices. On the first floor were the stock scenery storage and the drapes department, and on the second floor the scenery construction and painters. The scenic artists had their studio here which consisted of three Paint Frames, two 50 feet by 23 feet 9 inches high, with between them one 40 feet by 23 feet 9 inches high, which could be locked together, either two or all three, giving a total of 140 feet for painting cyclorama cloths or gauzes.

The frames could be lowered to the ground floor to transport the backcloths down to the store. The building had three large goods lifts, 20 feet by 8 feet, for transporting the stock scenery on trucks from the first to the second floor where it was set together with new pieces and painted, then transported down to the ground floor and on to the studio. As all the props were on the ground floor it was not necessary to use the lifts. The drapes department on the first floor had a storage area which had a well down to the ground floor so drapes as long as 20 feet could be hung. This avoided them having to be ironed as they had not been folded.

A new restaurant, kitchens and bar were also built. We now had everything we wanted on one site. Only the head office in Great Cumberland Place in the centre of London remained.

In all four studios it was necessary to construct across one corner at first floor level the control rooms. However, the area underneath was very useful for temporary storage and quick change rooms.