MERV SOMMERS - GORE HILL - OPENING NIGHT
Recorded 15/8/2005
It was four days before opening night 1956. We were to put on a live
production "The Twelve Pound Look". I had been there two weeks trying
desperately to set up a small workshop. Ken Middleton came down and said
"Production need a caption roller for the play"... Bill Kennard having
freshly arrived from the BBC, was charged with creating the graphics for
the aforesaid rollers. The days that followed up to late in the afternoon
of opening night are somewhat of a blur but from tearing around looking
for a small shaded pole motor, to turning the rollers on the small lathe
from some 3 X 3 builders off-cuts, and then cutting a worm wheel to reduce
the speed of the assembly - to say nothing of building a stand for the
whole thing – a few days I will never forget. (N.B. No - Don Crowley later advised it was a switching error on his
part).
Merv Somers joined the ABC as the Engineering Workshop Foreman in
October 1956 - he resigned in May 1965. During the next 10 years Merv
was involved in building TV OB Vans in different parts of the world. He
returned to Gore Hill in March 1975 and retired in September 1985. |
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