1960s WORK
0198 Gallahers & ATV television
One of events I was privileged to take part in, while at Gallahers, was an invitation to visit the ATV television studios in Shepperton. This was intended to be for the general managers, but both my general manager and Roland were engaged elsewhere; so the perk was passed on to me. We went by chauffeur driven car rather than by taxi, though with three of us in back it was very cramped.
Never mind, when we got to ATV we were shown around the television studios which was fascinating for me. In particular I was bowled over by one of my favourite singers practising her show. She was just on seated on a stool with only a pianist for company. In this improvised setting, she sang even better than I ever heard her do on television.
The real reason for being there, though, was to show us the first experiments in colour television. They only had a small studio set up, with a single television camera. We took it in turns to appear before the camera and to watch the end result in the next room. When my turn came I put on my usual style, only to hear roars of laughter coming from next door. The general manager of ATV commented that he would be happy to engage me as a presenter anytime! Thus a television career almost began.
We had lunch on their barge moored on the Thames next to the studio. It was, needless to say, an excellent lunch. The talk over lunch was, however, the most fascinating thing of all. Clearly we spent some time talking about the future of television, but I can't remember any of this. The one thing I do remember was their discussion about Tony Hancock. The comedian was then in the middle of his last series with ATV, before he went off to Australia and committed suicide. The management were very open about the fact that they had just decided to get rid of him because of his alcoholism; though nobody, not even Hancock, knew about this at the time! They had terrible problems even getting him into studio, and then getting him into an acceptable state to record the show. It was a tragic story.
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