Plymouth Sound

Nowadays, with endless television and radio stations, it's hard to imagine the excitement when Plymouth got its own radio station. At the time, the main stations were all broadcast by the BBC.
Almost 40 years ago, Plymouth Sound was launched and it soon had a huge following. The station was based in a former organ factory at Earl's Acre off Alma Road in Pennycomequick and was launched on 19th May 1975. The first song broadcast was Cat Stevens' Morning Has Broken.
Andrew Knight, who was aged nine at the time, won a competition to be the first voice heard on the new station. With prompting from station controller, David Bassett, Andrew went live on air at 6am on the morning of Monday 19th May.

Popular presenters at the time included Ian Calvert, Louise Churchill, Carmella McKenzie, Brian Measures, Peter Greig and David Bassett. There were many more in later years.

I was thirteen and at school at the time when the station opened. It's hard to believe now but there was a big thing about how to find the station and how to tune into it (much the same as there was when Channel 4 was launched). There was a show at the Guildhall to find out more about the station and to meet some of the people behind it.

Me and a school friend went along in the hope there would be some free records (we didn't get any). Like everyone else, we came away with souvenirs such as free car stickers and mugs. It seemed a big thing at the time.
Everyone at school listened to the station and by far the most popular presenter was Ian Calvert whose evening show was broadcast just at the time when we were all doing our homework. In between records, Ian talked about his girlfriend, his dogs, his horses and anything else that was going on at the time. I remember him being the first DJ to play David Soul's single when it first came out and also remember he'd sent a tape to Radio One of his show. There were nightly phone-in competitions and the prize was inevitably 6 singles. I'd recognise some of the kids from my class entering the competitions (I won a few) and once we'd collected our prize singles from the station, we'd take them to school and try and swap them. They were always by artists you had never heard of and were, mostly, terrible but the fun was just in winning them.

David Bassett broadcast a talk show at 10am every morning and would have conversations about topical subjects or just anything anyone wanted to talk about. Some of the people who phoned in were unintentionally hilarious which made the show even more entertaining. In the summer holidays, most of the kids at school listened to it and many of them also took part.
Brian Measures hosted an easy listening show in the evening which attracted a large audience. I won a Frank Sinatra LP on his show and my mum went to collect it. While she was waiting at the reception, she said that there was a bloke beside her who didn't stop nattering on and telling jokes. She thought that he was just there to collect a prize but it turned out to be Frank Carson!
Adverts needing an American sounding voice-over were done by my old guitar teacher, Pete Martin (he was actually Canadian). I wonder what happened to him?

The DJs were very popular at the time and I remember Ian Calvert bringing a football team to our school in the 1970s to play the teachers. Our teachers were hopeless (even the sports ones) so they inevitably lost!
The station was a big thing in the 1970s and 1980s and was eventually re-branded Heart Plymouth in 2009 before being amalgamated into Heart Devon in 2010. For me, the best time to listen to it was in the 1970s when it all seemed so new and there were few other radio stations about. As the station grew older, there was suddenly a huge choice of other stations to listen to. By then, I'd moved on to the crackly fading broadcasts of Radio Luxembourg!
Like Westward Television, there seems something very nostalgic about the early days of Plymouth Sound. Today, we're overloaded with stations, many of which are listened to on the internet. Somehow, it just doesn't seem to be the same and a lot of the appeal of the smaller radio stations, where we felt that we knew all the presenters, seems to have been lost over the years.

The ABC advertising hoarding at West Park

I noticed today that the billboard hoarding, on the side of the Peter Goord building, at West Park, has been taken down. Underneath has been revealed an old advert for the ABC Cinema. It's obviously quite old and wasn't there in my lifetime so I'm guessing that it dates from the 1950s or early 1960s.

Unlike modern bill posters, it has been painted onto the side of the building. I think there's more of it but this has been covered with modern spar dash probably some time in the 1970s.

I don't suppose it will be too long before it's covered up and disppears for another fifty years so if you want to see it and take a photo, now's the time.

Footnote: I contacted the Herald about the advertisement and they've written a piece about it here: http://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/Plymouth-agents-travel-time-ABC-poster/story-26430435-detail/story.html

 

Films shot in and around Plymouth

After my article appeared in the Shopper, a couple of months ago, about David Soul filming in Plymouth, several people wrote to me about other films that had been made in the area.

In the 1940s, 'The Way We Live' was shot in the city. It was directed by Jill Craigie who later married Michael Foot, whom she'd met while making the film.

It told the tale of Alice Copperwheat and her family, whose house had been destroyed in the blitz and who were then billeted to Horrabridge before becoming the owners of a brand new pre-fab in the city. There are various interesting scenes showing Plymouth as it was in 1945. Patsy Scantlebury, who lived in St Budeaux, was chosen for the role of Alice after being seen on Plymouth Hoe jitterbugging with an American sailor. At the time, she was just 17. She had previously worked in a post office. Patsy went on to sign a seven year contract with the J Arthur Rank Organization and appeared as an air hostess in the film 'Blind Goddess' as Patsy Drake (her stage name).

John Tozer wrote and asked if I remembered anything about the film 'The Uncle,' part of which was shot at Whitleigh. The film starred Rupert Davies who was very popular during the 1960s for his role as the tv detective 'Maigret.'
John wrote: 'The camera crew stopped outside where we lived and soon drove off toward Aylesbury Crescent with me and two pals cycling behind the car waving our hands! They then filmed an indoor scene in a house on Taunton Avenue, opposite the west end of Aylesbury Crescent.'
The Uncle was made in 1965 and Davies played David Morton, the father of a boy, Gus, played by Robert Duncan. The story concerned the boy's life over one summer. Like many films made in Plymouth, it hasn't been shown much over the years and many people probably won't have heard of it.
In the late 1970s, Tatum O'Neal was in the area shooting 'International Velvet' which also starred Christopher Plummer and Anthony Hopkins. Several of the scenes were shot on the beach at Mothecombe. Tatum was interviewed by Westward Television several times and other scenes for the film were also shot at Newton Abbot racecourse. The movie received mixed reviews.

Also in the late 1970s, Force 10 From Navarone, starring Harrison Ford, Robert Shaw and Edward Fox, was partly shot in the dockyard. Ford was just finding fame at the time as Han Solo in Star Wars.

In 1982, the film 'Remembrance' was released. It featured the story of a group of Royal Naval ratings based at Devonport and their exploits in Plymouth before setting sail for America.

Much of the film was shot in Union Street and featured Timothy Spall, Gary Oldman and John Altman as well as many other stars who have since become far more famous. Timothy Spall recently returned to the area to shoot 'Mr Turner' which was partly filmed at Kingsand.
Remembrance was shown on Channel 4 soon after but, again, hasn't been shown much since. It's good to watch it just to see how Union Street once looked and how it's all changed over the years.

In 1985, Goldcrest advertised in the local papers for extras to appear in their film 'Revolution' which was shot mainly at Burrator and starred Al Pacino, Donald Sutherland, Nastassja Kinski and a host of other well-known stars. I went to the auditions at Ballard House but didn't get a part. If I remember rightly, they were paying £20 a day which seemed a lot back then. Even with a huge budget and many big names, the film was again a flop but can be seen regularly on one of the Freeview channels.

In 1994, 'Sense and Sensibility' was shot at Saltram and starred Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet, Alan Rickman and Hugh Grant in a lavish period drama.

'Tomorrow Never Dies' (1997), starring Pierce Brosnan as James Bond, featured action shot, again, in Devonport Dockyard as well as scenes filmed on several naval ships.

In 2009, 'Alice in Wonderland' was shot partly at Antony House and starred Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and Anne Hathaway and was directed by Tim Burton. A follow up is to be released shortly. Many local people appeared in the background.
There have been many more movies shot in the area over the years such as 'War Horse,' 'We Bought a Zoo' etc and many people in Plymouth will have fond memories of appearing in them as extras.
Of course, there have also been endless tv shows shot in the area and these include Doctor Who, Hornblower, Casualty and, more recently across the Tamar, Poldark. Perhaps people reading this blog have appeared in one of the many productions mentioned? It would be good to feature their memories in a later post.
Update: Richenda kindly wrote to me with her memories of appearing in 'The Uncle:'

Dear Derek

A friend drew my attention to your article on films shot in and around Plymouth in The Shopper.

I was an 'extra' for a day for The Uncle. I was one of at least six teenage girls who had to run across the beach at Tinside. I think involved a lot of waiting around and a few takes until the camera man was happy with the shots. We were each paid £1 for the day. I was about 14 or 15 years old at the time and I seem to remember that the film wasn't put out on general release at the time. Was it a bit controversial?  I did see the film many years later and only our legs were in shot. Very disappointing and difficult to spot my own legs as they dashed across the screen.

There must have been a lot more of a beach at Tinside in those days. Summers were also different. We all had season tickets to the round swimming pool and swam from March to October. We spent most of our summer holidays on the seafront and were joined by large numbers of French students who came and went for two weeks at a time. We helped them with their English speaking.

Best wishes,

Richenda .

Footnote:

As from July 2015, The Uncle will be available on DVD. Here it is on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Uncle-DVD-Rupert-Davies/dp/B00WABZW7I/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1434047549&sr=1-1&keywords=the+uncle