Tag / Friends

by Gareth

35 years ago!

One of the things I’ve been doing over the last couple of years is scanning loads of old photos and other bits from years gone by! And one of the those things has been old issues of the school magazine I used to produce with Tom, back when we were at secondary school.

One time we ran a competition to take one of the readers to visit BBC Pebble Mill in Birmingham (in all honesty, the main reason was because we wanted to go there ourselves!) One of our team’s dad worked there, so we managed to get her to ask him to take us all, which we did on the May bank holiday in 1986 when there were a lot less people there. Sadly, the studios were demolished in 2005, but back in the 80s they were producing quite a lot of TV – so to someone like me who has always been obsessed with TV and production stuff, it was a dream come true!

The article in the July 1986 issue of Mercian Madness.

What is quite scary though is that we visited the studios exactly 35 years ago today!

I do have some memories of going there, but after all this time it is a bit hazy. I remember thinking how small the ‘Pebble Mill at One’ studio was, and learning that bits of it were pre-recorded to make it seem like they had more space, and allow them to move stuff around during a show, and also we did try and visit the radio area, but because it was a Bank Holiday Monday, there was no-one working there so it was all locked up. Interestingly, ‘Pebble Mill at One’ was cancelled between us visiting and the article being published, hence the RIP reference!

Also, for some bizarre reason, we wanted to brand Jo’s dad’s car with the ‘Mercian Madness’ logo – but using poster paint! Unsurprisingly, this never actually happened! And I’m quite sad that we didn’t take many photos at all – we did have a camera with us because there’s the photo that’s in the magazine, but for some reason, we didn’t really take any others (or none that came out anyway!)

Here’s the article that appeared in the July 1986 issue of the magazine (remember we were all only 13 when we wrote this!):

In the last issue, we ran a competition, and the winner was to go with us to the B.B.C. Read on to find out what happened when we visited…

PEBBLE MILL

AN EXCLUSIVE REPORT BY: BEN COOKE, JO CRAWLEY, TOM GREEN & GARETH HARRISON

MONDAY 5th MAY 1986
Josephine Crawley Reporting:

4.00pm
The motley crew, sorry, the Mercian Madness reporting team arrived. With them was the winner of the competition, Kevin Lee. First year Kevin was very excited about the trip. “It’s the first time I’ve won anything!” he said.

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by Gareth

Linda O’Brien

Roger and Linda.

I posted this on social media, but I thought I’d put it on here as well because it has really saddened me.

My first job in tv and production was way back at the end of 1997 when I was taken on at the cable channel Birmingham Live TV, and it really was a great learning experience and I got to work alongside a really good team. Well, last night I got a message from Phil who I used to work with to tell me the really sad news that one of the reporters from there, Linda O’Brien, had just passed away after an on-going illness. She was genuinely one of the nicest people in the business, and I got to spend a lot of time with her back then both on shoots and also crammed into our tiny edit suite editing on NewsCutter. One of the things I remember about Linda is that she could actually edit a bit herself (unusual for a reporter back then), so had this habit of leaning over and grabbing the mouse if she suddenly had an idea to make an edit better! It was a bit frustrating at first, but I soon got used to it, and she always acknowledged that it could be annoying… although she was often right with the changes she made.

Linda, Ashley and Karen.

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by Gareth

Emma’s Zoom Wedding

Emma and Matt’s wedding.

Well, yesterday was supposed to be Emma’s wedding to Matt, but because of Coronavirus, everything was up in the air. I was originally supposed to be helping with some of the photography, but a couple of weeks ago had to make a decision not to go because of probably needing to self shield (luckily I was able to cancel the hotel I’d booked in Llandudno. When I let Emma know, she told me they’d have to postpone the main wedding, but just have the marriage bit with only 10 people attending.

But since then, full lockdown was introduced, so even that wasn’t possible, so that was the last I’d heard until I happened to notice on the Facebook event page that they were going to be having the wedding on Zoom instead!

The wedding was scheduled for 10am, and I didn’t see it until about 40 minutes beforehand, so didn’t get a chance to dress up… so I attended wearing a hoodie, complete with a mug of coffee and some toast!

It was my first time using Zoom, and it can be quite overwhelming with so many voices, but when the actual ‘service’ started, they muted everyone’s microphones other than those doing stuff. Emma and Matt were in one house, and the minister in another – they’d got permission from the Baptist Union of Great Britain for him to marry them from a different location, so this was basically the ‘church’ part of the service, and they’ll be doing the ‘civil’ bit as soon as they’re able to!

Obviously, it was a shame not to experience it properly (although easier to get there and more comfortable than wearing a suit!), but hopefully they’ll be able to have a proper celebration later on in the year!

by Gareth

Holidays 2019

I thought I’d post about my holidays this year – I’ve not done it sooner because I’ve been a bit pre-occupied with health stuff!

First off, over Easter I went camping with my sister’s family in Wales. We stayed at Abererch Sands, which is on the Llyn Peninsula, just between Pwllheli and Criccieth.

We all arrived at the campsite at lunchtime on the Thursday, and went on a part of the site where both caravans and tents could be pitched. It took me quite a while to get my tent up – I’d recently been getting tired really quickly (which I later discovered to be because of heart failure!), so I paced myself with it, and Brandon and Chloe occasionally broke away from playing frisbee to help a little bit when an extra pair of hands were needed. Vikky and Andy set up their caravan on one side of the field so they could plug into a heavy-duty electrical hook-up, whereas I pitched up on the opposite side, and made use of the electrical hook-up for tents. It was the first time I’d had electricity whilst camping, and it really does make a difference! I’d bought a small powered fridge to use for the week, plus a camping kettle which mean I could boil water much quicker than usual!

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by Gareth

Edgeley Park gigs

So this week, I’ve been to 2 different gigs at Edgeley Park stadium – handily just up the road from where I live!

The first one was Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott, and it was very last minute that I got a ticket for it. I saw Lee post on Facebook that he had a spare ticket available for the gig that night, so, having been a big Beautiful South fan back in the day, bought the ticket off his friend who couldn’t make it.

Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott.

I thought about walking up to the stadium, but with my health situation, took the bus instead! I met Lee outside the ground, and we went in to grab a drink, before his wife Katie and her friend turned up. It was nice to catch up with Lee having not seen him since the beginning of February, and hopefully I didn’t bore him too much talking about my heart stuff!

So back to the music, and they were really good – there are so many songs you just know all the words to! I was worried it might rain, but even though it was quite cloudy, it stayed dry. I had to have a sit down for about 10 minutes half way through because I was starting to tire a bit, but then I was fine for the rest of the gig. I only had one beer – I don’t normally drink that much alcohol anyway, but at the moment I can’t have more that 1½ – 2 litres of liquid a day, which is a lot harder than you’d think!

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by Gareth

Anthony

I found out yesterday through Facebook that one of my best mates from school died last weekend of a cardiac arrest whilst he was just walking near to his home. He was only 44 and it really is a total shock. Sadly, I hadn’t been in touch with Anthony for about 20 years, but I spent pretty much the whole of my early life with him, doing loads of crazy stuff with our partner in crime Tom.

Here’s the article from the Birmingham Mail.

RIP mate.

by Gareth

Orlando, New York and Aruba!

It was my sister’s wedding last month, and she’d decided to have a beach wedding in Aruba, so I decided that since I’d be travelling across the Atlantic, I’d also add a short USA holiday to it as well!

So I flew out to Orlando on the 6th October, leaving Manchester at lunchtime, arriving at 4.30pm local time. The queue through passport control was crazy – it took 2¼ hours to get through it, and then once my passport had been checked, I was then picked to have my suitcase examined! I eventually checked into my hotel – the ‘Holiday Inn & Suites Across From Universal Orlando’ – and it really was ‘across’, being just a 15 minute walk to the main entrance to the Universal theme parks!

After a long day of travelling, I went to bed pretty much straight away, and then woke up ridiculously early because of jet-lag! So annoying!

Anyway, I got myself breakfast from a nearby McDonalds, and then arrived at the theme park around 10.30am.

I entered the Islands of Adventure park and hit the rides straight away! I stayed there until about 2 o’clock, and after a bit of lunch, took the Hogwart’s Express from Hogsmeade to King’s Cross over in the the Universal Studios park. Generally, it was busier than when I visited in 2014, and the queues were longer, but I imagine no-where near as busy as it is in peak season!

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by Gareth

Scotland weekend

Last weekend I was up in Scotland with Ali for Steve & Tatiana’s wedding! The wedding was on the Friday, so I drove up on Thursday afternoon and then picked up Ali from the airport, who’d taken a flight from Bristol. However, as I was driving to the airport, I got a major warning light and message on my car saying ‘system fault’ which wasn’t ideal!

I get RAC membership with my car servicing, so called them up early evening, and an RAC man finally arrived quite late, and determined it was probably an issue with my battery not fully holding its charge and causing the error message. He reckoned it would be safe to drive over the weekend but that I’d need to arrange to get it checked soon at a Nissan garage.

Anyway, next day was the day of the wedding – I’d offered to live stream it for them, since a lot of Tatiana’s family weren’t able to make it over to the UK. We had breakfast and left first thing so that I’d have time to set up kit. I was only using a single camera with a BlackMagic Web Presenter plugged into my laptop. In hindsight, I wish I’d packed a 2nd camera to plug into it, but I think they were happy that there was any kind of broadcast!

You can still watch the live stream of the service on YouTube.

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by Gareth

The Joshua Tree

On Sunday I was down in Twickenham for an amazing gig – U2 celebrating 30 years since The Joshua Tree was released! I’d bought a few extra tickets, so Tom Musgrove travelled down with me (we drove down to Feltham and then got a train from Feltham to Twickenham), and then met my Bristol friends Ali and Chelly nearby, before all heading to the stadium.

As we arrived around 7pm, the support act was already playing – Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds! They were really good, but it was kind of weird seeing Noel Gallagher playing as an opening act, because the stadium was still filling up and not everyone was paying attention!

U2 came on stage around 8.15pm, and opened with a few songs from earlier albums (including ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ and ‘Pride’), then launched into all the songs in order from The Joshua Tree.

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by Gareth

A catch-up

I thought I’d do a bit of a catch-up of what’s been going on the last few weeks.

At the start of last month, we had a bit of a crazy weekend shooting a TV commercial for Transform, which involved a mix of interior and exterior locations. We were really banking on the weather being good, and we were so lucky that the rain didn’t materialise until Sunday afternoon, because by then we’d filmed all of the outside stuff. We shot it all on the FS5 mounted on a Ronin stabiliser, and the shots looked great.

The week the shoot saw us having to get it edited and through Clearcast clearance to allow it to be shown on TV, and it was pretty tight, but we managed to get it on air without too much trouble!

Then, a couple of weeks ago, I went to the Lowry to see ‘The Elis James and John Robins Experience’ – I started listening to their Radio X show and podcast back in September, and I heard them mention that they were doing a tour, so checked online and saw that there were just a few tickets left for the show! It was really funny – there were some references that I didn’t get that obviously would be known to a long time listener, but it just made me want to check out more of their back catalogue!

Elis James & John Robins.

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by Gareth

#batemantakethiswoman

This weekend I’ve been up in North Yorkshire – specifically Selby and Thorne near Doncaster – for Dave Bateman’s wedding to Abbie – hence the hashtag #batemantakethiswoman!

Me and Jimmy drove up first thing yesterday morning, grabbing a quick McDonalds breakfast nearby because we were a bit early, and then arrived at the church in Selby where we sat with Rob & Jenny, Chris & Debbie, Tom, Ralph & Laura, and Penny. Of course, John Roberts was there too, but since he was best man, he got to sit down the front with Mr Bateman!

Abbie and Dave.

It was a really nice service, and afterwards the rain stopped just long enough to take some photos in the churchyard, and by the yellow VW camper that was taking Dave and Abbie to their reception!

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by Gareth

Wedfest

I spent last weekend camping up in north Yorkshire at the Camp Hill Estate for the event of the year – Wedfest!

Rather than opt for a regular wedding, Darren and Claire opted to make a whole weekend of it, and include camping, and get married in the open air! Luckily the weather was perfect for the whole weekend, so no wellies were needed!

We all arrived on the Friday afternoon to pitch our tents… I was camping near to Rob, Clare and Tabitha, along with some of their friends who were really nice. The first night we had a barbecue in the woods, followed by late night consumption of alcohol back at our tents!

Then on the day of the wedding, after a breakfast of bacon rolls, we all chilled a bit before getting changed into our smart clothes (something that isn’t a particularly easy thing to do in a tent!). Then it was time to head over to the wedding area.

Darren and Claire.

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by Gareth

Catch-up of last few weeks

I thought I’d do a bit of a catch-up of what I’ve been up to recently, so here goes!

Last month, I got to see Rob Bell speak at !Audacious in Manchester. I’d caught him at Greenbelt back in 2009 (but was hard to hear because it was outdoors and I was quite a way from the stage). He was on a book tour of the UK, and the night was billed as ‘An evening with Rob Bell’, which meant he could talk about stuff in his new book, as well as talk about other things, and also take questions from the audience.

I know he’s often regarded as controversial, but I did find a lot of what he had to say really interesting and thought provoking, although I think there are things he says that I’m not sure I agree with, but I’m glad I went to hear it.

Then, the following week, we had a bit of a Sharp Tenants social night! After a successful trip to the Frog & Bucket back in March to see some comedy, our next thing was a curry night at Akbar’s on Liverpool Street.

Christian and Alex.

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by Gareth

Summer Holidays and stuff

It’s been a couple of months or so since I last posted, so I thought it was time to remedy that! I’ve been away a few times this summer – twice camping, and also a weekend away for a wedding!

I got back this week from Greenbelt in Cheltenham at the racecourse, and it was so wet and muddy! I’ve been to it quite a few times now, but the conditions were never this bad before!

There’d already been quite a bit of rain during the week, so they weren’t letting cars driving up to the camping pitches as they had in previous years, and the last couple of times I’d been, I was with Ali who was working on site, so we’d been able to camp really close to the main areas, but this time we were a long way away!

Amy, Rosie, Sharon, Claire and Michelle.

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by Gareth

Coldplay at the Ethiad

On Sunday, I was at one of the most amazing gigs I’ve been to – Coldplay at the Etihad Stadium! I bought 6 tickets on a bit of a whim last year, so have spent the last few months trying to find people to come with me! I only got rid of the last 2 tickets a couple of weeks ago!

I went with Dave Bateman, John Cieszynski, Jon Scruby, and met up outside with my brother Steve and his mate Dan.

We were in the standing area to the right of the stage, and my legs were quite achy but the time we’d got through the 2 support acts, Rita Ora and Robyn. Not overly impressed with Rita Ora – she’s had a few songs out, but mainly vocals on someone else’s track, so it felt a bit strange, and it’s really not my kind of thing… but Robyn was a lot more to my taste!

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