TV and Radio studios continue to close around Wales, and I can’t help feeling it might be my fault. This week sees the closure of another, the BBC Studios in Alexandra Road.
Now to paraphrase Oscar Wilde
‘to see one TV and Radio studio closed may be regarded as a misfortune, to lose 4 may be regarded as carelessness’.
Of all of the studios that have closed over the past few decades I think the end of Alexandra Road is the one that hurts the most.
Growing up in Swansea in the 1960’s the world of the media seemed a very long way away. Forget Hollywood or London, even Cardiff looked beyond my grasp.
My first encounter with a TV studio was in Pontcanna, the home of HTV Wales.
I have to admit that even as a kid I was driven. I learnt to play the guitar when I was seven and started writing songs when I was nine. By the age of eleven I thought I was ready to take my place amongst the stars. I’m still not exactly sure how I was invited to an audition with Eric Weatherall the Musical Director at the station. Buoyed on by my weekly dose of ‘Opportunity Knocks’ I had a scattergun approach to sending letters to various stars and TV shows. My dad had grown up in Pontrhydyfen with Welsh Film and TV Star Ivor Emmanuel and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was he who organised the audition after receiving one of my ‘begging letters’.
The studios were everything I had imagined they would be, a massive room with all sort of TV paraphernalia. During the day they were used for news and magazine programme but at this time of night they were full of unmanned TV cameras looking like half asleep Daleks. It took a week or so before the letter came back thanking me for coming and suggesting I get guitar lessons!!!
I didn’t really have an emotional attachment to Pontcanna so when they closed those studio and moved to a massive new media centre in Culverhouse Cross I was excited for the future of broadcasting in Wales.
My life changed in 1973. Finally one of my letters, accompanied by my home recordings of my own songs, struck gold with BBC Radio 1 and John Peel. I had by-passed Wales altogether and now my experience of studios was Broadcasting House, Langham Place and the pick of the finest recording studios London had to offer.
It was in 1974 that I first entered the BBC Studios in Alexandra Road. My first record had just been released and I had been booked for an interview with Anita Morgan who was the BBC Reporter based in Swansea. My first impressions were that the studios were all a bit old and run down. The interview wasn’t even recorded in a proper studio. Anita sat me down in an office that smelt slightly damp and actually made the recording on a portable ‘Uher’ tape machine.
BBC CONCERT HALL – ALEXANDRA RD SWANSEA
I might have left the building feeling disappointed if Anita hadn’t offered to show me and my dad around the unused parts of the building. Like so much of central Swansea the original studios had been destroyed in the Blitz of 1941. When rebuilt in the early 1950’s the Grand Concert Hall had been designed with the very latest acoustic techniques. By 1974 it had once again fallen into disrepair and I think a fear of asbestos meant any chance of it being used again were slim to nil.
I still remember the moment Anita opened the doors. It was as if I was looking into Aladdin’s cave right here in Swansea.
The room opened up to the roof of the building taking up 2 stories of the building and reminded me of the studios I had seen at Abbey Road. In this room they had recorded orchestras and plays and at some point I think it had been used by some local record companies as well. I was 13 years old and I had seen the future.
Once my London days of being a sensitive singer songwriter were destroyed by the world going punk most of my broadcasting focus turned to BBC Llandaff. When I first worked there in 1979 the whole ‘campus’ was thriving with TV and radio studios and the BBC Club with its own bar that was packed at all hours of the day. It was there I worked with the greats of Welsh broadcasting including Carwyn James, Vincent Kane and Patrick Hannan. I still remember pinching myself one evening, waiting for a life home standing and chatting in between Lynn ‘The Leap Davies and Barry ‘The King’ John.
After a year or so of broadcasting early mornings from Cardiff it was suggested that the BBC wanted to prove its commitments to other parts of Wales by moving my show to the studios in Alexandra Road. Initially the investment would open up the old drama studios for radio broadcasts, but the plan was to also rebuild the Grand Concert Hall.
Broadcasting from Swansea meant an extra 45 mins in bed although it was always in the back of my mind there was always a worry. Were those strange noises in the darkness down to the wind or was it really the ghost of Dylan Thomas.
By the 1990’s I couldn’t have been busier. With my TV career blossoming I would divide my time between HTV Culverhouse Cross and Alexandra Road. The TV shows brought some of wonderful guests to perform in person with my band the Jacks including Lulu, Sandi Shaw and Mica Paris.
Swansea was always a little too far down the line for that calibre of in person guests. That all changed in 1995 when Swansea was given the title City of Literature. That year brought Seamus Heaney, Terry Pratchett, Allen Ginsberg and Larry Adler to town. Highlights for me included accompanying Ginsberg on his little harmonium and witnessing Larry Adler tell stories about performing for the Gershwin’s in their Manhattan Apartment. He then went on to perform ‘Summertime’ on the grand piano in the Grand Concert Hall, harmonica in one hand and playing the piano with the other.
On the road with my ‘portable’ Uher tape recorder.
Looking back now that seems to belong to a different life time. The Covid epidemic changed the face of broadcasting forever. The technology has improved so much and so quickly that it is possible to broadcast sound and pictures from your bedroom. In the meantime HTV Wales Culverhouse Cross was demolished and became a housing estate. That has now been followed by BBC Llandaff and another new collection of houses.
As the doors close on the BBC in Alexandra Road it would be easy to assume that this is the end of the story, but I still think back to that 13 year old seeing that broken down Concert Studio in 1974 and dreaming it would one day come alive again…and I’m still a dreamer!