Rosemary Gill, who has died aged 80, was one of the original team of three responsible in 1963 for reshaping Blue Peter, the magazine show for children, and making it one of the most successful and enduring programmes on BBC Television.
Rosemary Gill (left) in the Blue Peter office with Edward Barnes and Biddy Baxter
It had started in 1958 as a cheap and cheerful 15-minute filler, but the content (while worthy) was thin, and in late 1962 the producers Edward Barnes and Biddy Baxter were drafted in to beef it up. When Biddy Baxter was called for jury service in January 1963 Rosemary Gill, who was working as an assistant floor manager, was brought in to help during her absence.
In the event she stayed for 10 years, becoming a producer when the programme went bi-weekly in 1964 and adding her distinctive brand of quirkiness and eccentricity.
Under the influence of the new creative trio of Barnes, Baxter and Gill (Biddy Baxter was appointed editor in 1965), Blue Peter flourished. New presenters Valerie Singleton, John Noakes and Peter Purves were brought in, and the audience of children encouraged to share in the programme’s uplifting ethos of compassionate concern for less fortunate youngsters, particularly in developing countries.
In 1976 Rosemary Gill moved to Multi-Coloured Swap Shop, a completely unscripted, unrehearsed programme which she produced, and which ran non-stop between 9.30 and 12.30 every Saturday morning. The show was based on her notion that children enjoyed swapping things. Noel Edmonds was to be the presenter, there would be a purple puppet dinosaur called Posh Paws (actually Pohs Paws – Swap Shop backwards).
A lunch was arranged for Rosemary Gill to meet Noel Edmonds, who was then a Radio 1 star with very little television experience. Initially there was fierce opposition to the proposed programme from some branches of the BBC. No one had ever made a totally unscripted, unrehearsed, studio-based television programme before, and there were fears that the corporation’s high standards would be eroded.
But under Rosemary Gill’s leadership the programme not only thrived but met with all-round acclaim. Behind its mix of pop hits, toy swaps conducted by telephone, and apparently spontaneous zany features, was a carefully thought-out and meticulously planned operation. For the first time it also offered children the chance to phone-in to interview star guests. The Labour prime minister, James Callaghan, was one of those invited into the hot seat.
Casting around for a replacement when Edmonds left, Rosemary Gill remembered that as children she and her sister had loved playing shop. So Saturday Superstore, with Mike Reid as the store manager, became the new Saturday morning show. Bill Cotton, then controller of BBC One, was amazed that such a strange and bizarre notion should have worked so well from its first transmission
Rosemary Ffolkes Gill was born in London on December 17 1930. Her father was a schoolmaster who met her mother when he was a patient and she was a nurse at Craiglockhart, the hospital for shell-shock victims of the First World War made famous by Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon.
The Gill family lived in Camden Town but Rosemary and her sister Hazel were educated at St Paul’s Girls’ School. The sisters regularly attended Sadler’s Wells Theatre and when Hazel left school to join the BBC in 1945, Rosemary followed three years later.
After working initially in radio at Broadcasting House, the sisters moved simultaneously to Alexandra Palace to join the fledgling television service. Rosemary Gill became secretary to three producers, one of whom was Cliff Michelmore.
In 1955 she was appointed to one of the newly-created posts of assistant floor manager, working on children’s drama, Music for You, as well as on major ballet programmes. It was at this time that she met Edward Barnes, who subsequently co-opted her onto the Blue Peter team.
Rosemary Gill was always able to strike up an instant rapport with children, and was genuinely interested in them and in what they had to say. One of her prized possessions was a huge Edwardian dolls’ house for which she had made all the miniature furniture and props herself. She was an avid collector of Staffordshire china and an enthusiastic painter of landscapes, her friends and their dogs. Her own much-loved dog, Flora, pre-deceased her by two days.
Rosemary Gill, who died on February 22, was engaged in her late teens but her fiancé was killed in a submarine accident while serving with the Royal Navy. She never married.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/8360327/Rosemary-Gill.html
Casting around for a replacement when Edmonds left, Rosemary Gill remembered that as children she and her sister had loved playing shop. So Saturday Superstore, with Mike Reid as the store manager, became the new Saturday morning show. Bill Cotton, then controller of BBC One, was amazed that such a strange and bizarre notion should have worked so well from its first transmission
Rosemary Ffolkes Gill was born in London on December 17 1930. Her father was a schoolmaster who met her mother when he was a patient and she was a nurse at Craiglockhart, the hospital for shell-shock victims of the First World War made famous by Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon.
The Gill family lived in Camden Town but Rosemary and her sister Hazel were educated at St Paul’s Girls’ School. The sisters regularly attended Sadler’s Wells Theatre and when Hazel left school to join the BBC in 1945, Rosemary followed three years later.
After working initially in radio at Broadcasting House, the sisters moved simultaneously to Alexandra Palace to join the fledgling television service. Rosemary Gill became secretary to three producers, one of whom was Cliff Michelmore.
In 1955 she was appointed to one of the newly-created posts of assistant floor manager, working on children’s drama, Music for You, as well as on major ballet programmes. It was at this time that she met Edward Barnes, who subsequently co-opted her onto the Blue Peter team.
Rosemary Gill was always able to strike up an instant rapport with children, and was genuinely interested in them and in what they had to say. One of her prized possessions was a huge Edwardian dolls’ house for which she had made all the miniature furniture and props herself. She was an avid collector of Staffordshire china and an enthusiastic painter of landscapes, her friends and their dogs. Her own much-loved dog, Flora, pre-deceased her by two days.
Rosemary Gill, who died on February 22, was engaged in her late teens but her fiancé was killed in a submarine accident while serving with the Royal Navy. She never married.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/8360327/Rosemary-Gill.html
No comments:
Post a Comment