Photo Album-England
After
leaving Colne, I came back.
| ...regularly, by steam train, to see mum and
have meals cooked for me and have my laundry done. Then it was a 1946 Morris
eight series E, a Sunbeam Talbot 90 MKIIA, a mini, Triumph Spitfire MK
III, Spitfire MK IV, Triumph 2000 (seen below) Vauxhall Astra, two
Cavaliers, Belmont GSI, Toyota MR2, Peugeot 306, Peugeot 406, Peugeot 406 Coupe. |
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My mum and step father outside their
retirement home at 34 Granville Street Colne. Sadly, they did not enjoy it
for long. Mum died of a massive cerebral haemorrhage and Stanley took his
own life not long after. |
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Also at Granville Street. Colne, this was my
mum with my two sons, and Auntie Mary who lived most of her post war life
in Hull with her husband, Sydney Blackhurst.
Sadly, they are all no longer with us. Mary died in 1990
and Sydney in 2005. |
| In
my youth in the late 1950's, my nick name was Bakerlite, which I hated.
Now, it serves as my trading name and doesn't seem half so bad! A career
that has ended up in lighting has been the perfect excuse for a little
resurrection of that name.
As a teenager
my only desire was to work for the BBC. I wrote letters, forsook
University (much to the disgust of my career teacher), and eventually
attended an interview in Manchester, where I was offered a job, in London.
More of
that here
1972 had me married and about to have our first born. He shall be called
Richard, and (now 32 years old) he gave me the software to construct this
web site for Christmas! His business is actually designing websites for a
living, check out his home site at Sequence.co.uk
Outside Broadcasts were the name of the
game, I travelled far and wide making such gems as 'It's a Knockout' and
'The Good Old Days' along with a good helping of 'Rugby League' with Eddie
Waring, and Racing from Haydock Park, 'Come Dancing', 'Gardeners World',
'One Man and his Dog', 'Songs of Praise', and much, much more. Indoors, we
made 'Tich and Quackers', 'The Simon Dee Show', (whatever happened to
him?), 'Nairns North, Juke Box Jury, and many, many, more long forgotten
shows.
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| It was whilst doing a football match
somewhere that I realised that whilst I enjoyed many aspects of Outside
broadcasts, there was one that I did not enjoy. The actual work that I was
paid to do. Time to move on...... Thus I entered the rarified world of
lighting. Great fun, creative, challenging, but less overtime. Manchester
opened its 'New Broadcasting House' and needed Lighting Console Operators
for its new squeaky clean Studio 'A'. Suffice to say, I enjoyed it and
wanted more. More lighting and more money.
And so it came to pass that the Baker
family (now four of us) were to move even further north, to Glasgow in 1977
for five interesting years gathering experience as a TMII. (BBC speak for
junior lighting director with a bit of management thrown in.) Great fun
and lots of experience to prepare me for the long leg south, to the
principality of Wales.
That was 1982, the year that
Wales was to get its own TV service with Welsh language programmes
in peak hours and that was my opportunity to join BBC Wales as a TMI (work
it out) for 13 years of hair greying activity and working with lots of
interesting people. My experience base broadened into outside Broadcasts,
location drama and much, much more besides!
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| 1997 was the year of my release into the great outside. I was now a
Freelance. Nothing free about that, time to earn money. Patchy first year,
then steady work in Studios, Outside Broadcasts and training
for BBC Evesham and also Turkish Television and
Cyprus Broadcasting. Hobbies
Here we are in 2005, and I am in front of my 'Home Office'. A P.C.,
currently a 1.8 gig Athlon processor coupled with an Epson Photo R2400 printer, and an
Epson 2400 flatbed scanner. In between work, my hobbies include photography
and cycling with a bit of gardening thrown in.
Digital photography particularly fascinates me, I now
have a Canon EOS 20D digital SLR which gives stunning image quality. Previously,
I had Fuji digital cameras. More of that in my photographic area
here.
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