The official logo of Cy.B.C.

Older readers of this august journal may remember that many moons ago, I wrote of my exploits in this rather civilised part of the middle east: Cyprus. That was the result of me having been awarded a modest sum of money, about £1400, from a Commonwealth Fellowship Scheme (remember when ‘we’ used to have a Commonwealth?) to live for seven weeks in the island whilst liaising with the host Broadcaster: the one and only Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation.

 It rolls off the tongue don’t you think? Sounds a bit familiar? And that’s because many years ago, whilst ‘we’ were still governing the island, Aphrodite's’ Broadcasters consulted Auntie as to how it should run its Television operation. They have a Director General and used to have a T.O.M. (Technical Operations Manager) who used to do all the lighting, and, dear readers, had been trained in lighting (in monochrome days) by the Beeb in London town and Evesham by the Woods.

 And, lo, in 19 hundred and 86 yours truly spent seven weeks suffering warm sunshine, ouzo and many mezes updating varying numbers of cameramen, electricians and others, in the joys of lighting for colour TV with clapped out 2K’s and dodgy pantographs.

 And it came to pass, in these the first days of the third millennium, your correspondent was summoned yet again to give of his meagre knowledge in the eastern end of the Mediterranean. This time, it was in my capacity as a freelance with my price pitched somewhere between your London daily rate, and an urn full of drachma (Cyprus pounds, actually, another inheritance of ‘our’ Colonial past)

 Cy.B.C. has the same problem as many other Broadcasters in that it is now run by accountants; and apart from the fact that I’ve never met a poor one, my main grouse is that I have not yet met an accountant who can assess the QUALITY of a TV programme, or, more to the point, the quality of it’s lighting.

 About a cubit of days ago, not long after my ‘Turkish Delight’ experience, an East Mediterranean birdie told me of a new studio in Nicosia, and also of new lighting people that were young and keen, as 50+year olds tend not to be. However, this 50+year old was very keen to get out there to share his experience. As can be seen by these pictures of British cars, the climate has a preservative effect, will it work on me?

Many E-mails and phone calls later, dates were fixed and I was suddenly in the position of realising that only a small percentage of my lighting training notes were up to date. Some of my Freelance work is spent doing associate lecturing at Evesham by the Wood (Norton). I have often been there offering support to lecturers such as Tim Wallbank who, incidentally, was the ‘main man’ on our training trip to Istanbul last year.

 But this time, Michael is in the cold light of sole trader, on my own, all to play for and all to lose. Having got over the euphoria the prospect of a Springtime visit to the Island of Aphrodite, the cold reality of preparation for two solid weeks of lighting training hits the back of ones neck like a wet towel.

 And like all you other freelancers, other programmes have to be serviced as well; so what seemed like a long lead time to early April diminished faster than a BBC monthly pension payment.

 There is one thing that I seemed to get right during my career. I have always taken pictures of any interesting lighting set ups for which I have been responsible. All these pictures ended up in a box for many years. Once working in the field of training, however, I quickly realised that one picture is worth a thousand words. So, the photos came out of the box and my computer burnt midnight electricity for many moons. Well, quite a few chargeable days, anyway.

 Now I know that my friend John Watt would probably not agree with me, but I happen to think that computers can be very useful, and never more so than when you are dealing with distant countries and you are wanting instant answers, hence E-mail. (In fact, I believe that John has now succumbed to e-mail) Unfortunately, although ones E-mails are sent at the speed of a derigging spark, they do not necessarily get an instant response. The manyana syndrome is somewhat endemic in many Mediterranean countries, and Cyprus is no exception. My many questions about facilities and lighting kit were eventually answered but only after some old-fashioned telephone calls.

“How many students”, I asked Chrysanthos, head of TV Studios and my main contact at CyBC. “Well, it might be three or four, or possibly as many as 8”. Now I am of the school of thinking that lots of planning and preparation usually repays itself, so I beavered away at the hot beige box preparing handouts and overheads, thinking that a little headroom, say, 10 should cover all contingencies. In my dreams!