Like many others, I watched the BBC’s coverage of the jubilee pageant with growing horror. But I am not here to gloat. For it is almost 30 years since the BBC last turned a national occasion into a broadcasting disaster; and I was part of the team that brought it to your screen.
Anybody remember the fireworks in Hyde Park the night before the wedding of Charles and Diana? I hope not. ITV had secretly planned full coverage, and only when ITV’s publicity machine cranked up did the BBC realise that it was missing a trick.
My producer asked if I could go to Hyde Park and be “the man in the crowd asking questions”. Then he added: “There’s lots going on so we might only come to you for 30 seconds. In fact, you’re a bit of a standby.” It wasn’t the greatest of invitations, but it seemed too good to miss.
The day did not dawn well. Every piece of TV equipment in Britain was in place for the next day’s coverage. So on a ferry from Calais arrived a French outside broadcast team complete with cameras. All that was missing was knowledge of the English language. If a cameraman cannot understand “tilt”, “pan” or “zoom”, there is little hope. If he hesitates to move his camera before finishing his Gauloise, progress is slow.
So it proved; if grave disappointment is ever to be found in a TV picture, it is of a firework that has exploded a couple of seconds before you cut to it.
Advertisement
I ended up performing for at least half an hour with a small band of ladies from Stoke-on-Trent who gave jovial answers to my increasingly flagging questions until we reached a point of mutual silence broken only when one turned to me and said: “How much are you getting paid for this?” At that point the director cut away.
Traffic was at a standstill and the Queen almost an hour late. Raymond Baxter kept the show on the road, filling as furiously as a man shovelling carefully chosen words into a growing chasm. When crowned heads from Africa and the Pacific states started to pour out of taxis, all clad in vibrant costumes weighed down with much metal adornment, poor Raymond shuffled his cue cards, struggling to recognise any of them. After an agonising pause he announced: “And now Her Majesty, greeting . . . er . . . another of our friends from the Third World.” It was truly a night to forget.
The next day I was sent to interview the women who had sewn Diana’s dress. As she stepped from the coach, the cameras cut to us and I asked: “So, are you pleased?” They all cried and spoke not a single word.
Often in broadcasting, less is more — something those who brought us the ever-sinking coverage of the Thames Pageant might do well to consider.
Paul Heiney presents Countrywise on ITV