John Wyver writes: on Thursday 13 January 1938 the schedule carried an outside broadcast from the Chiswick headquarters of the London Transport Passenger Board. The focus was the training of a London bus driver, created as what in the language of these early broadcasts was called a ‘built OB’, but the main attraction was most definitely a demonstration, undertaken in driving rain, of manoeuvres (illustrated above, from The Listener) on the slippery ‘skid pan’.
Just eight months on from the first ‘remote’ broadcast – of the Coronation procession in May 1937 – OBs were a cornerstone element in the schedule. High profile transmissions from Wimbledon, the Lord Mayor’s Parade and the Cenotaph commemorations, were now being complemented by more quotidian broadcasts, often from work places around London.
While pageantry and sports events provided their own narratives, it was necessary to dream up storylines for less elevated locations. Imaginary characters were created for this earliest form of television drama-documentary, and ‘sets’ were sometimes needed, as had been the case a decade earlier for the production of John Grierson’s foundational doicumentary film Drifters, 1929.
The broadcast was described by Peter Purbeck for The Listener:
The programme began in the office of Mr. Beavis Brindley, who is in charge of the training school at Chiswick, and showed him interviewing candidates for training as bus drivers. First there was Mr. Marshall – in real life one of the instructors at the school-who for the purpose of the broadcast was taking the part of an applicant who had had considerable experience of heavy vehicles on the Great West Road.
Marshall was interviewed and warned of the difficulty of the practical tests, before being sent outside to demonstrate his skills.
Meanwhile we watched the arrival of a second applicant for a job, a Mr. Rooth – also in real life an instructor. Rooth soon showed himself to be a very different type of man, by his general manner, his failure to remove his cap during the interview and the rather too easy confidence with which he expressed his belief in his ability to drive a bus, having previously only driven a light delivery van.
Marshall was then seen driving confidently, while Rooth began by putting his bus accidentally into reverse.
He ground his gears in heart-rending fashion; and omitted to give any hand signals at all, so that it was not surprising to find, when he returned to Mr. Brindley’s office, that he had failed his test and would not be considered for the job. Marshall, however, after he had been through the doctor’s examination, was admitted to the training school.
Marshall was also shown being taught how to reverse under perfect control and how to put his bus into a skid and, by steering into the skid, how to get it out again. Another instructor showed further demonstrations of skidding.
In its 27 January 1937 issue Wireless World carried a detailed report, with photographs, on the making of this OB:
One of the most successful outside broadcasts to date was that staged a fortnight ago at the Chiswick Works of the London Passenger Transport Board. The transmission gave the complete story of how men are selected and trained for bus driving. This entailed the erection of three miniature ‘sets’ in one of the machine shops, showing the office of the Superintendent of Instruction, the doctor’s consulting room, and a corner of a technical class-room.
Two candidates – one was a ‘stooge’ – were submitted to oral, driving and medical examination, and the result was as amusing as it was instructive. One camera remained on the set, and the other two were on the bus testing and skidding ground.
The whole transmission would have made a bright interest film, but the difficulties the television producer had to contend with were more formidable than a film director’s. Everything had to run through without a break for twenty-five minutes; a film director, would probably have spent a week on the job!
Continuity was preserved in an interesting manner. The feature opened to show the Superintendent of Instruction interviewing the first applicant; this done, the man was whisked off to the testing ground, two hundred yards away, in a fast car.
Not a long journey, but an impossible hiatus would have bèen created if viewers had had to wait until he got there, so the interval was filled up with an interview with Recruit No. 2, a very unpromising specimen. This faded over to No. l’s driving test, during which No. 2 was able to make his way to the testing ground, ready to take over while No. 1 was being rushed back for the medical examination.
It all required split-second timing, and there were no hitches. Just another day in the life of the mobile television unit.
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