"This is the BBC Television Service"

Those words will be instantly recognisable to anyone from my age up to around 40 as the start of the title sequence of Going Live! (don't forget the exclamation mark - very important).  Those black-and-white clips of men in white coats waving their hands about and turning knobs form some of my earliest TV memories, but it was only many years later I discovered that it was footage of the very first television broadcasts from Alexandra Palace.  Last weekend Kate and I visited the very studios where it all began as part of the 75th anniversary of those first broadcasts.

I've always had a soft spot for Ally Pally.  I love the way it towers over north London, the way you see it from the train when heading north and the fact it seems to keep catching fire or being threatened with closure only to survive (in fact the pub at the side of the palace was until recently called "The Phoenix").  One of my first visits to London - for some MHP drinks - was at the palace, coinciding with the traditional Guy Fawkes Night firework display (we'd been due to to the same thing the previous year but after Miss World was moved to Ally Pally at short notice we went to a Wetherspoons in Wood Green instead.  And there are few more depressing phrases than "Wetherspoons in Wood Green").  Three years later and Kate and I were back at the fireworks after moving into nearby Highgate, and the following year saw more MHP drinks there. Finally in 2008 we moved into our current flat from which you can see the mast from our balcony.  I swear the place is following us around.

Naturally we jumped at the chance to have a look around the original studio.  Despite continuing attempts to turn it into a kind of "museum of television" it is closed to the public most of the time, with only occasional tours available to small groups.  This weekend's tours were booked up within a day or two of being advertised online but being locals we decided to head up to Ally Pally anyway to see the exhibition part of the event.  When we got there we were surprised to hear there were spaces on a tour the following afternoon, which we duly snapped up.

So come the following day we were taken through the "BBC Tower Reception" entrance, up some windy, narrow stairs (obviously no health and safety in those days) and into Studio A - where it all began.  The BBC stopped making programmes there in 1981 (yes, that late!) so it's just a shell today, but it's impossible not to be slightly humbled at the weight of history that the place contains when you walk in.  The Alexandra Palace Television Society have done a good job of displaying a few items to look at when you're there.  There's a mock-set for "Picture Page" at one end, lots of information on the walls about the history of the place, a couple of period cameras and a presentation area (surrounded by TVs from over the years) at the other end of the studio.

I have to admit it was bigger than I was expecting - apparently the rooms were originally banquet halls.  Certainly it's tiny by the standards of much that can be found at White City, Waterloo and Wembley but I guess what you have to remember is that, in conjunction with Studio B next door, this was where everything happened - production, transmission, and everything in between - for the formative years of the BBC Television Service.  When considering the amount of meetings, committees, working parties, consultants and general faffing about it takes to put anything on air in TV today, it's a sobering and humbling thought that these studios and the handful of offices nearby were responsible for a few hours of mostly live television a day, every day, for many years. You can read memories of these pioneering days from someone who was there at the time on Arthur Dungate's website, and the broader picture over at Transdiffusion.

Following BBC TV's expansion into other buildings, Ally Pally's studios became the home first of BBC Television News and then to the Open University, before finally closing in 1981.  You can see a picture of Studio A when it closed here.  It actually looks quite respectable on the final day of operation so has clearly been stripped of anything of any worth in the intervening thirty years.  It's a real shame that the studios sit, if not unloved, then unappreciated and hidden away from view.  They deserve better than that.

You can see a panorama of Studio A that I took on my Generic Mobile Phone Device here.