Silence, please!

Tomorrow's edition of Radio 4's "Loose Ends" was being recorded in studio 80A this morning, just beyond those doors.

I was working in the adjoining Workshop 80C, mixing Alison Moyet's "Desert Island Discs" for transmission in a couple of weeks' time, and noticed this microphone on a stand in the storage area between the two. The temptation to do a blip of it couldn't be ignored, I'm afraid!

Studio 80A is the fourth incarnation of what used to be Studio 8A in the olden days, and I can still remember its second and third lives as a Drama studio. Now it's no longer used for Drama, and Radio 3's "In Tune" presented by Sean Rafferty is the main programme broadcast from it, with live classical musicians performing on the show.

From 1948 to 1967 "Mrs Dale's Diary" was recorded in there with microphones such as the STC 4038, a mic we Studio Managers used regularly until very recently. The next big drama series made in Studio 8A was the Radio 2 soap "Waggoner's Walk" from 1969 until 1980. I used to work in the same office as producer Piers Plowright, who directed some episodes of it in the 70's.

See my team-mates squinty and wingstone's blips for a peep at what was happening on the other side of the doors....