In February, TVBEurope published an article on how the team at BBC Wales resurrected the BBC’s Computer Originated World (COW) to help mark EastEnders’ 40th anniversary. We had lots of feedback from readers who enjoyed taking a trip back in time.
Now, we’re able to go back even further to when the idents were all mechanical models filmed by a black and white camera with colour added electronically. The motor used to spin the globe has an unlikely connection to many of the graphics we see on TV screens today.
It was created by William Lambton Leak, owner of Enicron Ltd in Bicester, Oxfordshire. His son Russell has gone on to work in the TV industry and is currently senior customer success manager for Vizrt. But Russell wasn’t aware just how influential his dad was until his sister had a clearout at her home in Australia.
“She found a clipping of my dad from the local paper in Oxford,” he explains. “Dad’s company built and sold electronic motors throughout Europe and the world. One of his claims to fame, and the thing that he had in the entrance to his office when you went in, was that his electronic motor turned the BBC globe.
“When I saw that newspaper clipping it brought up a couple of memories for me of going into Dad’s office and seeing the globe, and as a kid, wanting to touch it and poke it. The model was silver and black, and I remember saying to my Dad, when you see it on TV, it’s gold and blue, how do they do that? And he just said it was some camera trickery.”
Leak Senior didn’t have a background in TV, but that didn’t stop him from bragging about his exploits to potential customers. “He would say, the BBC used our electronic motor and here’s the proof. I often wonder what happened to that BBC model. It would be worth something now.”
Russell isn’t sure whether his father’s role in creating the ident inspired his own career in TV but he remembers his Dad telling people that his son carried on where he left off. “Before I saw the clipping I’d never even thought about it, but it might subconsciously have inspired me.”
There is a slight caveat to this story as Leak says his Dad was something of a character. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he made it all up and got that BBC model and just told his customers that,” he laughs. “But, I remember a piece on Tomorrow’s World about the new computer-generated ident (COW) and my brother saying, that’s Dad’s motor out the window. My brother’s comment sort of corroborates that it happened, and he knew that it was part of the family history.”
Russell’s own TV career has been heavily involved in computers, something his Dad often found difficult to understand. “Dad was a brilliant engineer with a brilliant mind for invention, and able to do great things, but when it came to computer generation, he was completely lost,” he recalls. “I got into computer programming at school, and I remember having to help him with his emails.
“When he saw what we were doing with graphics he had no concept of how that was created. To him that was part of Hollywood. He retired and lived in Ireland, and the guy who helped him out would introduce me by saying I’d just flown in from Hollywood, which was not the case. I’d flown in from Luton Airport!”
Those generational differences are something Russell is now navigating with his own children and he’s seeing echoes of his Dad. “It’s funny, my six-year-old loves to take things apart and work out how they work. He’ll ask, why does that connect to that? It’s something you’re born with in some respects, that engineer’s brain to look at things in a different way.
“My brain never stops, and I’m always thinking about technology, and how technology can help people, and how I can improve workflows,” he continues. “That’s one of the things I love about my job, working with TV companies and saying, how are we going to do this, or how we’re going to make this work, or make it better.”
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