Bob Longman

C R Longman (better known as Robert, or even Bob) has died. He rose through the ranks of BBC engineering from the 60s to be Controller, Engineering and Operations BBC TV. 

He was famously "on duty" at TVC as BBC2 tried to launch in 1964, and talked about it in an interview with BBC News Online in 2004. A power cut hit the building, and he remembers trying to negotiate the confusing corridors of Television Centre with a candle stuck in a paper cup as they desperately tried to find a way to get the new channel on air. "It got to about 6.30pm when I noticed that the power frequency was falling slightly... then we lost power completely,  I went around telling everyone that we would be able to sort it out and not to panic... then we found out the whole of west London had gone. I just froze and thought 'oh dear', because it was an engineering problem - my problem - and the place was packed with people.  In the end, we just sent everyone up to the BBC Club for a drink where there was emergency lighting." They spent some time trying to find some form of back up power for the scheduled 1920 BST opening, but finally had to admit defeat at midnight.  ""Michael Peacock (BBC Two controller) was quite pleased about it because, although BBC Two was known, it wasn't terribly well-known and all the following day's papers had headlines 'BBC Two Fails - Corporation to try again tonight'   It was wonderful publicity and made sure people tuned in."

He was at the heart of the BBC's move into colour transmissions in the late 60s, with a range of off-air experiments, then trial coverage of Wimbledon, and then fully on BBC2 in 1968.  There's an engineering monograph by Bob in this BBC publication from 1970

In 1974, I got a job with CEEFAX as a sub-editor. In those days, our dots and dashes were added into spare tv lines by a humming Winchester drive, which was forever crashing. So, out of hours, subs added the skill of "re-booting" to their tiny editorial efforts on the bicycle of the digital age. (I can even remember the code for re-booting, punched in on the bay after easing off the write/protect button - 5DFOX, enter, etc)    Bob would pop his head round the door of our "newsroom", 7059, on the roof of TVC most weekdays, to give us thanks and encouragement - needed on days of up to 50 "freezes" at its height. 

He was instrumental in setting up the cameras that first appeared in the House of Lords in 1983, and then were finally introduced to the Commons in 1989, and received tributes in Parliament.

• Read Bob Chaundy's much fuller obit in The Guardian here. 

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