On my first General Election results night (as a trainee) in 1974, I was deputed to tear sheets from a teleprinter in the results-newsroom-in-a-conference room (3A for those of you who know), and hand them to the lead subs for Radio 2 and Radio 4. They were the BBC's own computer predictions of the final MP tally, adjusted regularly as the night progressed, and thus different to the exit poll. Unfortunately the guide to decoding what was printed had been mislaid, so, after a few phone calls to TV Centre, I worked it out, and eventually got a line or two in some of the overnight news summaries.
At the start of the evening, our Personnel Officer quietly moved around the room with a discreet notebook. He was identifying preferred brands of cigarette, and, just before midnight, came back with two packs of 20 for all of us.
One of our top duty editors complained to the technical guys that it was hard to listen to output, and was quickly provided with a neat new transistor radio and headphones. It was his daughter's birthday the following morning. The radio never made it back to stores.
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