Goodbye Television Centre
Well that is it. I have completed my final day working at BBC Television Centre, a place that has been a second home for more than a quarter of a century.
Phil CoomesPicture editor Not, I should add my last day at the BBC, as, along with half of my colleagues who work for the News website I am heading to W1, the new home of BBC News at Broadcasting House - the bright lights of central London and all that. As the BBC intends to move all staff out of Television Centre by 2013, with plans to sell the site, I doubt I'll spend much time here in the future. So I've been wandering around the building seeking out old haunts within the vast site that makes up the 13-acre site. There are many memories for me in this building, from nights in the BBC Club - including one where I ended up helping Frankie Howerd back to the head of light entertainment's office - through to photo shoots, and all the colleagues I have worked with. But let us not get sentimental. Our new home in central London is a modern glass office space, and lovely it is too. But it's new, and does not yet have the history of TVC. So I have been delving in to the photographic archive looking at pictures of the early days of the building during construction. Here are a few treasures from the archive showing the rise of Television Centre and the years that followed.