30 years since the start of Operation Desert Storm

I suspect overtime and other 'industrial relations' factors came into play

Going back to the 17th Jan 1991, I recall working on Question Time from the Barbican, and then booking into the world's worst hotel in Euston. As we got there on the black and white telly in what passed for reception was showing the start of the missiles being fired.
I guess that would have been around midnight.

The one thing that surprises me is that BBC Genome for that night says Question Time was from Bristol.
https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/schedules/bbcone/london/1991-01-17

So I checked my old 1991 diary, and it says Barbican and the shift times that would correspond to my memory.
I'm not going mad.
Did they move Question Time from Bristol because of what was going on in the Gulf?

For anyone interested for the ITV situation re Midweek Sport Special, the brilliant Newsflash documentary shows what happened that night from 26:10 onwards. Also worth it for John Suchet’s reaction for when they hand over to TV-am:

Yes I seem to remember that Daytime UK never really returned to its full schedule afterwards, it was a lot less complex with a much simpler schedule. It ended that summer and never returned.

A few months beforehand virtually their whole morning was pulled when Thatcher resigned , it didn't have much luck

Looking at the guest list - Robin Cook and Charles Kennedy.. MP's both

It may have been the case that Parliament was sitting, and any decision for the UK armed forces to be part of a war collition would almost have to be debated beforehand, probably taking over that afternoons scheduled business, so that may have been the thinking of the switch of locations.

Funny to think that UK channels used to use CNN like an agency feed back then.

It was a very, very unsettling time - we've become used to prime ministerial broadcasts recently but that Major one was the first one for many years and it was a real jolt.

Can't help thinking the BBC's special logo/set and those overwrought Breakfast News titles helped inspire a certain sketch on The Day Today a few years later.

ITN had their own special look and music too - bulletins every night at 8pm if I remember rightly:


(31:51 if it doesn't start, plus a Daily Telegraph ad with some sand at 30:13 that looks a bit like the ancient Fry's Turkish Delight ad...)

I'm sure that was the case, there have been other examples in recent years of Question Time moving location at the last minute because of breaking news, and as you suggest, the fact the war began that day and presumably senior figures would all have been in Parliament means moving it to London would have been an obvious response. The Barbican was the regular location for Question Time when it was in London in those days (which is was far more often, it would only go somewhere else about once a month) which was something of a step up from the Greenwood Theatre.

Peter Sissons talked about this 1990-91 series of Question Time in his book, it was the only series they ever broadcast live and it coincided with a huge period for news, especially on Thursdays. On the night Thatcher resigned, apparently there was supposed to be a Panorama special that night but it was never finished in time (Sissons says at the height of Birtism, when everything had to be double and triple-checked, the production team simply couldn't cope with the deadlines) and so Question Time volunteered to fill the gap and they did two episodes that night, and similarly they were able to extend it on the night the War began as well.

Sissons says everyone was very pleased with how exciting it was now it was live, and he was really excited with the ways things were going as they had a new editor that year who was brilliant. But then in quick succession one episode had to abruptly end after ten minutes because of a bomb scare, and then one failed to make it on air at all because of a power cut, which put paid to the live broadcasts, and then at the end of the series the Beeb announced they were contracting it out to an indie, and despite Sissons lobbying hard to keep the editor, they wanted to bring in their own, and Sissons never thought it was as good again.

The Thatcher resignation and mention of its role in the demise of Daytime UK gives us an important reminder of how fallible people's memories can be.

The Tech Ops History site has a recollection from the BBC Network Director on duty
"Margaret Thatcher resigning and having to go the News off an intro from some idiot presenter on a daytime prog in Birmingham who said ' Now for news of Margaret Thatcher's resignation, here's Moria Stuart...'"

whereas that newsflash has surfaced and looks like it was handled in a totally professional way, by Manchester.

Fuuny, I had a flip through my 1991 diary, and the 21st February entry says - Barbican and then added later - bomb hoax!

We were in the radio links truck, that was parked away from the scanner, halfway up a car park ramp for reasons I cannot remember.
I was talking to a former colleague in TC CAR when I spotted the Temporary Fault caption appear on the off air monitor.

"Have you lost our circuit Dave?" I asked in a panic.
"No, but it looks like your audience are leaving, is there a bomb?" he replied, not quite joking.

So we left, slightly later than the rest of the crew, and my colleague ended up interviewing a bemused Peter Sissons on our RT back to Swains Lane receive point while everyone milled around outside waiting to be let back in.
We never were, and the programme was abandoned for that night.

Yes, and even when they moved back into the Good Morning Britain studio, Mike Morris was still dressed in a suit jacket. (This hadn't been a thing for the male TV-am presenters previously. Guessing part of Bruce Gyngell's rules about bright, informal attire?)

Has anyone got a clip of Good Morning Britain coming from the news desk? If I remember the camera angle seems to be at the bottom on the desk looking up making the height of the desk seem massive.

I have watched some of that morning's output and there were two throws to the news - that one for the news flash and then a bit later for continuous coverage. That was introduced from Birmingham by Judi Spiers, she did the in-vision continuity for Daytime UK but she did it absolutely fine too.

However what isn't done well in that programme, 'People Today' is that after the newsflash they continue as if nothings happened, just a brief mention in the phone room. At the end of that part at 10 they finish by saying they'll be back after the news and Children's BBC, only for Judi to appear and throw to 'rolling' news coverage which looks like it continues for the rest of the morning. As it's name suggests it's remit was about people and issues and unlike programmes like This Morning, Open Air, Ann and Nick didn't have the ability to do reactive newsy stuff. Looks like it came back in the autumn of 1991 in a much shorter form and with different presenters

The only bit of luck they had was that Kilroy was live that morning and had a studio full of Tory MPs as they were going to be taking about the situation anyway

It was a bit different a few years later when the death of John Smith was announced as a newsflash during Anne and Nick, they were lucky to have a resident doctor in the studio at the time and so could have an informed discussion about heart attacks. He'd also been a guest in the programme so they had that interview to play.


Incidently Daytime UK was all co-ordinated and anchored Birmingham, it was axed as a name in 1991 but I remember seeing a phone number for it popping up on a schedule or similar in Presentation about 10 years later. I assume that the daytime schedule was still managed in Pebble Mill even though nothing came from there