Peter Dimmock Presenting Sportsview
Since the beginning of television in the UK, one man stands out as the person reponsible for creating programmes which attracted millions of viewers to this relativley new service in the 1950s.
That person was Peter Dimmock CVO,CBE
Many of the pages in this website will be dedicated to his work at the BBC.
In November 2011 I travelled up to the home of Peter Dimmock in Norfolk to talk to him about the pioneering Television Outside Broadcasts he oversaw in the nineteen fifties and sixties. I first met Peter Dimmock in 1969 in his office at Kensington House , Shepherds Bush. At that time he was in charge of one of the biggest departments in the BBC Television Outside Broadcasts had three divisions, Sport, Events and – Science and Features. I had just left school and Peter Dimmock gave me some good advice about my chosen career.
If there was a title of Mr Outside Broadcast UK it would have to go to Peter Dimmock. He started his career at the BBC in 1947 at Alexandra Palace. One of the first jobs he had was to cue Jasmine Bligh on the steps of Alexandra Palace when she welcomed viewers back to the BBC Television Service after the Second World War. Peter Dimmock went on to direct and produce many ground-breaking outside broadcasts, eventually becoming head of the BBC’s television outside broadcast department in 1954. In 1974 he moved to BBC Enterprises and two years later to ABC in the USA.