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Here's what Â鶹Éç staff past and present have to say about those wonderful 80's...

I remember the floor manager doing an emergency stop, that thing where he looks like heÂ’s slitting his throat, so I stopped talking, but unfortunately the cameras were still running and I looked like an idiot! One day we got so many phone calls that the switchboard almost blew up!
Tim Stevens, Presenter, Untied Shoelaces Show

I worked on The Garden Party as a Floor Manager and remember having loads of communication problems when we had some blind bowlers on. It was a fantastic show and a great experience.
Jacqui McAlpine

I remember at the age of twelve being very excited and getting all dressed up to come into the studio to see the Untied Shoelaces Show. It was great!
Jennifer, Tea Bar

In the mid-eighties news footage was still shot on film, and processed in a lab in the basement of the Â鶹Éç. The film used was Reversal stock, (i.e. there was no negative) which meant that the film used in the camera was handled throughout processing, editing and transmission.
Editors sometimes wore white gloves when handling the film, to minimise the risk of scratches and dust. You could sometimes tell if the editor had been wearing a woolly jumper!
There was a story that years before, an assistant editor had gone into the loos to find a distraught editor washing that night's news story in the sink, as he had spilled a sugary coffee all over the rushes.
The stress involved in putting the news together was physical as well as mental, since an editor's speed in working with the material (without damaging it) could be crucial. Once all the news stories had been assembled together onto a large reel, it was the job of the assistant editor to run with it to VT. It was forbidden to use the lift to get there, as there was always the danger that the night's news story would end up stuck in a lift in Queen Margaret Drive.
Occasionally the Reversal stock used was double sprocketed (which meant it had holes in both sides). On one occasion the newsreader announced the "and finally" story about a gifted dog, and cut to the news footage which showed a dog walking on the ceiling... the editor had cut the sequence in a great rush and the material was upside down.
Hilary McCusker Thomson, Editor, River City (previously Assistant Film Editor)

The first time I came into Broadcasting House in Glasgow was as an audience member for Â鶹Éç2 youth discussion show Open To Question. It must have been sometime in the mid to late 80s (I think I was about sixteen). My strongest memory is of being taken to the canteen to get the free dinner I was entitled to. I had recently turned vegetarian and was shocked and appalled to discover that the proscribed 'vegetarian option' was a ham salad. I complained (in a small voice) to the dinner lady but got nowhere.
Ciaran Cruickshank

I remember Floor Managing F.S.D. in 1982. It was a new style of show in Studio A featuring new bands: Hue & Cry, Wet Wet Wet, Love & Money, Goodbye Mr Mckenzie, The Skids....ah! memories. Who could forget The Untied Shoelaces Show? I Floor Managed the show during the mid 80s. Tiger Tim Stevens presenting....and screaming kids everywhere....what a way to spend the school holidays!
Allan Ramsay, Floor Manager

I remember as a schoolchild visiting Studio A on two occasions for a programme called Open to Question. This put a celeb or politician on the spot and quite literally open to our razor sharp questions. The first time was to question Cecil Parkinson...and to be honest I wasn't exactly thrilled about speaking to him....but it was an exciting experience otherwise for a teenager. The second programme was much more to my taste... Billy Connolly! Our school wasn't actually due to be in the audience for him, but several other schools pulled out at the last minute due to parents objections. Some poor harrassed audience researcher called my English teacher..and thirty minutes later we were off in the minibus. A daft little thing... we had to phone in our questions (meant to be two each from each pupil) but due to lack of time Mr Oswald, the teacher, told me to make them up for everybody. Guess what?... every other member of the party got to ask a question apart from me! I was gutted! Anyway... what a programme. Mr Connolly was on fine form, and they couldn't shut him up! He went on and on, so much so that a programme was made of the out-takes called Billy Connolly - Out of the Question!....and believe me he was, but what a laugh.
Paul Bradley, Producer, Off The Ball

I remember as a young girl being all excited because I was finally getting into the Â鶹Éç. We came in to the audience of The Untied Shoelaces Show and I'll never forget seeing Dexy's Midnight Runners perform "Come On Eileen". My friend and I used to dance outside the big windows at the receptions hoping that one day we would be discovered!
Louise Lindsay