[BITList] Sight for square eyes

[John Feltham]

To read this Life of the Day complete with a picture of the subject,
visit http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/lotw/2013-12-29



Hersee,  George  (1924-2001), television engineer, was born on 29 December 1924 at Orchard Cottage, Loxwood, near Wisborough Green, Sussex, the son of Ernest Alfred George Hersee, estate clerk, and later master grocer, and his wife, Florence Lillian, nee Harris, shop assistant. He had a brother, James, and sister, Irene. George, known as Peter to his family, had an interesting and varied childhood. A boyhood friend recalled how he tried to take aerial photographs by attaching a camera to balloons. He was educated at Elm Grove School, Littlehampton. He obtained a bursary to Chichester High School for Boys, and from 1942 read physics at University College, Southampton. There he joined the army cadets.

In 1944 Hersee left university and went to work for EMI; he spent five years working there before embarking on the career move that enabled him to make his mark on the history of broadcasting: he joined the BBC studio installation and planning department in 1949. This department was responsible for acquiring and assembling all the equipment needed to form the link between the microphone, camera, and transmitter, and Hersee's unit was responsible for the expansion into television. Studio resources were growing, not just in London but in Wales, Scotland, and the English regions. Locations such as Alexandra Palace, Lime Grove, Birmingham, and Television Centre all benefited from his expertise, and he soon began his specialization in television test cards. On 29 April 1957 he married Audrey Florence Mayers, whom he had met through the BBC rambling club. She was two years his junior, and the daughter of Arthur Mayers, linotype operator. They had two daughters, Carole and Gillian.

In the very early days of television, cameras were primitive; however, as technology advanced, it became necessary to have a test card at which the camera could be pointed to check the technical performance of the transmission from studio to viewer. Experiments with colour television had been taking place in the 1950s, but it was not until the mid-1960s that it became apparent that the BBC would be able to launch a proper fully fledged colour television service. A new test card would therefore be needed. This gave Hersee and the rest of the committee in charge of the new design (including representatives from both the BBC and the Independent Broadcasting Authority, and also BREMA, the organization representing television engineers) several headaches. Because of the way the eye responds to human flesh tone, it was essential that a human being should appear somewhere in the new card. The idea of an adult model in a swimsuit on a beach had been floated and a prototype was photographed, but it was thought that hairstyles, makeup, and clothing would all date very quickly. It was therefore decided that a child should be used. Another irksome requirement was the need to know-within, say, 5 per cent-where the centre of the picture was (for static convergence checks). There was relief all round when someone suggested a noughts and crosses game as part of the design.

For the central picture of test card F (as the new colour test card was known), Hersee persuaded his daughters to pose for some test shots one weekend, fully expecting the committee to say that they needed to book a professional model. However they said they liked the shot of Carole, and she therefore became perhaps the most best-known face on British television (a trial slide features a close-up of his other daughter, Gillian). The X in her game of noughts and crosses marked the centre of the picture and the primary colours were represented by her red dress, a yellow tablecloth, a blue background, and a cyan clown.

Test card F remained on air on a daily basis, clocking up many more hours than any programme (perhaps over 70,000 hours) until its replacement by rolling ceefax pages in 1983. However it continued to make appearances up until the implementation of 24-hour programming. Even then, test card F was used internally to line up equipment. There were modified versions for widescreen televisions, and the Snell and Wilcox test card M used at the turn of the century still featured Carole and the noughts and crosses game. Hersee wrote 'A survey of the development of test cards used within the BBC', which was published as BBC engineering monograph number 69, in 1967.

In Farnham, where he lived, Hersee helped to establish the first 'talking newspaper' in England: he designed and built the control desk where the newspapers were recorded onto reel-to-reel tapes. The Farnham and Alton Talking Newspaper started with a circulation of 8; thirty years later it served 350.

Hersee retired from the BBC in 1979 and went to work for a small firm that dealt in lenses. In 1983 he became the honorary secretary of the Retired Engineers Luncheon Club (the Relics). He also maintained his connections with Southampton University, reviving the London branch of its graduates' association in 1949 and only missing two of the annual dinners held there in fifty years. He was described by those who knew him as always friendly, helpful, and caring. Having not enjoyed good health for a few years, he had a heart attack while he and his wife, Audrey, were out shopping, and although revived by ambulance men he suffered another attack on the following day, and died, on 11 April 2001, at the Royal Bournemouth Hospital. He was survived by his wife and their two daughters.

Paul Sawtell 

Sources  The Times (19 April 2001) + Daily Telegraph (19 April 2001) + The Guardian (21 April 2001) + The Independent (23 April 2001) + personal knowledge (2005) + private information (2005) + b. cert. + m. cert. + d. cert.
Likenesses  R. Riley, photograph, Solent News and Photo Agency [see illus.]
Wealth at death  under £200,000: probate, 8 Aug 2001, CGPLA Eng. & Wales




========================================================================
©    Oxford     University    Press,    2004.    See     legal    notice:
http://www.oup.com/oxforddnb/legal/





ooroo

Let your life lightly dance on the edges of time, like dew on the tip of a leaf.

     Rabindranath Tagore