‘The Manor Mobile was the first 24-track mobile, certainly in Europe and probably in the world.
‘The original mobile was built into a standard 20ft container and had a Helios desk. The second mobile was the same type of container but contained a Neve, which was acquired when Virgin bought the old Pye mobile. No sooner was this finished than the desk was stripped out and parked in Mike Oldfield’s house to record Hergest Ridge.
‘There were several iterations after that but Phil was long gone by then.
At the time it started, the Manor was one of several UK mobiles (other included the Stones, Ronnie Lane and Island) and there was not much to be had in Europe – so we all did our share of European touring. I personally went to Paris several times to record many French artists. Most of them pretty dreadful but we did do some Johnny Hallyday concerts that were more interesting, particularly the motorcycles on the stage!
‘One funny story that is absolutely true, is that I gave them the first booking when I was working for Granada Recordings (Bob Auger). This was for a massive LWT broadcast of Mahler 8 in Ely Cathedral with Leonard Bernstein.
‘The mobile was not even finished at the time, so this was a bit of a risk anyway, but it seems they forgot to write the booking down. When I called them up to finalise the details, there was an awkward silence on the phone and I was informed that they were in Edinburgh recording somethng at the Festival so they couldn’t do it. I pressed them on the point that my booking was the first, and we finally worked out that if they drove all night they could just make it in time for the rehearsal in Ely. Normally this would not have been such a task but as Phil had chosen some particularly quirky tractor units to pull the trailers, they had a top speed of about 40mph. Anyway, they just made it and the recording was a great success.
‘There are plenty of other Manor Mobile stories that various people could recall I am sure. Simon Heyworth was also involved at that time and was certainly on the Mahler gig. He would know about the really early days before I joined the Manor.’
Chris Hollebone is presently Director of Pro-Sales-Solutions.