A new TV series has plundered Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Look East's archives to trace the region's most important events. The Look East Years is a four-part series which will be shown on Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ ONE at 7.30pm (GMT), starting on Wednesday 9 March 2005. The first edition revisits a landmark year for Norwich, which raised its profile as a key regional centre. In 1964, the University of East Anglia opened its lecture halls to students and the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ screened a new regional magazine programme from the city. Martin Bell The youngest member of Look East's new team was sent to cover the opening of the university, years before he would need a flak jacket to protect him while filing reports from the world's most explosive troublespots. Martin Bell went on to become one of the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ's top correspondents, but he cut his journalistic teeth in Norwich after graduating from King's College, Cambridge. Despite his success, the former reporter and one-time MP is modest about his time at Look East. "Just at the time I was leaving university, the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ had to expand to keep pace with the power of the ITV regions, as they were then," said Bell. "So they were recruiting. I was very lucky to get in by a side door without any qualifications of any kind whatsoever," he added. Controversial design The UEA's futuristic concrete structure by architect Denis Lasdun split public opinion. Ever the professional, Martin Bell kept his thoughts to himself at the time - although he is happy to share them now.
 | | The University of East Anglia |
"Suddenly we see this monstrosity going up and you think what has this got to do with East Anglia," he said. "In a city with such beautiful buildings, why have we got this thing for! I don't think we were allowed to express our views, but I certainly felt it privately." Listed building More than 40 years on and the UEA's buildings have been listed due to their architectural importance. However, UEA graduate Joseph Saunders has never needed any official endorsements to appreciate its design. As an architecture student, he was so excited by what was happening in Norwich that he travelled from Liverpool to watch the university rise from the ground. He is now the university estate development director and in charge of its upkeep. "When I came here as a student it was indeed a building site and it was a huge building site," said Saunders. "It was probably one of the biggest building sites which was going on in the country and to actually put up buildings of this sort of size with pre-cast concrete panels was very new," he added. TV challenge The 1960s was an era of major changes, but even so Look East news editor Dick Robinson found it a challenge to fill the running order each night. "In about 1964 it was decided that the regions should be able to have real programmes as opposed to short bulletins," said Dick. "It would be 20 minutes long and you could do pretty much whatever you liked as long as it was topical. "It was such a scramble every day to fill the programme, to find interesting items, to get a good spread of coverage that you didn't philosophise about the future - this was the job to be done now, the day after and the day after that and what on earth are we going to put in the programme," he added. Some things, it seems, never change. | 
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