So Long, Bush House

Published on 18 February 2005 in Work, BBC, BBC red button, Bush House

January 2000 and I’m sitting in the imposingly grand reception of Bush House waiting for someone to let me in on my first day of work. George Alagiah walks past. It feels rather strange.

Five years later and I’ve just left for the final time. On Monday it’s time for a new life in the BBC’s Media Village at White City.

Bush House has been a fantastic building to work in. It’s cosy yet large, grand, imposing and impressive, yet comfortable with a real sense of history. And the walk to get there via Waterloo Bridge – well, just divine.

But the end, well it had to come. We had to be out by noon, and at half eleven I went for a walk to some of the places I’d worked in the past.

On the fifth – just below my last desk, the odd bit of rubble left over as the only sign that for many years, this was the home of interactive TV tech team.

On the fourth floor (mostly still occupied – for now) I chatted to Lee as we remembered our early years in the Beeb as coders.

On the second, the place was locked due to potential asbestos…

And back on the sixth, time for one last look around before we headed off at noon for our last lunch and our last chance to enjoy the hostilaries of central London.

From Monday, it’s west London, a scarily large number of BBC people and an office that, for some unknown reason, has been designed with as few walls as possible.