on BBC4 which I watched by default as there was fuck all else on - The Thirties In Colour looked at wonderful old cine film taken by delightful Rosie Newman and featuring the first ever video of Elizabeth and Margaret as they were then (with no likelihood of inheriting the crown) as well as terrific footage of India, Scotland, Egypt and - not enough - Morocco in 1928, her first attempt and quite fascinating to someone who knows the country so well.

I'd love to see the entire film of that trip.

Super TV - one of those "don't blink or you'll miss a gem" shows.

Incredible though isn`t it?
We have personal documentation on film from the thirties of the royals, Hitler in colour and some idiot "lost" the BBC moon landing tapes from 1969.(BBC4 last Sunday)

I would not go into a conspiracy theory about their missingness,(yahey!I invented a word!) but I would hazard a penny bet that the master tapes of the event have "fallen down the back ", of some obscure dark and probably wet shelf.

A dream job would be to sort out and view the BBC archives, from whence I would probably return , white haired and bearded ten years later, break two stone tablets in half, stamp a wooden staff on the ground outside the Beeb, and yell "IT IS DONE!"

(Is 90k a year ok for this??)

Mart wrote:
Incredible though isn`t it?
We have personal documentation on film from the thirties of the royals, Hitler in colour and some idiot "lost" the BBC moon landing tapes from 1969.(BBC4 last Sunday)


Unfortunately, the Moon landing is the tip of the iceberg as far as the BBC "losing" or wiping tapes. It seems preposterous and outrageous that they could "lose" such a historic moment but until 1978, the BBC - and many ITV stations as well - had this policy whereby two years after the original transmission, tapes would be wiped. Why? Back then repeats cost a lot of money, not to mention Equity fees and Equity would demand higher fees for a repeat after two years.

The junking began in earnest at the end of the 60s. BBC employees were given lists and the archives were cleared out. Videotapes were recycled and film recordings, thrown into skips and sent to rubbish tips or thrown into a furnace. However, some members of staff secretly smuggled films and tapes out the archive to prevent them from being destroyed and occasionally, items do turn up.

Sadly though, this means there are enormous gaps in the archive. Some examples...

Juke Box Jury ran for 8 years from 1959 to 1967. All that's left are two shows from late 1960.

Thank Your Lucky Stars ran for 5 years, 1961 to 1966. Just three are left, one from 1963 and 2 from 1966.

Top Of The Pops... of the first ten years, 1964 to 1974, just around 20 shows are left, 4 from the 1960s...

That's just music shows, but it goes across the board... current affairs, comedy and drama serials were treated in the same way, some better than others. Either way, you get an idea of just how much history has been lost. Whilst one can never guess what may suddenly turn up again, sadly the BBC archive will never be complete.

Typically these wipings came to a halt in 1978, the very year that home video recorders became affordable, hence home video recordings from before 1978 are few and far.

One of my aging relatives was a BBC techie, I must check his memoirs on this subject.
It is fascinating though, I fail to believe these missing tapes did not go home with somebody at some point.
One of my first jobs was printing publicity material for , bands, etc , pretty much everything.
I brought the Alvin Stardust original artwork home, from his first campaign.
You guessed it, I no longer have it. In many lofts around the UK, I bet these "lost" tapes exist.

From the Guardian

BC4's historical documentary series The Thirties in Colour debuted with a record audience for a new factual show on the digital channel last night, Wednesday July 16.

The first of the four-part series, featuring archive material of amateur film-makers, averaged 653,000 viewers from 9pm, according to unofficial overnight figures, a 3.6% share in multichannel homes.

A statistic that every home film maker should note.

Even Ian Hyland (who's excellent) in today's News of the World raves about Thirties In Colour - the smash series of the month.