open.bbc.co.uk/catalogue/infax

It's a pity that programmes like BUBBLEGUM KING are at the moment not available for listening.

BBC have had people archiving for some time now through their huge vaults. It's also an interesting way of finding out what's been "borrowed"

The record library has been plundered badly over the years. Being a "library" they used to lend stuff out to the various BBC staff (Still do) and if anything didn't get returned there was a fine of 30p or something stupid. hence all the rare punk/pub rock/soul/freakbeat singles went missing. After a while they shut the stable door (long after the horse had gone) and anything reasonably rare, is now locked up!

A couple of years ago I viewed the archive myself, all in these huge moving shelves.I wanted to photograph a few singles for CD sleeve notes. Each 45 I wanted was "missing" but still had a space where it should have been and evidence that it was there at some point.

One or two notorious sellers on ebay regularly have 45s listed there stamped by the BBC. Ok the BBC did clear out excess copies a few years ago to Reckless records in London, keeping a maximum of 2 copies of each title, which gives these sellers an explanation.

It just seems strange that it's been a few years since the last record cull and suddenly extremely rare soul and freakbeat records appear on ebay. They are always from the same dealers, all BBC library stamped and all of those titles are no longer in the BBC archives, which suggests they were not from any recent clearout !

I dread to think what the TV and sound archive has had done to it over the years...