Raymond of the Lost Archive 10# – 07/05/11

Hi,

It’s good to be back! Did you miss me?

There has been so much going on! Let me just tell you a few of the things that I’ve found since I last wrote in January.

I spent a fair bit of time trawling through the Library of Congress and UCLA archives to see if there was anything I could uncover in there. You will probably recall the massive finds made in 2010 by the BFI (with help from Kaleidoscope) and which were mentioned in Wiped News and received much press attention.

UCLA proved best; I uncovered a Late Night Line Up there from 1972 (with production footage), and an episode of A Touch of Venus. Also, the ‘semi-missing’ (i.e, not in UK archives) Rendezvous from the late ’50s and also what appears to be two missing episodes of Anita in Jumbleland.

I also set about trying to piece together the archive status of This is Tom Jones, and I am pleased to report that much of it exists in the LOC archives, in colour. This was thought not to be the case previously. I have also ascertained the existence of all of ATV’s The Jo Stafford Show from the early ’60s, residing in the National Archives of Canada.

I set my sights on English-speaking Commonwealth countries with searchable archives next. There were a few finds here and there; a Sunday Night Theatre from 1959 in the Australian archives and a A-R programme from 1965 (in Canada) have been confirmed as discoveries. I have had no success in Swedish, French, Korean and Hong Kong archives as yet. Many Australian and NZ archives shows of UK origin have not been confirmed as finds yet, due to the fact they come from areas such as current affairs and sport.

YouTube has been a great source of discoveries. I have found clips from programmes such as Opportunity Knocks, the TV Times Top Ten Awards, Saturday Banana, Magpie, Pop at the Mill, Roadshow Disco and 1975’s Hogmanay. I have also discovered some off-air recordings from a regional ITV company which are being verified, and I was delighted to have the footage I found in the Wessex Regional Archive of both Out of Town and This is Your Life confirmed as discoveries.

A few days ago, Missing Episodes Forum member David Buck found an episode of Clapperboard in a private (but searchable) archive about half an hour before I did! It’s good to know there are many people looking for footage other than myself.

And linking neatly with that, I’m really looking forward to Kaleidoscope’s event in June.

Kal are, of course the best and most active group of people looking for missing presumed wiped footage, and it will be superb to see the footage they are showing, particularly the recovered Lesley Judd Top of the Pops from 1976 – very interesting to me as this was one of the first TOTPs I recall, and this coincides with the re-runs of TOTP shows from the same year. Lesley was, of course, a Blue Peter presenter, and was asked to dance with Pan’s People. Lesley was not averse to appearing on other shows, by the way. She also appeared in Cup Final It’s a Knockout the same year (representing the mighty Southampton), as did Tony Blackburn, whose sole remaining edition of Time for Blackburn (featuring the Who and made by Southern TV) will also be shown by Kal in June.

Hope to see some of you there – mine’s a Red Bull!

Until next time,

Ray

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