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BBC Treasure Hunt As
some of you may be aware, over the last twelve months or so, the BBC has been
running a treasure hunt for television and radio programmes that for various
reasons, they no longer have a copy of in their archives. They have had various
successes over this period of time and indeed some of you may have seen the two
episodes of Dad’s Army over Christmas that had been languishing in somebody’s garden shed after
being rescued from a skip at Elstree film studios. Various radio programmes such as Hancock’s Half
Hour have also been recovered and this is where you come in. I
recently had a meeting with Mike Harding about preserving some tapes that I had
made of performances by Harry Boardman with a view to placing them in an
archive. This project is ongoing and I’ll be giving more details in a later
edition of Folk North West magazine and also on the website. One question I asked Mike was
how much archive material the BBC held of radio programmes like 'Folk on Friday' and the
answer was a very disappointing ‘not very much’. Indeed many recordings of
programmes have been junked – programmes that held live performances that we
are no longer able to listen to. This has set me thinking – I have the odd copy of a Folk on Two concert somewhere and maybe a couple of recordings of Piccadilly Folkspan with Harry Ogden that I made to get some songs from. It is quite possible that you also have recordings that you have made in the past and forgotten about. What you can do is let us know here at Folk North West what you may have in your collection. We don’t want a copy of it yet but if you can send us details of what you’ve got then we can make a database of this information and approach the BBC or whoever to check if they still have a copy in their archives and whether they would be interested in having a copy returned to them. I have been in contact with the BBC and they have told me the following: ....
there are some gaps in the Archive. We
would be interested in details of any recordings of shows that featured live
concerts or live sessions from before 1984. Please tell us as much as possible about what you have – what the show is, when it was broadcast, who was presenting it and who was performing. The earlier the show was broadcast, the more likely it is that there is no record of it in the archives and it is likely that anything pre 1984 would be worth enquiring further about. There is also a thread that I posted on the Mudcat forum that is worth looking at Please
send any information in to us either in an email to the website at archives@folknorthwest.co.uk
or by post to me at the following address: Mark Dowding 143 Southport Road Ormskirk Lancashire L39 1LW or telephone me on 01695 576215 Good Hunting! You never know – you may be hanging on to a piece of broadcast history that no longer exists anywhere else!
UPDATE 17/04/2002
I have had several very good responses from the Mudcat forum where some people have acquired various reels of tape - some appear to be BBC tapes - not surprising as many tapes get junked so someone is bound to pick them up and take them home.
Whilst the Treasure Hunt has officially finished, it is still possible to return tapes to the BBC.
I have had this response to my latest contact with the BBC:
...However,
although the campaign has closed this does not mean the search has finished.
BBC Archives would still be interested in hearing from members of the public who
have BBC recordings of interest to offer (TV programmes pre-1980 only).
You can contact them at the following address:
If
you intend to return anything, please write first and tell them what you've got
before you send any tapes to them
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