BBC Transcription Recordings - Off Topic

[Ed Brown]

An interesting item came my way this week, that shows how, in spite of everything, recordings believed to be long since lost can be found - stored within BBC premises in London!

This, I promise you, is not a hoax, though it relates to radio recordings rather than television.

Nevertheless, over two thousand (!) recordings of a radio show came to light...



Monday 30 June
BBC RADIO 4 EXTRA
Ep 1
Monday 30 June to Tuesday 1 July
6.30-7.00am

"Ambridge In The Decade Of Love"

In 2003, clearing a radio storeroom in London, staff uncovered a collection of boxes of BBC LPs labelled 'The Archers'. They turned out to be 2,670 episodes of the serial, covering the entire 1960s, hitherto believed lost.

Richard Stilgoe presents two programmes opening the lid of this treasure chest to find out how the Ambridge village community reacted to the generation of teddy boys, rock 'n' roll and the pill - when Jennifer Archer (now Aldridge) was a 14-year-old schoolgirl on her first date, and newborn David Archer uttered his first wail.

Just how did Ambridge cope with the Swinging Sixties?

First broadcast on Radio 4 in 2003.

[Brad Phipps]

That's pretty cool.

I remember about 10 years ago being part of the discovery of the final missing episode of I'm Sorry I'll Read The Again - I think I was the second person to hear it in 40 years!

[Simon Collis]

Hope that will be on iPlayer, I mustn't miss it. (Yes, I'm also a serious Arhcers fan...)

[Richard Develyn]

Oddly enough, although I'm not an Archers fan at all, I think that soap-operas are probably the best historical record you can have of an era. There will be references to things that were going on back then that people have long forgotten, and real reflections on how people felt about what was going on rather than just the facts.

Richard

[Simon Collis]

This has reminded e of the complete September 21st, 1939 broadcast day of the American station WJSV. That has LOTS of soaps in it...

archive.org/details/OTRR_WJSV_Complete_Day_Singles (mp3)
archive.org/details/OTRR_NonCertified_WJSV_Complete_Day (zip files of above)