The One Show - Apollo 11 (Thursday 27th June, BBC Two, 7 PM)

[Vaughan Stanger]

Those of you who are following the build-up to the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 might like to know that James Burke is appearing on The One Show on Thursday 27th June, on BBC Two, at 7 PM. (Not BBC One as would be normal, as that channel is showing the women's world cup football.)

The missing episodes aspect of this is the short documentary piece that will be shown during the show, which features James Burke, plus Keith Clement (the BBC Space Studio director during the Apollo 11 mission), and... me. Recorded at the Science Museum in South Kensington and the BBC Archive Centre in Perivale, the documentary focusses on the brief clips of missing BBC footage and commentary that Graham Briddon and I recovered from film collectors in the 1990s. How much of this material will be shown I don't know, as I haven't seen the finished programme (yet). The whole piece only lasts about four minutes, so please bear that in mind.

'Moon and Me' was produced by Alleycats TV, who were great fun to work with, as well as being consummate professionals. The producer, Deirdre Donnelly, put me back in touch with Graham, who sadly wasn't available for the recording. We'd last communicated--by letter--way back in 1997, so you can imagine the blizzard of emails that has ensued since! Graham was in regular contact with the production team--rightly so, as he was at least as much responsible for the find as me.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Paul Vanezis. He wasn't directly involved in the production, but when Alleycats Films contacted him he gave them a list of people who might have interesting "Apollo 11" stories to tell. Graham and I were on that list. Paul also supplied some interesting information about the provenance of the films. See my post below.

The rest is history.

[Ian Wegg]

Thanks Vaughan. The VirginMedia EPG has finally caught up with the channel change so I've set it to record. I notice btw there have been Apollo 11 items all week.

[Vaughan Stanger]

Jun 26, 2019 13:14:31 GMT Ian Wegg said:

Thanks Vaughan. The VirginMedia EPG has finally caught up with the channel change so I've set it to record. I notice btw there have been Apollo 11 items all week.

Hi Ian. Yes, I think they're doing it this week because of the welter of documentaries that will arrive in July.

[Vaughan Stanger]

Here's a link on FB to Alleycat's publicity for the documentary.

[Vaughan Stanger]

I spoke to Paul Vanezis a few days before the recording of The Moon and Me. His research indicates that the clips on these two films originated on a domestic video recording, which was probably made on a Sony CV2000 reel-to-reel machine. These 200-line recordings were subsequently transferred onto 16mm film (as con mag negatives, from which at least one mute positive was made, too) by a man who provided a service to TV professionals who wanted recordings of their work. Apparently, he also supplied film collectors who wished to own excerpts of Apollo 11 footage. The same person was responsible for The Talk of the Town episode featuring Vince Hill, which was shown at MBW last year.