A Big VHS Haul

[mjhopkins]

Hello everyone, I'm someone who comes on to this great site only occasionally and usually just to say something not of great relevance to the site such as, "wouldn't it be wonderful if such and such a thing got shown?"....

However I wanted to let you all know that something possibly of significance has emerged. A family friend who has sadly passed away has left behind a huge (and I mean HUGE) collection of VHS tapes. They were heading presumably for the skip but I asked his widow to hang on to them at least for the time being. Possibly something of interest lying within. I asked, assuming there was a decent amount but not too many. My goodness I was wrong there!
I'm currently largely immobile due to a fall but will be on my feet in a couple of weeks. When I am, I will go to his widow's house and begin looking properly through them. We have a couple of small bags of videos. So far we've found nothing of great interest; just Learning Zone broadcasts from 1997.
I don't of course want to get anyone's hopes up. They may only be VHS tapes from the '90s but there are so many that they must go back a long time. We don't know but there's a possibility that the couple had an early video recorder being pretty well off. The pile is so big that it must've begun a long time ago. Hopefully we'll be able to see from the tapes what is really old and of interest. It would be fantastic to find something of certain vintage (pre 1980?) and give them to Kaleidoscope.

I'll keep you posted.

[RWels]

Another thing to keep in mind, is that some programs may be very hard to find; so there may be some program that don't need returning, but that you might hang on to for a bit longer.

[Peter Stirling]

Look out for early Channel 4 stuff -lots made by indy companies that disappeared along with their masters.

[Richard Marple]

Even some old continuity & adverts are a good time capsule after 20 odd years.

There's plenty of programming from as recent as that which hasn't been released on DVD, often documentaries aren't released.

[mjhopkins]

Thanks everyone. Yes even watching TV from 25 years ago is a intriguing experience as I know from looking at my oldest domestic VHS tapes. The good thing is that the very first ones we (my father actually, again I'm immobile for the moment) collected go back to 1997 so hopefully hidden among that pile could be things of far earlier vintage. We'll see.
His household were known to own a TV set in the late '40s so early video recorder technology would certainly have been of interest to him.
It's a headache, the issue of what to save and what to dump but I knew it was a simple choice of rescue or lose the lot so here we are.
Learning Zone broadcasts suggests he had lots of interests which he did. He owned the local nursery so I don't know how rare early broadcasts of 'Gardeners World' are. I would say with great confidence that If they owned a video recorder in about 1970 there would be some of those in there. The one programme I know he would have wanted to record was the legendary lost series 'Octopus' (I am a Nick Drake fanatic) but sadly he lived in the Thames/LWT region.
Anyway forgive me this isn't the place to wildly speculate but it is rather exciting. It will take time but we'll have a good sort through. Believe me anything I see that will look of interest I'll mention it and try and contact the right person.
I owe this to the redoubtable Chris Perry and of course to Dick Fiddy who I'm pretty sure I unwittingly blanked when he spoke to me at the 12 bar club years ago!

[Bernie King]

One Channel 4 series I would love to find would be TV Heaven, which was presented by Frank Muir. I had recorded them but, unfortunately, my tapes were disposed of. I understand the series falls into the category indy companies that disappeared along with their masters. IIRC the company was called Illuminations but the mind plays tricks over time. As well as full classic TV episodes there were vintage adverts and clips from the same year. 3 hours of...well, TV Heaven.

[RWels]

Oct 15, 2022 19:18:48 GMT Peter Stirling said:

Look out for early Channel 4 stuff -lots made by indy companies that disappeared along with their masters.

REPORTEDLY there was once something about how TV is made that used Blackadder including ununsed footage that no longer exists. NOT verified, though.

[richardfitzgerald]

Oct 19, 2022 6:38:46 GMT Bernie King said:

One Channel 4 series I would love to find would be TV Heaven, which was presented by Frank Muir. I had recorded them but, unfortunately, my tapes were disposed of. I understand the series falls into the category indy companies that disappeared along with their masters. IIRC the company was called Illuminations but the mind plays tricks over time. As well as full classic TV episodes there were vintage adverts and clips from the same year. 3 hours of...well, TV Heaven.

There are several segments on You(KnowWho) though usually not including the featured programmes