Junking cards

[JOHN SMITH]

Have spent a lot of time looking on this subject, without really getting any results.

It seems that whenever an episode (on 16mm film?) was junked, it was then marked as such on its file card.
It has been mentioned on various sites however that some of these cards aren't marked as having the episode junked, but that the print is still 'missing'.

Is there a definitive list of the episodes that are 'missing' but whose cards have not been marked as junked.

Also what I have never seen anywhere is the search for material in the former Soviet Union. Whilst it was never shown there, isn't it possible that their 'satellites' could have 'intercepted' Western TV shows and 'stored' them on the media available at the time.

[Richard Bignell]

Jul 6, 2008 9:17:26 GMT JOHN SMITH said:

It has been mentioned on various sites however that some of these cards aren't marked as having the episode junked, but that the print is still 'missing'.

If they're saying that, then they're making it up! Only one fan has seen the cards (as far as we're aware), and that's Ian Levine, 30 years ago. No one knows if the records still exist and if they do, they'll have been in deep storage for a very long time.

Whilst it was never shown there, isn't it possible that their 'satellites' could have 'intercepted' Western TV shows and 'stored' them on the media available at the time.

I can't imagine that happening for a moment! ;D

Richard

[Adrian Gregg]

what eh?!?! I thought I read that in the early to mid 80's in DWB or DWM. I thought that all the cards had been double no TRIPLE checked and virtually (minus only a handful) had been checked off the cards as destroyed or destroyed in the country they ended up in. and only a few prints the beeb had no idea. OK the story is they asked for the destruction of a print in say Zulu land in say 76 after it had rode all around the world twice and had half the sprockets taped up. and the beeb would say to Zulu TV "you need to destroy print by xxx date and send us a confirmation of the deed" and out of all the Broadcasters that had followed procedure like 5-10 out of the 1000's that were struck by ents were MIA. which sort of closes the book for missing epp's don't it!!!.
and that some kind of "cover up" had been started by Levine and higher fandom in the late 70's to ensure ppl wouldn't Stop looking, in the vain hope someone had recorded them on their own equipment (which is entirely possible. take a look at my 1000's of electronic mags from the UK and down under and i have at least 40 articles on home VTR before 66, and in 65 how to build one yourself. and thats from a Brit mag!!)
so Mr Levine was making all this up?!?!??! or wildly quoting when annoyed?!?!?!


So if we had access to these mythical cards we would have some Idea where a print was last seen?. So why haven't some mad who fan in the Corp not done this b4? or have the cards been wiped as well!!.. c o m e o n if these cards gave us even a glimmer of hope they WOULD be seen. Nothing can be buried that deep.



I think Ive stated all this drivel before.
but Mr Speople. tell us on your long time seacrh. please?
as I'm very very interested I'd like your story.. Or have you just got into this from a post i made yonks ago !!! the only reason i ask is in 25 odd years in fandom I've never heard ANYONE ever mention these cards ever , and it ain't on the net.. so how do you know?

[John Fleming]

Probably a stupid question, but were the New Zealand copies of "The Crusade", "The Underwater Menace" and "The Moonbase" ever accounted for? Richard Bignell's document states that they may have been sent to Hill Street storage. I would guess that this location has been searched exhaustively though.

[Daniel O'Brien]

Jul 6, 2008 16:36:19 GMT John Fleming said:

Probably a stupid question, but were the New Zealand copies of "The Crusade", "The Underwater Menace" and "The Moonbase" ever accounted for? Richard Bignell's document states that they may have been sent to Hill Street storage. I would guess that this location has been searched exhaustively though.

So far as I know, New Zealand has now been thoroughly searched for 'Who' and other BBC material.

[John Fleming]

You are right of course which is why it's a stupid question, it just niggles me that these 3 haven't been accounted for.

[JOHN SMITH]

Trying to cut a long story short.

Having worked in another government organisation for more than a decade (DHSS) I happen to know that when a completely new claim to benefit was made ' a 'file card' was also made too to go along with that file in order to list any major events that happened to this 'file' during its lieftime.
E.g the cards would normally list on which date the file was created, whatever other 'departments' 'borrowed it and on which date it was 'lent' and 'returned' plus whenever appropriate, the date that this file was eventually destroyed, plus any other relavant information.

I figured that some similar system MUST have existed at the BBC too whenever it made (new files) i.e 16mm prints from its quad videos as it too is a large organisation with many different departments, all of whom may want access for whatever reason to a particular programme that was made.

And for ease of access, a file card system is not only the easiest method of keeping track of what is what, it is also the most efficient and space saving too since you can store a hell of an amount of cards in alphabetical order of show etc in one small space.

Eventually after months of looking on the net I came across Paul Lee's original article on lost Who.
In which it was stated that Adam Lee only had 'some' of the junking schedules. And that there were episodes for which no junking schedule existed at all, specifically DMP Ep4, TP Ep 4, and quite possibly Power Of The Daleks. (If this is looked at in retrospect, the BBC would presumably NOT have been so gullible in the TP4 hoax if they were absolutely sure that they had definitely junked the 16mm print in the first place. But obviously (presumably from the file cards) they KNEW that the 16mm print had not been disposed of in the first place and were therefore optimistic that the video copy of the print was indeed a copy of said print).

If we then hop over to Richard Molesworth's full article.
It states the history of what prints were sold to what countries, generally it seems to me that such history would be most easily accessible from a quick look at each 16mm master prints 'file card' if one was made, (and having worked for a govt dept, I was sure that for easy reference they were). Said card would presumably list which country bought what on what date etc, and also which country returned what on what date, and also what then happened to it after its return.

Richard's article also states that Levine has said
'In 1978, I found out that there were a large number of episodes in the BBC Film and Videotape Library, but not as many as I knew still existed. I also knew that BBC Enterprises had a huge film library in Villiers House in Ealing, and there was a rumour going round that they held episodes that the Film and Videotape Library didn’t'

Which therefore implies that Ian had seen 'something' which indicates whether or not a 16 mm MASTER print (at least in England) has been destroyed or not. And realistically this 'knowing' could only come from seeing 'junking schedules' presumably on the type of 'file cards' that I mention.
Ian then states 'I had seen all the cards showing when she (Pamela Nash) had junked all the episodes. They had held every single episode of ‘Doctor Who’ up until 1972’.
(So my point was PROVED 100% that such cards that detail the history of at the very very least, the ABSOLUTE MASTER 16mm print that the BBC held, ARE in existence) (By absolute master, I mean the very first 16 mm print that was made by Pamela Nash of every quad tape)

Now call me whatever you like, but I don't think Ian and/or the BBC are just trying to waste their time in looking for STILL lost episodes, if they were ABSOLUTELY sure beyond every shadow of a doubt, that EVERY 'unaccounted for' episode that is 'unaccounted for' by virtue of looking at its 'history card', has NOW been accounted for by way of the 'finds' that have taken place since 1978.

On an American Comics Collecting forum I found yesterday, Ian states circa 2005 that after finally completing his entire collection of DC Comics he is now going to turn his attention to Dr Who once more and try to get the missing number down to double figures.
Now Ian, at least to me, doesn't seem like the sort of chap to pluck a figure of 'double figures' just out of thin air. Which leads one to believe that he knows??? of at least 9 other 'absolute master' 16mm prints which are still accounted for.
No, I'm sure that both he, and the BBC are STILL looking for 16mm prints of missing Who, because they 'know' that not every one of the original master prints are accounted for by way of its file card history.

Don't forget that it is mentioned that 'Tomb' was already known to exist in the UK before it was even discovered in HK. And that the story recovered from Nigeria (forget which it was now off the top of my head) was also being bandied around the high echelons of fandom with missing scenes intact even before the cut Nigerian prints were returned.
It would therefore be VERY VERY interesting to see the cards of THOSE master prints, to see if they were indeed classed as 'junked' from the outset of searching in 1978. Or similarly see the cards of DMP, which incidentally may prove once and for all whether the found episodes 2, 5, 10 are the Australian viewing prints or the original English masters. (If it is documented that the original prints at the bbc were destroyed (by looking at their cards) then the found prints must definitely be the returned Australian ones. However since searches are still going on for the Australian prints, it would lead one to assume that the missing UK prints were indeed not junked and that the found prints are the English ones which are 'unaccounted for'. So therefore 2 full??? prints of DMP minus ep 7 (which is definitely gone forever) are in all probability still knocking around somewhere

Indeed it would be VERY VERY interesting to see EVERY 16mm master print's file history card. I'm sure they would make quite astonishing viewing to Who fans. Though maybe the cards will probably never see the light of day because maybe, just maybe they are embarrassing as to just how much 'missing' stuff is stuff which is simply unaccounted for, i.e has just gone walkabout.
Unfortunately these cards have it seems, ONLY ever been seen by Ian and a few employees of the BBC.

To simply say that 'no one knows if the cards still exist' seems remarkable to say the least, because from the very outset in 1978 it must have quickly become apparent that these cards are the HOLY GRAIL of Doctor Who, because these cards list EXACTLY what was junked and when, (probably) what was borrowed, when and when returned, (probably) the number of prints struck for overseas broadcasters plus when they were sent overseas and when (if at all) they were returned, and what happened to them afterwards.

Here it is also worth mentioning that it seems Ian and the BBC more or less KNEW exactly which countries to ask for which episodes. Which is why we have the situation that by and large many of the African countries were completely ignored from the outset of the search in 1978 even though it was known that they had previously sent them to there.

I for one am sure that there are people who know exactly where the cards are, because there is absolutely NO WAY that THESE will have been destroyed because they seem to list exactly WHAT is still out there.

[Richard Bignell]

Jul 6, 2008 19:48:29 GMT JOHN SMITH said:

Eventually after months of looking on the net I came across Paul Lee's original article on lost Who.
In which it was stated that Adam Lee only had 'some' of the junking schedules.

Paul's articles are a bit of a mish-mash of facts and wild rumours, so you need to be a bit careful as to what you take from them. The BBC F&VT library (that Adam Lee oversaw) would indeed have had "some" junking details - but these would have related to material held by the library only and not the stock of BBC Enterprises. In all likelihood would be the five remaining cards as reproduced in Nothing at the End of the Lane#2 in 2005. These however only list what material the library held and were simply amended with the word "JUNKED" when the footage was disposed of.

If we then hop over to Richard Molesworth's full article.
It states the history of what prints were sold to what countries, generally it seems to me that such history would be most easily accessible from a quick look at each 16mm master prints 'file card' if one was made

Except Richard's information didn't come from any file cards but from other sources such as copyright payments to the scriptwriters etc.

Richard's article also states that Levine has said
'In 1978, I found out that there were a large number of episodes in the BBC Film and Videotape Library, but not as many as I knew still existed. I also knew that BBC Enterprises had a huge film library in Villiers House in Ealing, and there was a rumour going round that they held episodes that the Film and Videotape Library didn’t'. Which therefore implies that Ian had seen 'something' which indicates whether or not a 16 mm MASTER print (at least in England) has been destroyed or not.

No it doesn't, hence the use of Ian's word "rumour". Ian had heard from third party sources that Enterprises had material that the Film Library did not, but until he got access to Villiers House, he didn't know for any certainty what they had.

Ian then states 'I had seen all the cards showing when she (Pamela Nash) had junked all the episodes. They had held every single episode of ‘Doctor Who’ up until 1972’.
(So my point was PROVED 100% that such cards that detail the history of at the very very least, the ABSOLUTE MASTER 16mm print that the BBC held, ARE in existence) (By absolute master, I mean the very first 16 mm print that was made by Pamela Nash of every quad tape)

Indeed, but I don't think anyone has every questioned that that would be the case.

On an American Comics Collecting forum I found yesterday, Ian states circa 2005 that after finally completing his entire collection of DC Comics he is now going to turn his attention to Dr Who once more and try to get the missing number down to double figures.

Nope! Ian has now totally given up on that idea and has publicly stated that he doesn't believe that there are any further episodes to find.

Now Ian, at least to me, doesn't seem like the sort of chap to pluck a figure of 'double figures' just out of thin air. Which leads one to believe that he knows??? of at least 9 other 'absolute master' 16mm prints which are still accounted for.

Ian knows NOTHING about any further missing episodes. If he did, he'd be looking for them. And he isn't.

No, I'm sure that both he, and the BBC are STILL looking for 16mm prints of missing Who, because they 'know' that not every one of the original master prints are accounted for by way of its file card history.

Except that no one interesting in finding missing DW has seen them for 30 years.

Don't forget that it is mentioned that 'Tomb' was already known to exist in the UK before it was even discovered in HK.

Which has been shown to be nonsense. It didn't.

Indeed it would be VERY VERY interesting to see EVERY 16mm master print's file history card. I'm sure they would make quite astonishing viewing to Who fans.

I'm positive they would be and would help to answer a lot of questions.

Here it is also worth mentioning that it seems Ian and the BBC more or less KNEW exactly which countries to ask for which episodes. Which is why we have the situation that by and large many of the African countries were completely ignored from the outset of the search in 1978 even though it was known that they had previously sent them to there.

What makes you say they were ignored? Ian and the BBC spent a lot of time contacting all the countries were Doctor Who was known to be sold.

I for one am sure that there are people who know exactly where the cards are, because there is absolutely NO WAY that THESE will have been destroyed because they seem to list exactly WHAT is still out there.

I think that it's highly probable that they've been destroyed. Once a programme was removed from sale and the negatives were destroyed, Enterprises would have no need to keep the information. When John Birt's era kicked in a the BBC and departments were made independently financially accountable, lots of material that wasn't needed was disposed of. There's still lots of internal information about the countries that sales were made to, but nothing (or nothing remotely accessible) tracking the creation, circulation and destruction of the Enterprises telerecordings.

Richard

[Adrian Gregg]

well said Mr Bignell , Well said.
as I've said before unless you have been there on the ground so to spek in the 80's etc. and you lived though a million rumors etc etc. I supose reading all the above quoted "work" you could become an expert overnight in this field. but unfortatly by the pure nature of speculation and chinesse whispers . most of the statments in the so called documents are pure fluff.

Is it time for the real story to be put in a form onine.. I know it may be boring and small without any of the bond type action and romace.

If you look at your posts speople you seem "a priest despratly creating somthing out of nothin" again my motif today is the relegious one. and some fans seem to cling to thier Holy Books rather than taking them as more fiction than fact.

By then mate youve brung up things to which Mr Bignell has shed some more light of which i didn't know about before. I had also thought these cards would be in existance and I even created my own bit of conspiracy and i quote from myself " mabey the reason we don't see these cards is that EVERY epp has BEEN acaouted for, they know it but want us to keep looking as we might find another lost bbc programme"

there we go easy aint it, to create a myth out of shadows. so thats how we should treat these "holy books"

[JOHN SMITH]

Richard:

"Paul's articles are a bit of a mish-mash of facts and wild rumours, so you need to be a bit careful as to what you take from them. The BBC F&VT library (that Adam Lee oversaw) would indeed have had "some" junking details - but these would have related to material held by the library only and not the stock of BBC Enterprises. In all likelihood would be the five remaining cards as reproduced in Nothing at the End of the Lane#2 in 2005. These however only list what material the library held and were simply amended with the word "JUNKED" when the footage was disposed of".

OK. These then are presumably JUST 53 cards created at the F&VT library that detail either the 16mm or 35mm prints which were held by the F&VT library. Of these 53 prints, 47 were seen to still be held. The 5 cards marked as junked (i've not seen the 2005 thingy) are therefore the ones belonging to Crusade 1, Ice Warriors 3, Celestial Toymaker 2, Power of the Daleks 6 and Wheel in Space 5. And 1 unaccounted for print is DMP4, on which it presumably says something like 'loaned to Blue Peter production office' or whatever.

Therefore, if these cards still exist, and are readily accessible. Why not the MOST important cards that detail the history of the 16mm masters held by enterprises? It seems rather strange that at least 'officially' the only cards still held are the 53 least important ones (barring DMP4) created by the F&VT library.

I wrote: Richard's article also states that Levine has said
'In 1978, I found out that there were a large number of episodes in the BBC Film and Videotape Library, but not as many as I knew still existed. I also knew that BBC Enterprises had a huge film library in Villiers House in Ealing, and there was a rumour going round that they held episodes that the Film and Videotape Library didn’t'. Which therefore implies that Ian had seen 'something' which indicates whether or not a 16 mm MASTER print (at least in England) has been destroyed or not.


Richard: No it doesn't, hence the use of Ian's word "rumour". Ian had heard from third party sources that Enterprises had material that the Film Library did not, but until he got access to Villiers House, he didn't know for any certainty what they had.

Something just doesn't quite seem right here. On one hand we have Ian saying 'but not as many as I knew still existed'. So he therefore goes to look in Villiers House.
But, if he had seen ONLY 53 cards up to THIS point, 47 of which had prints that were accounted for, 5 of which were marked as junked, and just one which was still unaccounted for (DMP4). One would naturally say 'apart from 1 which was unaccounted for' rather than say 'but not as MANY as I knew STILL existed'.
Here I emphasise the words many and still, because many implies that he knew for a fact that there was 1 more than episode to be found, and the word still, because he knew for a fact that junkings had taken place and certain episodes were now destroyed.
Now call it playing with words or whatever, but 'not as many as I knew still existed' seems a lot different from saying 'but not as many as were made'

Logically, it would seem to me, and maybe to others, that at THIS point Ian had seen ALL 253 cards. And was therefore wondering where the MANY episodes were STILL being held that did not have 'junked' written across the cards and which were not being held at the F&VT library.

That Ian has seen all 253 cards, is not questioned. But as highlighted above it would seem to be a crucuial question as to 'at what point were all 253 cards seen?' because this would help immensely to clear up 'discrepancies' that seem to appear with statements above.

Even Richard seems to concur that these 253 history cards detailing what happened to Enterprises masters, and when, are perhaps the most important items in the search for 'missing' Doctor Who.
Because let's face it everybody, if what these cards list as junked, or not junked, NOW matches up EXACTLY with the CURRENT number of episodes still missing. Then we (including the RT and everybody else whose job it is to search for or work on old Doctor Who) can all pack our bags and go home, stop searching anywhere, stop hoping and dreaming, stop posting in forums and just sit back and enjoy the episodes that were saved (mainly due to Ian, so thanks Ian), plus the recons and/or audios.

There is no doubting that it is from these masters that all the others were made for foreign sales etc. So call me presumptious or whatever, but I am inclined to believe that the cards of these masters would either say directly (or indicate by some other method, e.g 'sent for duplication for foreign sales') exactly how many duplicate prints were struck for foreign sales, when they were struck and for where, and possibly whether or not they were returned and junked afterwards, in which case 1 card may have multiple junking dates. (Even if they don't say to which countries, we still know where from other documentation that is available) As well as the cards also saying which other departments, production offices in Enterprises 'loaned' them and whether they were sent back. Plus of course, the 'junking' date IF it was junked. In which case, we can also stop searching in foreign TV station archives too.

Why bother wasting all this continued time, money, and effort. If as Fox Mulder would probably say to Scully 'the truth is not out there Scully, the truth has been in here all along'.

To say that these holy grail cards are either destroyed or inaccessible due to the length of time from 1978 or whenever they were last handled, to now. Is simply NOT acceptable given the value of information on these cards.
No sane person goes 'shopping' without a 'list'. Surely somewhere, someone made notes of what to STILL look for after using the cards for reference.

But regardless, as I say above, in order to either put the search to an end once and for all, or give continued impetus to continue looking. ALL of these cards need producing, and the information on them being made available. We are not exactly talking state nuclear secrets here are we that need keeping under lock and key.

If there is a deep storage facility somewhere where they might be kept (which is what seems to be implied from Richard's posting, then the storage depot/vault or whatever needs opening and the cards looking for. Or maybe they were destroyed after being microfilmed? But regardless, all searching for missing eps should stop until something is produced in black and white to say otherwise.

And what exactly does 'junked' mean. From some reports it seems that Ian practically saved the Villiers House prints from being incinerated there and then on the spot. But there are also reports that state that many film cans of everything from Dr Who to Dads Army and back again were put in skips to be taken to land fill sites. Can someone with proper knowledge on this subject clear this point up please.

Below is just supposition on my part. And just surmises on more definitive maybe's rather than 'rumours' that this or that full episode (such as Macra Terror, Power of the Daleks existing etc)
Many episodes ARE undoubtedly gone forever. But specifically the cards could yield interesting discoveries on at least the following.
DMP. 3 prints HAVE turned up for this (in my opinion the English masters). It could therefore be a fair bet that none of this story was junked at all and the other 9 are still out there. A card or lack of one would quickly identify once and for all whether the infamous ep7 had a 16mm print made or not in which case there would only be 8 prints that may still be unaccounted for.
Reign of Terror. 1-3 and 6 were returned from Cyprus. But 6 was also returned from within UK. Were parts 1-5 also junked or not?
The Invasion. Parts 2, 3 and 5-8 were not junked. It is a fair bet to surmise that 1 and 4 could also still be available.
Tenth Planet. We know that 16mm were held by the F&VT people. Could these have been from Enterprises? in which case the cards would tell us, but what about the famous 4th part.
The Ice Warriors. Parts 1 and 4-6 were not junked. However the F&VT library had a 16mm print of part 3 before junking it (which doesn't need much speculation to believe that it was the part 3 master from Enterprises) but what about part 2? That may still be out there.
Evil Of The Daleks/The Faceless ones/The Wheel In space etc. 16mm from each were eventually returned. These are presumably the masters that were once held by Enterprises. What about the other parts? were they junked or not? and it would seem curious to save just 1 or two episodes in a skip, when evidence points to the fact that the 16mm junking of stories at enterprises happened as a complete story rather than an episode here and there.
So basically, any 16mm print returned from within UK outside of BBC property, as opposed by foreign broadcaster, holds out hope that the story was not junked at all.

[Adrian Gregg]

you keep mentioning UK Masters.
What would these be? the Negs struck by ents? the PASB prints.
because evil 2 and faceless ones were not "masters" these were regular pos prints. which ents would have not used for "masters".
and what are "Absolute masters" would these be the VT? or something other than the neg?
the idea that all prints found in the UK are "English prints only or the weird US type term UK MASTERS" is just plain bonkers. the beeb were receiving prints from around the world at that time, tired worn out Overseas prints were flooding back to ents or the beeb? at a rate of knots. it's my belief that some of these "got out" that thats ya lot.
There is NO reason for the BBC to make UK MASTERS" as the corp would NOT play 16mm prints, thought of the whole rerecording lot as JUST AN OVERSEAS SALES THING not to keep anything so called as masters. this was not a option. imagine looking ad a Dr who epp 3-8 after it was made you think the BBC would seriously show it.

for your education i suggest you bone up on some archival shows.
a few Z cars, Till death do us part, That was the week that was Xmas 62 and 63 edds, later Hancock's. 1st 3 seasons of steptoe, out of the unknown. THEN and only then return to watch a 60's edition of who, well,...... rather shabby ain't it..... so whats the greater shame here, a few epps of Dr who gone, or whole slabs of comedy drama and light entertainment, THAT"S what you should be looking for. not rubbishing who AT ALL.. but some of the most groundbreaking shows have NO fans looking for em. (how about TW3 series 2 for example)

On on the same thread are there "CARDS" for Till death, zcars or any other show in existence?

I agree that a bit of a look to see if they exist is in order but knowing full well that keeping cards for non existing prints would be useless and they would have gone same time as the prints.

Oh prints were never burned. thats one of the Missing epp's Old wives tales.
Have you ever tried to burn a B&W 16mm Film.. I Have. Its terribly messy and the smoke that it gives of is quite toxic and black. the simple way that was employed is the films were flat packed when sent, and when they went out to be destroyed to a skip they were left to unspool in a bin. the idea that no one would try to steel the film as there would be loads of it in the bin and all tangled together. which was a deterrent. and before you ask. the film would be unplayable today if found. (hell from my experiments it would be unplayable after a few hours) its probably under some motorway or airport etc etc. or one of the ship guys took a load home. (must have been good at puzzles)

[JOHN SMITH]

By 'absolute masters and 'uk masters' I was referring to the very first set of 16 mm prints that Pamela Nash made from each of the quad tapes.
It's these shall we call them (original) 16mm's from which all the other 16mm's for overseas sales were made.

As for the 'history cards' of these 'originals' themselves. Somebody somewhere must know what happened to them. That all 253 were available is not a question, because evidence points to the fact that all were still available even after the 16mm prints had been junked. So how hard is it to track down an employee or former employee and ask where the cards went??

What is the point of looking for a needle (missing episode) in a haystack, if the haystack itself (history card) says that it is now empty??

Oh I'm sure that if the other shows you mention had 16mm prints made for overseas sales or whatever. That they too still had readily available history cards after junking too.

It took years to junk all this stuff (Dr Who and everything else). If it wasn't done meticulously and in some particular fashion then the job could have been done in a couple of days. Just chuck the lot of it in a skip in one go and be done with it.
Fact is, it was obviously done SO meticulously that it was even written on the cards that they had now been junked, probably including the date too.

I say get the history cards found for everything (not just Dr Who) Compare them to what we know currently exists, and take matters further from there. It doesn't seem to be asking for much does it?

In the special case of Doctor Who. I can't believe that 'lists' of 'unaccounted for' 'original' 16mm's were not made after the cards had been looked at and checked.

Ade42 I'm not trying to desperately cling to anything or hope for any 'episode returns', but at least getting the cards out tells us if there are at least any ledges to stand on.

[Richard Bignell]

Jul 7, 2008 7:07:18 GMT JOHN SMITH said:

Therefore, if these cards still exist, and are readily accessible. Why not the MOST important cards that detail the history of the 16mm masters held by enterprises? It seems rather strange that at least 'officially' the only cards still held are the 53 least important ones (barring DMP4) created by the F&VT library.

But 53 cards for the Film Library don't exist. Just five. The archive began to be computer cataloged in the early 1980s and once the entries were created, the cards were disposed of. These five are just a tiny handful that didn't get consigned to the bin at the time. And they don't record *any* details of film movements within the system. They simply state what material was held in the Library and once it was destroyed, it was duly marked as such.

Just because five rogue cards happen to survive in one department, it doesn't follow that a complete different set of index cards, in a completely separate department in a different part of London would have also survived. As I've already pointed out, once the sale of the episodes had concluded and the negative removed from the Enterprises storeroom, then the information contained on the card would have been pretty redundant.

Now call it playing with words or whatever, but 'not as many as I knew still existed' seems a lot different from saying 'but not as many as were made'

That's exactly what I'd call it! ;D

Ian was aware that Enterprises had it's own stock of telerecordings that had been used for overseas sale. He'd been in touch with a lot of different people within the BBC, not least the Enterprises office at the Film Library and the DWAS, who had helped Tony Cash in the preparation of the Whose Doctor Who documentary, which used material from Enterprises. To quote Ian himself in that same interview, "The mystery of what was at Villiers House - I had to know", so it seems fairly obvious that he didn't have any real idea of what was there.

However, you do need to be a bit careful with Ian's interview. Whilst it's undoubtedly a very interesting first-hand account, it does have quite a number of inaccuracies in it as well. For instance, Ian says that "we know for a fact that they made 28 prints of every Doctor Who episode...", except we know they didn't so any such thing!

Logically, it would seem to me, and maybe to others, that at THIS point Ian had seen ALL 253 cards.

Except, once again, we're not talking about any central index of all the BBC holdings! The Film Library had their holdings, which they indexed and Enterprises had theirs, with an entirely separate index in an entirely separate building. There was *no* crossover between the two. So no, Ian hadn't seen 253 cards, or anything like at that point.

That Ian has seen all 253 cards, is not questioned. But as highlighted above it would seem to be a crucuial question as to 'at what point were all 253 cards seen?' because this would help immensely to clear up 'discrepancies' that seem to appear with statements above.

Ian certainly saw the Enterprises index cards and we know when he saw them - Spring 1978.

So call me presumptious or whatever, but I am inclined to believe that the cards of these masters would either say directly (or indicate by some other method, e.g 'sent for duplication for foreign sales') exactly how many duplicate prints were struck for foreign sales, when they were struck and for where, and possibly whether or not they were returned and junked afterwords, in which case 1 card may have multiple junking dates. (Even if they don't say to which countries, we still know where from other documentation that is available) As well as the cards also saying which other departments, production offices in Enterprises 'loaned' them and whether they were sent back. Plus of course, the 'junking' date IF it was junked.

It would indeed be very interesting if the cards contained that information, but the simple truth is we have no idea what was on them! Saying that they contained all the hoped for information is simply supposition. The only fan that we know actually saw those cards was Ian, and Ian didn't indicate that *any* of that information was present. Indeed, the cards may have been laid out in the same way as those used by the Film Library - just an indication of what episodes were held in the Villiers House storage area and whether they had been disposed of or not.

To say that these holy grail cards are either destroyed or inaccessible due to the length of time from 1978 or whenever they were last handled, to now. Is simply NOT acceptable given the value of information on these cards.

It really doesn't matter whether it's "acceptable" or not. It's how it actually is. The cards are certainly not around at BBC Worldwide now and have, in all likelihood, they have long since been destroyed. There is a vague chance that they may be in storage (again, it's nothing more than a hopeful supposition - no one at the BBC has ever actually indicated that they are archived), but no commercial business is going to allow fans to rummage around in its archived paperwork - and believe me, there's been enough genuine people who have worked at the BBC and at BBC Worldwide over the years who would have been willing to do such searching.

You essentially seem to be building your whole theory around information that the index cards may or may not have contained (and there's no evidence to support that they did) and around the fact that they must still exist - for which, once again, there's no evidence.

And what exactly does 'junked' mean. From some reports it seems that Ian practically saved the Villiers House prints from being incinerated there and then on the spot. But there are also reports that state that many film cans of everything from Dr Who to Dads Army and back again were put in skips to be taken to land fill sites. Can someone with proper knowledge on this subject clear this point up please.

We know exactly what happened to the material. Taken out to skips, the central hub knocked out so that the film unspooled and it was then carted away to landfill. The name of the skip company involved is even known!

Richard

[JOHN SMITH]

Jul 7, 2008 10:11:28 GMT Richard Bignell said:

Jul 7, 2008 7:07:18 GMT JOHN SMITH said:

It would indeed be very interesting if the cards contained that information, but the simple truth is we have no idea what was on them! Saying that they contained all the hoped for information is simply supposition. The only fan that we know actually saw those cards was Ian, and Ian didn't indicate that *any* of that information was present. Indeed, the cards may have been laid out in the same way as those used by the Film Library - just an indication of what episodes were held in the Villiers House storage area and whether they had been disposed of or not.


It really doesn't matter whether it's "acceptable" or not. It's how it actually is. The cards are certainly not around at BBC Worldwide now and have, in all likelihood, they have long since been destroyed. There is a vague chance that they may be in storage (again, it's nothing more than a hopeful supposition - no one at the BBC has ever actually indicated that they are archived), but no commercial business is going to allow fans to rummage around in its archived paperwork - and believe me, there's been enough genuine people who have worked at the BBC and at BBC Worldwide over the years who would have been willing to do such searching.

You essentially seem to be building your whole theory around information that the index cards may or may not have contained (and there's no evidence to support that they did) and around the fact that they must still exist - for which, once again, there's no evidence.

Richard

If there is even as you put it a 'vague' chance that they may still exist. Shouldn't that 'vague' chance be looked into by someone at the BBC saying something like 'Hey there's this idea that the original enterprise index cards for Dr Who (and everything else)may contain information that may aid in the recovery of currently lost episodes. How can we trace what happened to the cards and possibly have another look at them?'
After all, a vague chance that the cards still exist seems to be a better bet than episodes still exist.

It is certainly easier than all the time/money and everything else spent by countless fans and workers in order to look for missing episodes.
Like I said, if what is back in the archives now matches with what was written on the cards back then. Then it is realistically the end of the story for 'lost' Who. But if matches aren't fully complete, then hope is still there.

Well since Ian has seen them, can't someone who knows Ian actually ask him WHAT information was on the cards?. Or ask him or anyone else heavily connected with the search back in 77/78 if any notes were thus made of which episodes hadn't been junked by virtue of looking at their index card, but which were nevertheless 'unaccounted for? (Ice Warriors instantly springs to mind here because the extant episodes were found years later at Villiers itself, and therefore their index cards were almost definitely at odds with what was still stored in the vault.)
And BTW if Ian had seen 253 cards, this seems to confirm that DMP7 indeed was transfered to 16mm film, because otherwise there would only have been 252 cards.
It might have been 30 years ago, but I think I would still remember now the type of information written on them if I had been such a fan and searcher. (If something other than just 'junked' was written I'm sure many people would be able to recall that something other than just 'junked' was there)

[Richard Bignell]

Jul 7, 2008 11:06:48 GMT JOHN SMITH said:

If there is even as you put it a 'vague' chance that they may still exist. Shouldn't that 'vague' chance be looked into by someone at the BBC saying something like 'Hey there's this idea that the original enterprise index cards for Dr Who (and everything else)may contain information that may aid in the recovery of currently lost episodes. How can we trace what happened to the cards and possibly have another look at them?'

The avenue has already been explored (several times) and it's always come to a dead end. It's highly unlikely that the cards have survived and the Enterprises documentation has been put into storage (which, given the company's vast range of interests, could be related to anything) isn't coming out again.

Well since Ian has seen them, can't someone who knows Ian actually ask him WHAT information was on the cards?

Already been done. He can't remember.

And BTW if Ian had seen 253 cards, this seems to confirm that DMP7 indeed was transfered to 16mm film, because otherwise there would only have been 252 cards.

You're the one who quoted "253 cards". I certainly wasn't going to bother counting them all up before replying. We already know that The Feast of Steven wasn't telerecorded. Ian confirmed that there was no card for it back in 1978 and we know for a fact that it was being offered to Australia as an 11-part story only five weeks after the end of its UK transmission.

Richard