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Post by John Green on Apr 25, 2017 15:25:31 GMT
RECOVERY UPDATE 4: The Music Collection of Ken Holmes (often referred to as the PVL Collection)
Many years ago people used to search a website offering a vast amount of BBC material for sale. The so-called PVL Collection was mainly on obsolete formats and the seller wanted £20,000. Sadly, this was outside the price bracket of many people. The seller was Ken Holmes, an ex BBC employee who had spent a lifetime recording the shows he worked on and felt he should receive some reward for buying the tapes and storing them. Eventually, as Ken became older, he was approached by someone who 'offered to help him' and transfer the older tapes to modern formats. Ken agreed, handing over the rarest music tapes and equipment. They were eventually returned to him, but the digital copies were promised but didn't arrive. Then suddenly those individuals who had offered to help Ken, popped up on music groups selling his PVL footage. People were sold clips from missing Top of the Pops shows and paid vast sums. The quality was poor in 99% of cases though people thought they were getting the best quality copy available. Ken died without receiving that money and his widow wanted the original tapes to be disposed of. She started to destroy them. A mutual friend of Kaleidoscope stepped in and took the original tapes. They were a mixture of Shibaden and Panasonic reel to reel tapes; with some Umatic and Phillips 1500 cassettes. Since then the tapes have been lovingly restored. They contain more footage than currently circulates on youtube or various trading groups. Indeed it contains whole shows only previously sold as short clips. And now it's in much better quality, of course.. We are showing one example - a missing 1974 Top of the Pops at the Parkside for Pop event on 27th May 2017. Kaleidosope looks forward to showing you all of the collection over the next few years.
And my thanks to David Brunt for passing on the news.
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Post by John Green on Apr 25, 2017 15:30:06 GMT
Ross Lockley has identified the show mentioned re the 27/5/17 event as being from 6/6/1974.
Presented by Noel Edmonds with music from Sparks, Gary Glitter, Pan's People, Ray Stevens, Bad Company, Cozy Powell, Bryan Ferry, Cilla Black, The Pearls, The Scaffold, The Rubettes.
Directed by Brian Penders
Producer: Robin Nash
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Post by richardwoods on Apr 25, 2017 18:54:04 GMT
Hi John, great news that the majority of the PVL is safe and beginning to see the light of day. Has a list of the original holdings been found? Does anyone have any idea what still exists and (gulp) what's been lost?
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Post by RossL on Apr 25, 2017 19:58:52 GMT
Hi John, great news that the majority of the PVL is safe and beginning to see the light of day. Has a list of the original holdings been found? Does anyone have any idea what still exists and (gulp) what's been lost? The vast majority ISNT safe - Chris Perry stated that ~95% of the 8000 tapes in the original library had been destroyed. Mostly existing material they think. Bear in mind that Chris only broke this story yesterday morning so details are still sketchy. However there are strong hints there are more TOTP's to come. Chris has stated that there has been a partial recovery of the 500th show, although he hasnt gone into details yet apart from saying Ken hadnt recorded all of it. |
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Post by richardwoods on Apr 26, 2017 9:16:51 GMT
Hi John, great news that the majority of the PVL is safe and beginning to see the light of day. Has a list of the original holdings been found? Does anyone have any idea what still exists and (gulp) what's been lost? The vast majority ISNT safe - Chris Perry stated that ~95% of the 8000 tapes in the original library had been destroyed. Mostly existing material they think. Bear in mind that Chris only broke this story yesterday morning so details are still sketchy. However there are strong hints there are more TOTP's to come. Chris has stated that there has been a partial recovery of the 500th show, although he hasnt gone into details yet apart from saying Ken hadnt recorded all of it. Oh no, what a shame. I suppose that at least 5% is better than nothing. Let's hope that not too much "missing" material has gone. |
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Post by Sal Mohammed on Apr 26, 2017 10:05:37 GMT
Are you saying that Ken's wife destroyed ~95% of the 8000 tapes in the original library after Ken's death?
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Post by John Green on Apr 26, 2017 11:20:47 GMT
Hi John, great news that the majority of the PVL is safe and beginning to see the light of day. Has a list of the original holdings been found? Does anyone have any idea what still exists and (gulp) what's been lost? The vast majority ISNT safe - Chris Perry stated that ~95% of the 8000 tapes in the original library had been destroyed. Mostly existing material they think. Bear in mind that Chris only broke this story yesterday morning so details are still sketchy. However there are strong hints there are more TOTP's to come. Chris has stated that there has been a partial recovery of the 500th show, although he hasnt gone into details yet apart from saying Ken hadnt recorded all of it. Plenty of room there for the glass half empty/full people. 95% of 8000=7600. A 'majority' of that as known material could in theory leave 3799 as bad news! |
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Post by Joe Haynes on Apr 26, 2017 17:23:58 GMT
It was Kens wife who destroyed the tapes after kens death.
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Post by richardwoods on Apr 26, 2017 17:49:06 GMT
The vast majority ISNT safe - Chris Perry stated that ~95% of the 8000 tapes in the original library had been destroyed. Mostly existing material they think. Bear in mind that Chris only broke this story yesterday morning so details are still sketchy. However there are strong hints there are more TOTP's to come. Chris has stated that there has been a partial recovery of the 500th show, although he hasnt gone into details yet apart from saying Ken hadnt recorded all of it. Plenty of room there for the glass half empty/full people. 95% of 8000=7600. A 'majority' of that as known material could in theory leave 3799 as bad news! Aaaaaargh, starts head butting wall. 😱😱😱 |
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Post by Dan S on Apr 26, 2017 17:59:35 GMT
The vast majority ISNT safe - Chris Perry stated that ~95% of the 8000 tapes in the original library had been destroyed. By "destroyed" do you mean "threw in the bin". Just that I'm imagining a crazy person attacking tapes with hammers and scissors and the destruction might be a lot more mundane. |
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Post by RossL on Apr 26, 2017 18:36:26 GMT
The vast majority ISNT safe - Chris Perry stated that ~95% of the 8000 tapes in the original library had been destroyed. By "destroyed" do you mean "threw in the bin". Just that I'm imagining a crazy person attacking tapes with hammers and scissors and the destruction might be a lot more mundane. Binned. |
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Post by David Buck on Apr 26, 2017 19:42:45 GMT
Chris has said there's about 30 tapes left - so approx.99.6% were destroyed if the original figure of 8000 was anywhere near accurate
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Post by mattchurchett on Apr 26, 2017 19:45:44 GMT
Why only keep thirty? Why didn't she just get rid of the whole lot in one go?
Also, she must have realised how much time, money and effort went into this collection over the years. Why wouldn't she want them to go to a good home?
I guess we can be hopeful about what's left. Exciting to hear about the 500th TOTP
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Post by RossL on Apr 26, 2017 19:53:14 GMT
Chris has said there's about 30 tapes left - so approx.99.6% were destroyed if the original figure of 8000 was anywhere near accurate Cheers for that update David - Ive missed that post. |
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Post by David Buck on Apr 26, 2017 20:09:50 GMT
a glance through the list of the original tapes shows that most of it was tv from '76 upwards hence why it's mostly going to be existing material - plenty of continuity and odds and ends will have been lost yes but it's fairly easy to see how someone could readily cherry pick 30 or so tapes to keep - I'm sure his wife would have know what he considered the unique stuff. Most (all?) of the Beta and VHS tapes probably went straight in the bin
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