Shibaden Players given to UK Secondary Schools

[John S Miller]

Q said:

Sounds like a huge waste of time to me....

Why would a school have taped Dr. Who?? It's not exactly educational...

Think about it -- how much missing material has been located from domestic off-air recordings of any sort -- not a whole lot...

I agree its unlikely you'd find 'Who'. But I'd advise any researcher to let their imagination and ambition lead the way. Asking questions about your own quest before you've started is a mistake in my experience.

When I researched a holiday haunt of childhood, Hayling Island with its ghost train in the late 90s; I discovered I had missed it by a few years. I made the mistake of assuming that by the 1980s it would have been long modified. Had I gone back to research at the beginning of the 90s when I originally 'gave up hope' I would have actually found it.

Likewise, a tape made of my class in 1968 at primary school was not long rewiped with something else, but actually sent to the archive. It then apparently remained as late as the late 80s early 90s. At that time it was thrown on a skip apparently in a clear out to install computers. It was probably junked because of its age and the fact the school no longer had, or appeared to have the equipment to play it on.

So - never say never.

[emitron]

To give one such example. Martin Loach ploughed through old education/domestic video tapes for nearly ten years before he found two real lost gems, being episodes of "Till Death Us Do Part". He also found a number of other programmes, but most of those haven't been mentioned much in public. Even when the "Till Death Us Do Part" episodes were found, they were very difficult to play back. I myself bought up nearly 100 Philips tapes from the 70s, which had tantalising labels, most of which had been wiped to record 80s programmes.

16mm film prints are as most of us know, fairly hardy, but old (pre 80s) domestic video tapes are generally murder to play back. My only finds in this area were four 1977 BBC shows which had been wiped (Make the Music Speak). At least it brought back a Les Dawson performance, but it also brought back the New Seekers and Brotherhood of Man!