Lift Off With Ayshea

[Sue Butcher]

There's an appeal for recordings at the end of the article, so by now Ayshea must know about Ronnie's tapes. Fingers crossed!

[jerryg]

I wonder what ever happened to Ronnie's tapes that had lots of lift off clips on,there were lots of rare clips ,that would have made up an excellent compilation show.

[jerryg]

Hi William ,how are you ,long time no speak mate ,whilst doing your excellent researches on pop shows of the past ,has any new info come to light on lift off at all.

[markboulton]

In a way it's heartening that Granada didn't actually INTEND to wipe them for tightness, but heartbreaking that they're gone due to what seems to be an administrative error. I wonder if the same thing happened to So It Goes?

[markboulton]

I always suspected this of other cases where certain series of anything have nothing remaining, not even one or two, whereas other shows exist complete. I imagined it might be something as stupid as getting a production number wrong on a junking form, a number which may have been mistaken to indicate rushes, compilations or alternate edits, and the tapes recycled or skipped in the belief they contained material mastered on other tapes. Or alternatively in the belief that Job#X was now transferred to Job#Y, and so the tapes of Job#X are junked believing they were all duplicated onto another format as part of Job#Y when in fact Job#Y was just a compilation job.

[jerryg]

I really don't think there was anything left of lift off from probably 1980 onwards ,the reason I'm guessing this is ,when there has been on the rare occasion a clip shown from lift off with Ayshea ,eg Clive James and a 1970s children's TV DVD with Philip Schofield ,which were both shown or released on video early 1990s ,the same clips of Barry blue ,bay city rollers and Eli Culbertson were shown on both ,and they happen to be on one of the two lift offs that have survived at the time .I personally think that if the shows had still have been in the archives then ,they would have picked a few more memorable clips ,eg Slade, David Bowie ,sweet,wizard etc etc to represent the glory years of lift off .Most of the other pop series around the same time called 45 ,also got wiped ,so I just think they were both junked mid to late 70s ,in my opinion.

[williammcgregor]

Jan 13, 2018 19:43:42 GMT jerryg said:

Hi William ,how are you ,long time no speak mate ,whilst doing your excellent researches on pop shows of the past ,has any new info come to light on lift off at all.

Hi Jerry, Good to hear from you! it's been a long long time I'm OK thanks....how are you? miss our chats.

I've let the investigations into Lift Off go cold, but if you want me to start again I will.

Any pointers or dates in particular would be handy

[jerryg]

Hi William ,I'll have a look at the episode guide and see if any season looks a bit sketchy, meanwhile I can't seem to find anymore articles or info on the very first season of 45 from April to June 1974 .I suppose the fact that it was only shown in the Granada region ,doesn't help .I don't know if you know of any more leads William .many thanks.

[williammcgregor]

Hi Jerry, This is great I've got a new project! so I'll look through old newspapers at the library for Lift Off and 45. Thanks for the timescale of April to June 1974 as it narrows the search. This is just like old times!

[jerryg]

Thank you William,you always did some excellent research and found out info that wasn't available anywhere else.

[markdixon]

Jan 13, 2018 20:18:19 GMT jerryg said:

I really don't think there was anything left of lift off from probably 1980 onwards ,the reason I'm guessing this is ,when there has been on the rare occasion a clip shown from lift off with Ayshea ,eg Clive James and a 1970s children's TV DVD with Philip Schofield ,which were both shown or released on video early 1990s ,the same clips of Barry blue ,bay city rollers and Eli Culbertson were shown on both ,and they happen to be on one of the two lift offs that have survived at the time .I personally think that if the shows had still have been in the archives then ,they would have picked a few more memorable clips ,eg Slade, David Bowie ,sweet,wizard etc etc to represent the glory years of lift off .Most of the other pop series around the same time called 45 ,also got wiped ,so I just think they were both junked mid to late 70s ,in my opinion.

I suspect that nearly all episodes of “Lift Off” had already been wiped by 1975 or 1976. The series was never shown outside the UK (as far as I know) and I think this sealed its fate. I mentioned earlier in this thread that other early 70s Granada children’s programmes such as “Anything You Can Do” also had a very poor survival rate. It seems that during that era Granada were ruthless in getting rid of children’s programmes that were perceived to be of no further use.

In contrast, Granada's “Shang-a-Lang” (first broadcast in the UK in 1975) was shown on various Australian TV channels between 1975 and 1978. All episodes of this series still exist. I believe I’m correct in thinking that all the other music programmes that Muriel Young produced for Granada’s Children’s Department from 1975 onwards also still exist. Perhaps the overseas success of “Shang-a-Lang” convinced Granada that their music programmes for children were worth keeping permanently. Such a policy change wouldn’t have saved “Lift Off” because most of the series had probably already been wiped by then.

[jerryg]

Hi mark ,yes it seems that from October 1975 ,all of Muriel Young's pop shows seem to have survived , apart from 3 get it togethers from 1977 which seem to have gone missing ,as you say I think the only reason shangalang survived, was because it was sold abroad, because even though rock on with 45 was aired the same months as shangalang ,I think that only 10 out 30 something from that year survived.

[jbuoys]

Jan 13, 2018 19:41:11 GMT jerryg said:

I wonder what ever happened to Ronnie's tapes that had lots of lift off clips on,there were lots of rare clips ,that would have made up an excellent compilation show.

Apparently, Ronnie sold all his tapes last year to a collector.

[jerryg]

I don't suppose then any of us will ever see the lift off clips that Ronnie had on his tapes ,if a collector has bought them .what a great pity these clips couldn't be shared so everyone who is interested in TV pop shows from the past, could get enjoyment out of them ,but I suppose life doesn't work that way .

[jbuoys]

From what I can see on this forum, Ronnie had these tapes for over 10 years and there was ample opportunity for others, including Kaleidoscope to acquire them. The only 'snag' is he was not prepared to give them away.