Greetings from the man who has preserved the 2-inch Quadruplex 625/PAL videotape of David Bowie's "The Jean Genie" carefully since "Top of the Pops" Producer Johnnie Stewart authorised him to have a dub when it was recorded on 4 January 1973 in studio TC4 at the BBC Television Centre, London. I thought it was about time I joined your forum, rather than just "lurking".
Without you guys "Jean Genie" would have remained in my archive, probably to have been put in a skip when I die. And unless the whole thing is handled properly by the corporation which thought so little about it (and other material) that they wiped it, then that's where the rest of my archive will probably end up, because no way will they be given access to the rest of it.
If Ray Langstone hadn't got in touch with me after I casually mentioned I had the tape (totally unaware of its rarity) on "Johnnie Walker's Sounds of the 70s" on 18 September 2011, after a tip-off by Mark Wardle and Laurence Piper (all of whom I tried to credit on my return to Johnnie Walker's show yesterday, 4 December 2011) the tape would just have remained in my Big Yellow archive storage. Incidentally, this storage costs me £176.80 per month – a sum which this 70-next-birthday pensioner pays but can ill afford. Maybe TOTP2 would like to contribute?
On 18 November, I went to Westpoint Television in Acton Lane, W4, with Richard Turley of BBC4's "Tales of Television Centre" before going on to TVC to sit in front of camera, being interviewed for two and a half hours. At Westpoint Television, David Dean put the tape on his old 2-inch machine and I watched with baited breath, praying that I was right about what was on a tape which just had a piece of paper in the box with "Bowie" written on it. Then the hairs on my neck literally stood on end as David Bowie appeared on the monitor, as fresh as the day it was recorded the best part of four decades ago.
The first public showing of this tape for well over 38 years will be on Sunday next, 11 December 2011, at the National Film Theatre, South Bank, to conclude the BFI's annual "Missing Believed Wiped" event. Dick Fiddy is to interview me about it on stage at the event. Maybe I will be able to meet some of you in person there?
Since it was Richard Marson and Richard Turley of "Tales of Television Centre" who arranged the dub and interviewed me about the story of why I have it (among other stories), I promised them that they would have the first showing on television. But now TOTP2 has announced that it will be shown on BBC2 on 21 December 2011. If so, I do not know how they obtained a copy, unless it is from the DVD with BITC (Burnt In TimeCode) which Richard Marson sent to them, or from whoever made the DVDs at the BBC. We will see. Call me old fashioned, but I am a man of my word and I promised first use to Richard Marson for use, along with my story, in his programme due for transmission sometime next year on BBC4. Richard's idea was to show a clip in his amazing programme of reminiscences of people who actually worked at Television Centre and to make the full version – in original 4:3 aspect ratio, without presenters talking over it and without superimposed captions to make it look "trendy" – available on the Red button. There could be BBC internal politics at play here, I don't know, but if so all my other archive material will remain where it is.
The reason why TOTP Producer Johnnie Stewart allowed me to have this tape was that the Telefex Fisheye Lens, which I used on my camera when shooting it, was hired to "Top of the Pops" by a company, Telefex, registered in my sister's name. Why is a long story. Briefly I designed many optical effects which Johnnie Stewart wanted to use on TOTP. These included Fisheye lenses, rotating Multi-Image Prisms, Sunburst and SuperSun filters (up to 96 point stars as on Abba's TOTP appearance performing "Waterloo") and the Kaleidotube effect which was seen under the credits at the end of each show for years. When the BBC management didn't want my fisheye and multi-image prisms, Johnnie took me to the bar for a drink and told this reluctant young cameraman to set up a company in someone else's name and rent the effects to the show. All those effects attachments, most of which can now be done digitally, are now at the National Media Museum in Bradford for posterity.
So there you have it. You are the first to have the facts. You deserve it, after all you were the catalyst for all this. It has been mentioned that Chris Evans might be interested in it for "The One Show". Great idea. I'd love to tell the real story, before it's shown on TOTP2. Maybe someone will suggest it to him? He could even show a clip ...
I've sent 15 screen grabs from the video to Mark Adams of
www.DavidBowie.com. I've had some wonderful long phone calls with Mark!
Thank you for your interest and particularly for the recognition you have given to my hoarding instinct, which I can tell you my late wife did not appreciate!
Regards
John Henshall
PS: If you want to contact me direct, there is an eMail link on my main website,
www.epi-centre.com. I don't want to put my eMail or phone numbers on a public forum. Hope you understand. Or Ray Langstone has my phone number.