Nationwide-what exists

[John Miller]

As far as I know so far, only the film insert reports survive for 'Nationwide'. I wonder if this is all the inserts as two I recall, one 1971 about Mark Lester, how much pocket money he gets etc. & one with male reporter circa 76 about larvae in a villages water supply which were 'unpleasant but harmless' ending with them drinking a glass of water with some at the bottom (Ugh!) I also recall the series on ghost stories where Sue Lawley annonunced 'some viewers & children may find the next item disturbing'. It told an account of how the ghost of an old woman was alledged to have walked out of a wardrobe across a room, hovering by a babys cot talking to the child. They then played the (chilling!) tape where a rasping old ladys voice was saying 'Coochy-coochy-coo' and such like. Steve Bryant (NFA) said around 1994 a cache of domestic reel to reel tapes off air of the magazine from this period had been returned, though I've not heard any further info.

[Paul Hayes]

I've got a BBC East segment on the great Horning village coypu hoax by the University of East Anglia's rag society from 1975. Only black & white, mind.

[Lee Bannister]

In 1991/2-ish there was a theme day on BBC2 - The Lime Grove Story. Amongst other things they showed 1 version of the Doctor Who Pilot - and a small documentary on Nationwide - "Let's Go Nationwide"

From that I deduce that a (small?) number of shows exist from throughout it's run - plus the original untransmitted pilot from 1969.

Also shown in this programme was some film of 'behind the scenes' on the show... which I found interesting. From the look of some of the clips, I guess that some of the material may have been sourced from non-broadcast standard (domestic?) tapes...

[Laurence Piper]

The non-broadcast quality clips must come from the domestic recordings. These are what John was referring to above in relation to Steve Bryant. It was in Bryant's book "The Television Heritage" in fact, that he mentioned that a virtually complete set of the show from 1971 on survived in this way. Very depressingly he also said they were virtually doomed as no funds were available for transfer. Does anyone know what the outcome of this situation actually was in the end though? Were any / some / most saved at the last minute?

[Simon Mclean]

By doomed, do you mean thrown out, or just left there untransferred? Hopefully the latter!

I think the production team taped each one for review purposes (Michael Barratt's autobiography mentions someone watching a tape of last night's edition) - I suppose that's what these tapes are.

There are a fair few editions that survive on VHS from the early 80s in varying quality, though I don't know whether any broadcast quality copies were kept - probably not.

A studio recording of an edition from January 1973 also survives in broadcast quality - it was this one that was doctored for 'Smashie and Nicey - The End of an Era'!

[Laurenve Piper]

Yes - doomed I also take to mean untransferred. Hopefully they still survive as my motto is "never say never". If the tapes are still in existence then maybe SOMETHING can be done eventually. As Steve said himself, the programme was an important record of daily life.

There are a few complete editions around from earlier on (not sure exactly how many) and loads of inserts. I think the last few months of the show at the start of the '80s were all recorded on master tape and kept though.

[Simon Mclean]

I hear conflicting reports about the archive status of the last Nationwide, though - when my brother was doing Stars Reunited, he heard the BBC didn't have a copy (so the clip of Bob Wellings having a sneaky cig was taken from Sue Cook's domestic format tape), but someone on here last time the subject came up said there was a proper copy.

Well, I'm confused anyway!

[andrew martin]

The last "Nationwide" is alive and well and exists complete in the BBC archive - the BBC holds digital copies, the 1" source tape is at the NFA. Why "Stars Reunited" couldn't locate a copy is a mystery!

[SimonW]

I taped the final 2 editions, and still have them. The last week of Nationwide had some good 'Look back' sections, and included all Nationwide titles in full.
[e-mail]

[Paul C]

Whilst we are on the subject of 'Nationwide' and stuff existing/not existing, it was interesting to see the BBC Watchdog 25th Anniversary show tonight (Tues 11th) - Now whilst they showed the very first title sequence from 1980 (of course Watchdog was originally part of Nationwide) there was no accompanying studio footage of this era - I wonder if this means that it simply doesn't exist? I don't know when Watchdog actually left Nationwide (was it when Nationwide actually finished?) but I presume by the lack of studio clips, the very early Watchdogs don't exist....

[Richard Bignell]

Guest-Paul said:

Now whilst they showed the very first title sequence from 1980 (of course Watchdog was originally part of Nationwide) there was no accompanying studio footage of this era - I wonder if this means that it simply doesn't exist?

What was all the stuff of Hugh Scully presenting the programme if that wasn't studio material?

What was the name of the Nationwide slot that Richard Stilgoe used to present?

Richard

[andrew martin]

There are some PasBs knocking about, on broadcast formats as well as quite a lot on VHS. There are also a lot of VT inserts. The Richard Stilgoe slot was "Pigeonhole" (where he was assisted by a cartoon pigeon called Walter - geddit???).

[Paul C]

Err...Richard - I don't think that was from 1980.

I know they showed a film insert about MFI from probably a very early edition, but I didn't think the studio footage they showed with Hugh Scully presenting with a black background behind him was from the early editions - in fact I know it wasn't - the original set looked like a small office with Hugh sitting behind a desk.

[Richard Hunter]

Nationwide is a very sore subject between myself and my father.

We had a video recorder at home as far back as January 1980 and when John Lennon died in December of that year Nationwide did a tribute programme on him which I think was on the evening he was assasinated.

My father taped it and decided to keep it for historical purposes, but being the young clumsy 16 year old I was then I accidently erased it some weeks later !!

I don't think I've ever been properly forgiven.

[Graham Gourlay]

Hello Richard,
I have the Nationwide the day John Lennon died if you'd like a copy email me at [e-mail]

Graham