Vintage BBC material from the 1970's and 1980's.

BBC has some excellent material which has not seen the light of day for many years - Ludo Kennedy's excellent and so well made documentaries on Bismarck , Tirpitz and Scharnhorst - all so memorable for all the right reasons and they are never shown.
"The Secret War" again from the mid 70's put out on video but never on Dvd and never screened again , not that I can recall in recent years.

I also recall a series which Frederick Forsythe narrated " A History of men in battle" which was quite good again from the mid 80's never repeated and never shown again and it is as good as if not better than most of what is repeated on the history channel.

Although most of these would be judged to be a "minority interest" we old so and so's are perhaps not vocal enough , come on "Auntie" what about a few repeats even on BBC-3 or 4 for us old timers !! ( Please ).

 

Some of these turn up on Yesterday - the Forsyth series Soldiers was shown on ?Gold a while back.

The BBC do have plans to make all of this available via iPlayer as part of the BBC Archive in the very near future, but in the days of VT (Video Tape), it wasn't uncommon to re-use master tapes (ie wipe over them) so some series/programmes have been lost.

 

One excellent programme not shown for many years is "Battle of the Somme". The programme was presented by Leo Mckern and aired around the time of 60th Anniversary. One to lookout for!!!

 

I wonder if
"All Our Yesterdays" is going to get a re run

ALL OUR YESTERDAYS | A TELEVISION HEAVEN REVIEW

 

James,

I am sure that there is a good market for the BBC Documentaries relating to WW II being produced in DVD form.

Regards
Tom

 

Funny enough I was just thinking about this last week. Sorting out some stuff I re-discovered VHS's of Secret War and the fantastic series the BBC did on Special Operations Executive in the early 1980's. There must be some excellent Timewatch documentaries in the archives as well.

It would be great to see these series either available on DVD or online.

 

CL1
"All our Yesterdays" I remember my father watch that in the 1960's........just going out to get "my teeth out of the jar"
That is an oldie and no mistake.
I am sorry I missed FF's re run....... I remember one line from his series when he said " If possession is 9/10's of the law , then the infantry are the bailiff's man".
The NCO who then showed recruits how to use a bayonet ( in the pouring rain) was straight out of "FMJ".

Brian Inglis ....he did time on flying boats with "Coastal" on Lough Erne in 42-43.

 

My father appeared in the 1980's bbc series which I think was called Soldiers so I was interested in your comment that it was shown recently on Gold - I hope it was the same series because that gives me hope that I may be able to access the programme again and see my father in action. Does anyone have any further information I could use to track it down - any help gratefully received.

 

Quite a lot of items from that era were binned or taped over and only a few episodes survive an example of this is Moonstrike about the SD Squadrons and SOE. The standard BBC riposte is we have 'contractual' problems with reshowing these programmes.

 

My father appeared in the 1980's bbc series which I think was called Soldiers so I was interested in your comment that it was shown recently on Gold - I hope it was the same series because that gives me hope that I may be able to access the programme again and see my father in action. Does anyone have any further information I could use to track it down - any help gratefully received.
Here is a link to one episode and hopefully according to the link you can find the rest on Youtube. Cold War Hot Hot Hot: Soldiers - A History of Men in Battle - Tanks here you go episodes 2-7 YouTube - Pt 6: Soldiers - A History of Men In Battle - INFANTRY

 

Quite a lot of items from that era were binned or taped over and only a few episodes survive an example of this is Moonstrike about the SD Squadrons and SOE. The standard BBC riposte is we have 'contractual' problems with reshowing these programmes.

In the 1960's/70's magnetic tape was so expensive, the BBC would archive TV programmes by filming a television screen onto 16mm B&W cine film. The tapes were then reused. When I worked for the Beeb, we'd often take still from these 16mm prints.

Many of the early Dr. Who's were preserved this way. I remember a number of years ago a few episodes were restored by using the luminance from a 16mm print and the chrominance from a BetaMax video tape copy made by a fan in the US in the late 1970's.

I think I read the other day that the BBC is trying to get around the problem of archival programmes that have issues with orphaned copyright. Hopefully that might lead to more availability of their back catalogue.

Lee

 

One excellent programme not shown for many years is "Battle of the Somme". The programme was presented by Leo Mckern and aired around the time of 60th Anniversary. One to lookout for!!!

This is available at Somme : narrator Leo Mckern : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive and is an excellent copy.

 

Another classic has just finished on Yesterday, the series Colditz. Good to see that it is out on DVD now.
When I first saw the threads title I thought it was a comment on the BBC's Christmas line up this year

 

I used to work in the BBC Light Entertainment photo library. They had material dating back to the early days of TV including glass plates negatives etc. I can't recall seeing much war stuff but was probably the wrong library.

 

One excellent programme not shown for many years is "Battle of the Somme". The programme was presented by Leo Mckern and aired around the time of 60th Anniversary. One to lookout for!!!

also another good programme made in 1984 ,,''they were very exceptional
soldiers '' that covered a number of world war one veterans revisiting
MONS -YPRES -SANCTUARY WOOD and TYNE COT .
I actually have it on an old vidio .and watch it occasionally ..

 

I used to work in the BBC Light Entertainment photo library. They had material dating back to the early days of TV including glass plates negatives etc. I can't recall seeing much war stuff but was probably the wrong library.

When was this Nicola, if you don't mind me asking?
I was working in the BBC Photographic Unit at TC from 1988 until it closed in 2002. I've printed up many a glass negative or two from the picture library and also digitally retouched a few that were broken.

Lee

 

Hi Lee it was a warehouse in North Acton Road, down the road from TV Rehearsal rooms near the A40.

We used to get a mini bus at lunch the TVR or even to TVC to eat in the canteens. I saw some famous names of the times there, including John Gielgud and Sue Pollard, who told me in the lunch queue, 'Don't have that love its cr*p!'

 

Ah the good old days Nicola. Aren't the North Acton premises demolished now? I haven't been back to TVC since 2004. Last time I was there only one studio was in use and that was for another channel! Very sad.

 

and Sue Pollard, who told me in the lunch queue, 'Don't have that love its cr*p!'


Ah, the legendary "BBC Canteen" the butt of jokes once upon a time by almost every comedian under the sun! The best one I ever heard was from Ronnie Corbett -

"Good BBC food - guaranteed for thirteen repeats!"

 

I know this does not fit as it is from the the early1960's but Field Marshall Montgomery gave a series of lectures describing his battles.

He was his usual bumptious self but the stuff was absolutley fascinating.

I have tried looking up BBC archives but can't find any reference.

Surely the BBC would not have dumped this irreplaceable material but can anyone help me find it?