I caught the tail end of an interview with a BBC archive blokey on breakfast TV this morning, he looked very pleased with himself. I thought they muttered something about Hancock but I wasn't clear on what it was. Cheers, Mogwai...

"So why exactly did you wipe this material in the first place?"
"Well, if it was today, it's possible we might have kept it..."

Priceless.

From BBC News Online (now BBCi. Yo, kids!)

"More than 100 "lost" BBC TV and Radio programmes have been recovered for the nation following a six-month appeal by BBC archivists. The programmes, including two episodes of classic comedy series Dad's Army, had either never been recorded or had been wiped from the archives.

Members of the public responded to the BBC's Treasure Hunt appeal by handing over personal recordings of the shows. Using digital technology, the corporation copied the programmes for its archives.

The recovered programmes are made up of 100 radio shows and a dozen television shows. The BBC's head of information and archives, Paul Fiander, said: "We've had a great response to the Treasure Hunt appeal and some fantastic material has turned up.
"We always knew it was out there and this has brought back a gratifying number of programmes back to the BBC."

People who submitted copies came from all walks of life but included collectors, former producers and overseas broadcasters.
Among the most exciting finds were two missing Dad's Army episodes and an audio tape from The Beatles' appearance on Jukebox Jury.

The Dad's Army shows, from 1969, were recovered in June. They turned up in a pile of rusting film cans handed into the BBC by a man who wished to remain anonymous.
One, called The Battle for Godfrey's Cottage, shows the Walmington-on-Sea Home Guard reacting to an imagined German invasion. The other, Operation Kilt, has the platoon taking on a crack Highland regiment in night manoeuvres - with the help of a pantomime cow. The episodes were among 19 film cans pulled out of a skip at Elstree film studios in Hertfordshire in the 70s.

Other classics unearthed by the Treasure Hunt appeal include an episode of Benny Hill - Portrait Of A Bridegroom.
Also recovered is a 1931 radio adaptation of A Christmas Carol and the first edition of the long running panel game I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue from 1972."

I've just been looking for that report. Completely contradicts the Today report, which said that the 100 tapes *follow* the other recoveries, like Dad's Army. Looks like they got the stories mixed up, as Mogwai's is more accurate.

They lost the first ISIHAC? Jesus.

>From BBC News Online (now BBCi. Yo, kids!)
>

BBCi is actually a massive rebranding for all the interactive services (internet, webTV, WAP services, and digital TV). As usual, all the old-hand BBC people are going 'Oh, it's rubbish and they don't know what they're doing. I hope it falls flat on it's face'. They'll go out of their way to make life difficult for it, and then in two years time suddenly realise it's quite good, and won't be able to understand how they lived without it (See also, News 24, BBC World and the launch of BBC Online).

Now, apply that attitude to the day the BBC announced a new 'archive department', and you begin to understand why the collection is in such bad condition.

Re ISIHAC - is it the first transmitted episode, or the (untransmitted?) pilot with John Cleese?

>Re ISIHAC - is it the first transmitted episode, or the (untransmitted?) pilot with John Cleese?

Dunno, but someone posted this round up elsewhere:

Radio

<*> Four previously un-held editions of Hancock's Half Hour from 1956 and 1958, starring Tony Hancock with Sid James, Bill Kerr, Kenneth Williams and Hattie Jacques.

<*> The first edition of Radio 4's long-running panel game, I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue from 1972.

<*> Nine songs Paul Simon recorded before he was famous in a visit to Britain in 1965, and two songs recorded by Elton John for Radio 1's Speakeasy in 1969.

<*> Music While You Work : Live bands and orchestras performed this legendary show, which was piped into workplaces from 1940 to 1967 - and the BBC did not hold a single recording out of thousands of editions. A fan has contributed almost 40 editions from his colection, mostly recorded off-air.

<*> More than 20 classic dramas recorded in the 1960s and featuring such talents as Keith Michell, Robert Harris, Susannah York and Prunella Scales in plays by Harold Pinter, Arnold Wesker, GB Shaw, Brendan Behan and Kingsley Amis.

<*> A 1931 adaptation of A Christmas Carol handed in by collectors' circle ORCA (Old Time Radio Collectors' Association) is the earliest broadcast recovered and the earliest complete BBC drama in existence.

<*> Interviews with Rod Stewart, Elton John, Alice Cooper and other fascinating material offered by Radio 1 producer John Walters shortly before his untimely death this year.

Television

<*> Benny Hill - Portrait of a Bridegroom. The comic played several versions of the bridegroom as seen through the eyes of different wedding guests. Una Stubbs, June Whitfield and Patricia Haynes co-star.

<*>All Gas And Gaiters. The 1966 Comedy Playhouse and a 1967 episode of this fondly remembered comedy starring Derek Nimmo as a curate.

<*> Till Death Us Do Part The Phone and clips of Aunt Maud from 1968. Up the Polls, a 1970 election night special featuring Eric Sykes and Spike Milligan as a Pakistani alongside Warren Mitchell as Alf Garnett. It was found on an early home television recordings from long-obsolete equipment and posed a challenge for the collector to recover the pictures.

<*> Clips from Z Cars, Softly Softly, Dr Finlay's Casebook, The Likely Lads and Out of the Unknown returned by the Australian censor - but only the material that was excised.

Source: http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,7493,589727,00.html

Oh, and it turns out that Today got it wrong. Very garbled story, whichever way you look at it.

So, is Dad's Army now complete, or are there still episodes missing? WHich Hancock episoes were recovered? How much will the BBC fleece punters to own the box set?

Loved the BBC guy's comment about 'We knew it was all out there'!

I thought there were four missing Dad's Army's now.

3 acherly: The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Walker, A Stripe For Fraser and Under Fire. All 1969 eps.

A full list of this year's recovery went on-line today:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/treasurehunt/about/listoffinds.shtml

><*> Up the Polls, a 1970 election night special featuring Eric Sykes and Spike Milligan as a Pakistani alongside Warren Mitchell as Alf Garnett. It was found on an early home television recordings from long-obsolete equipment and posed a challenge for the collector to recover the pictures.

No way!! So... what happens now? I can't imagine the BBC actually broadcasting this - because of the poor picture quality, naturally, and not because of any kneejerk PC wank - and there probably wouldn't be enough interest to justify a video release from their POV. So does this material just sit in the archives gathering dust now? I want to see this.

Surely the BBC now has enough recovered material to launch a season of it? Otherwise what's the point in recovering it?

It's of academic interest only when it's in that sort of state. Better than nothing, etc. Besides 'Up The Polls' is missing 3 minutes and had to be compiled from scraps anyway. Added to that, it's a VERY rattly 405-line off-air so I can't imagine it ever being screened. Which is a shame, because the finished excerpt that they showed at the NFT recently was corking.

(I've got an audio copy, Ewar. Best you'll get I'm afraid.)

What do you think the chances are of the NMPFT in Bradford getting their hands on any of this stuff? That would be one way around it. A lot of the stuff available to view there isn't in great condition.

There should be a National Museum of Radio, with Listening Booths... (it would be better, obviously)

I thought they found 3 eps of Dad's Army during the summer, and another 2 just recently, therefore recovering the 5 the BBC had missing?

And no Dr Who found...:(

A season of recovered shows would be a great idea, if only so we could actually get to see Out of the Unknown!

>I thought they found 3 eps of Dad's Army during the summer, and another 2 just recently, therefore recovering the 5 the BBC had missing?

Nope. You've got the story muddled up. They needed five then found two over the summer. The Treasure Hunt page on BBCiiii has all the info you need.

Ewar - I don't see why Bradford NFT can't order copies up, although they probably won't be remastered properly for a little while. Strange place, that. Singing Detective pt3 and no others?!

They've got an episode of Hardwicke House. Now, I wonder where all those are... at Central?

I remember taping some 'Hello Cheeky' but I expect the manky old Boots cassettes wouldn't have survived, even if I knew where they were. Huh.

>(I've got an audio copy, Ewar. Best you'll get I'm afraid.)

There are VHSes of the entire Terry Martini* tape doing the rounds, if you know who to ask.

*The collector that recovered the recording.

To put all this into perspective, it should be remembered that the BBC has no copy of General De Gaulle's message to the French people in 1940, urging them to continue fighting the Germans.

They didn't bother recording it in the first place.

Nor is there apparently a recording of Norway's King Haakon to his invaded country, broadcast from London in 1941. He had requested that the Beeb play in a fanfare before he began speaking; however, due to either an administrative error or just straightforward pronunciation problems, as he was waiting to speak he was quite startled to hear instead the sound of Wurlitzer organs, children laughing, and sundry other funfair sounds. Nonetheless he apparently carried on with his speech with dignity.

I've bet they've got series one of Coupling lovingly filed away, however. If the current war takes a turn for the worst, we can always transmit that to hostile countries. It'll destroy their morale.