Author: Colin Grimshaw

I’m Colin Grimshaw. Although I took early retirement at the start of 2011 I was asked to continue to run the Video Archive Blog and keep adding material on a regular basis. Now, working from home and occasionally from Imperial, I will have more time to recall the background details to the videos you will be seeing. Since the late 1960’s I’ve been recording all sorts of things related to Imperial College. This is in the form of magnetic tape, but more importantly videotape. Although the College Archives holds thousands of pieces of paper in the form of documents, books, journals, manuscripts, etc, its collection of sound and visual recordings (videotape and film) is surpassed by the videotape archive collection...

2006 Postgraduate Awards

pg-2006For those former students who were at the 31 May 2006 Postgraduate Awards Ceremony 10 years ago, here for the first time is the video of that event. Until now this was only on a purchased DVD, but the entire ceremony is now available to view in full on our YouTube archive channel.

The picture shows me and Martin Sayers behind the scenes producing the video of the ceremony. Not only is it recorded, but it’s also relayed onto the big screen up above the Royal Albert Hall stage. Although I’ve retired, I was once again back at the Albert Hall last October to help Martin behind the scenes to record Commemoration Day 2016.

Colin Grimshaw January 2017

Actor Andrew Sachs: 1980

I haven’t featured any of the ‘entertainment’ interviews made by STOIC before, but this one is relevant. We interviewed Andrew Sachs, famous for Fawlty Towers, 36 years ago in 1980, a few months after the TV studio went into colour production. This was also during the 10th anniversary year of STOIC. His death was announced in the last few days and I thought it was appropriate to re-share this now.

Colin Grimshaw December 2016

Imperial College TV Studio: 1970 film

This post is a real example of something I thought, like many videos, was lost for ever. Just for fun, back in 1970 I shot some black and white 8mm film of the fledgling TV Studio. We had the ability to add an incredibly small magnetic stripe to the edge of the film allowing us to create a sound track. It’s all rather amateur because I had to record the track in ‘real time’ and put it directly onto the sound stripe, hopefully in sync with what was happening, as far as the pictures were concerned that is.

old-studio-1968The film gives a behind the scenes view of what we had then created in the studio. We had little or nothing to work with and the original cameras were basic to say the least, but we managed. That’s me in the picture on the right with one of those cameras. You’ll see the array of old monitors and the Ampex video recorder too. Nothing really exists from that period except the rare recording with former Rector Lord Penney. I did however shoot some film from the TV screens and although there’s a strong flicker it does at least record what was going on.

The film captures the changes into something that was to become more like a TV Studio. I had the film, but had never bothered to try to get it on video. When the studio closed in Feb 2007 most of the equipment was put into a skip, but I made sure I kept the Eumig 8mm sound projector as this would be the only way to play back the sound track. This actual projector was used to record the track in 1970. I never thought I’d be able to rig it all back up and get the sound track off, but I did. A little bit of modern post production has improved the sound a little. So, here for the first time in 46 years is that film which captures another small part of the Imperial College history.

Colin Grimshaw November 2016

Mathematical Evidence: 1998

whiteheadThis is another presentation recorded on 29 January 1998 at the Chapman/Whitehead Memorial Meeting. Alfred Whitehead (1861-1947) and Sydney Chapman (1888-1970) were both former heads of the Mathematics Department during the 1920’s.

Philip Davis gave the A.N.Whitehead (photo right) Lecture entitled Mathematical Evidence. Davis is known for his work in numerical analysis and approximation theory, as well as investigations in the history and philosophy of mathematics.

 

 

South Kensington Campus: 1992

This 24 year old video will bring back memories for those who can remember Imperial’s South Kensington campus before all of the rebuilding work and many changes began. Back in late summer 1992 I shot some stock footage around the campus for inclusion in videos we were currently making. This is just a small selection of campus views and I intend to find others, shot prior to this current video.

Who knows, you could be one of the people seen walking along the old walkway from the Exhibition Road entrance. You’ll also see: Dalby Court as it was before the ‘blue box’ Faculty Building, Civil Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering as well as the old steps up from the pavement on Exhibition Road prior to the new main entrance.

I’ve not added anything to the sound track, so what you’ll hear are the sounds of Imperial as well as the sights.

Colin Grimshaw September 2016

Morphy Day: c 1972

A recently discovered 8mm colour film of Morphy Day from around 1972. It was shot for inclusion in the STOIC news programme TOPIC. The original videotape has long since been erased, but this film survived. Although we didn’t have colour TV equipment at the time, the only method of recording events was to shoot them on film and in this case it was in colour. Morphy Day was in fact the actual boat race, seen very briefly at the start of the film, afterwards the traditional ‘battle’ also took place on the Putney tow path. Here then is Morphy Day seen for the first time in colour since the film was shot.

Colin Grimshaw August 2016

Edward Heath at Imperial: 1980

Edward HeathOn the 4th March 1980 Edward Heath (1916-2005) former UK Prime Minster, visited Imperial College. Later to become Sir Edward Heath, he was born 100 years ago today, July 9, 1916.

He spoke at Imperial to around 350 students in the Physics main lecture theatre. Mr Heath spoke at great length on the future economic policy of the world and the problems facing Third World developing countries as well as the developed ones.

Here, he is speaking very briefly with Mike Prosser (photo above) in the former college TV studio in electrical engineering. Once more we have a very old videotape recording from 36 years ago and it needed some tweaking to get a good picture and in particular, better colour. I am however rather pleased at how well it transferred to digital.

Colin Grimshaw July 2016

Croquet at Imperial: 1972

Topic 1971I recently discovered this 8mm colour film shot for inclusion in the student news programme TOPIC. No programmes from that period remain and the one photo we have, on the right, shows me during a recording of that programme in 1971. This is, as far as I know, the only record of Croquet being played at Imperial. I’m not sure in which month of 1972 this was shot, but it’s either early summer or autumn. What I do know is that it’s the late Professor Bernard Neal (former head of dept civil engineering) playing. According to the Imperial obituary “…He was also an accomplished sportsman captaining Cambridge at tennis and excelling at croquet, playing for Great Britain and winning the All England Club’s men’s singles title 38 times.”

In June 2011 the BBC had a web page all about his croquet abilities saying “…He has won more Wimbledon singles titles than Martina Navratilova, Pete Sampras, Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe combined, and yet you have probably never heard of him. That is because 89-year-old Professor Bernard Neal from Cheltenham is not a tennis player but a croquet player…”

Colin Grimshaw July 2016

College Orchestra Performance: 1982

I recently discovered this U-matic videotape of a 1982 performance by the Imperial College orchestra. Notable is the early appearance by Richard Dickins (right), this was before he had been appointed conductor and subsequently director of music at Imperial College.

The quality and especially the colour are rather poor, but once again I’m thankful that we do at least have this recording, brought to you for the first time since being digitised.

Colin Grimshaw June 2016

Larry Hench: June 1996

gLarry Hench, Emeritus Professor of Ceramic Materials died on 16 December 2015.

He joined Imperial in 1995 from the University of Florida, having made the seminal discovery in 1969 of Bioglass − the first reported synthetic material to form a bond with living tissues.
As Chair in Ceramic Materials at Imperial, he set out to uncover the basic cell biology mechanisms that gives Bioglass its remarkable properties. He set up the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine Centre with the late Professor Dame Julia Polak. There they made the fascinating discovery that the unique bone henchp2fgrowing properties of the glass were due to the dissolution products of the glass stimulating bone cells at the genetic level. Members of their team went on to make the glass into 3D scaffolds for use in bone regeneration.

The only video footage in our archive is what we shot for inclusion in his inaugural lecture in June 1996. And, unlike other inaugurals that we have recorded clips for, this one actually has him in it.

Colin Grimshaw June 2016