Because this years 2020 event is cancelled, let’s go back nearly 50 years for an on-location report by STOIC on the 13 November 1971 Lord Mayor’s Show. This was shot on 8mm film for inclusion in their weekly news programme, then called TOPIC. I made two very important discoveries when sorting out and collating the collection of either badly or completely unlabelled 8mm films. Firstly, this particular film was actually shot in colour, but only ever seen in black and white. Secondly, I also discovered an audiotape that had a listing inside. One segment was marked “Lord Mayor’s Show – long film report”, but with no date. Fortunately, the sound track commentary has a date mentioned, which led me to finding out that it was the same as the film. And, although the film was only marked as ‘BBC; Carnival; 1973’, the content was clearly the same thing, so the date was wrong. The clincher was the mention on the audio tape of that years theme title of “students today, engineers tomorrow”. Also, the BBC float was mentioned with ‘space men’ being located next to the C&G float, so that confirmed things. This could not have been any other year than 1971.
I’ve adjusted and corrected the film as best as possible. The audio was never intended to ‘sync’ with the actual film images, but rather to complement it with real ‘on-location’ sounds and a report with interviews. But to make this work I have had to second-guess the film speed. It could have been shot at either 16fps or 18fps, the reel doesn’t say. Also, when the film was projected did it run at the correct speed? Therefore, I’ve had to adjust the digitised film speed to attempt to match the audio duration. The person you’ll hear commentating is former STOIC Chairman Tim Dye. Were you a student on the C&G float back then and are you now retired?
I’ve also found other sound recordings, suggesting that they are linked to more 8mm film reports. I just need to do some more research and try to identify the films, that’s if I do indeed have them of course. But for now, let’s go back 50 years for the sights and sounds of the Lord Mayor’s Show 1971.
I’ve had a great comment from Paul Jowitt about this post and video (incidentally I think he meant the 1971 show):
Enjoyed the 1970 Lord Mayor’s Show video! I was C&GU President at time and was the one standing up in the back of Bo. Happy days! Yours Paul
Today I have what was another mystery film from the STOIC archives. In digitising the 8mm films that were used in their earlier programmes I found two reels of Super8 colour film marked London (to) Brighton. No date or further details were on the reels. It was a mystery as to why this was shot on film because clues lead me to believe it was perhaps around 1978 or so. By then, STOIC had their own Sony portable videorecorder for location work. I looked for clues in the actual footage but couldn’t spot anything that might give me a date. Until…..in one very small segment you will see Bo (Boanerges) has broken down outside of a cinema. This was in Streatham in South London. I could just make out, by zooming into one frame, a film title on the outside hoarding on the cinema. I looked it up on Google and it was dated as 1977. So, this was clearly the London to Brighton run on Sunday 6 November 1977.
I have no clues or idea as to why this was shot on 8mm colour film. The two reels are unedited and even look as if they were never used. If anything was indeed used it would have been in the weekly Lunchbreak programme. Was Rag week the same weekend as this event and therefore the videorecorder was not available because it was already in use?
We may never know the answer, but here anyway is the digital transfer of Bo, going from London to Brighton in 1977. Oh, and that’s Sir Hugh Ford sitting on the back seat in the middle.
Only recently I remembered that I had a copy of an old 45rpm disc. It was called IC for sale Vol 2. It was given to me by Richard Woodhead (one of our students, who died in 2021) around about 1972 so that’s over 40 years ago now. What I had forgotten was that it contained some unique sounds of Imperial College. It has great recordings of the three college unions C&G, RSM and RCS chants plus the Imperial chant Hey Vivo which I can’t recall the last time I heard it. The 45rpm disc -or any tape recording of it- do not exist in the main Imperial College Archive, so I’ll be putting a CD of it in there soon. I have found a review and reference to the original first pressing of the disc in the searchable newspaper PDF archive of FELIX May 1965. See page two at the top called ‘Gateway to Industry’.
Also, if you know Imperial from far enough back you will remember the City and Guilds building clock and bells (photo on the left). Or if not, you will know that the clock mechanism relocated to the Mechanical Engineering Building foyer (photo at bottom) some time after the original buildings were starting to be pulled down in the late 1950’s.
The bells were moved (photo on the right) way up on top of the building overlooking, what was, the green Dalby Court area. This is now where the Faculty Building is located. The bells would ring the quarters, half and so on and could be heard throughout most of the college area. I gather that regular mechanical & electrical problems caused the demise of the chimes! But, these can once again be heard on the disc.
At the end of the disc on side two is Sinclair Goodlad well known at Imperial College for his ‘Speaking Technically’ courses. I think it’s best for me to quote directly from the disc itself to explain what you will hear. “Finally, a depthly epitaph to I.C. by Sinclair Goodlad of the Wireless Dept, aided by two W.C. echo chambers and the Mech Eng bell-ringers. Recorded ‘in situ’ at a late hour in Mooney’s, one can even hear the celebrated ‘Mooney Meatball’ beating time…” But the important thing are the bells, not heard for such a long time, they are at least captured here in all their glory! I hope you enjoy these flashbacks to Imperial past and what an archive joy it is that this record was made in the first place.
The clock mechanism in the Mech Eng Foyer
I hope you enjoyed listening to this recording, which I appreciate was a slight diversion from ‘video’, but worth making available here. It’s interesting the number of references there are to Victor Mooney, the then college catering manager who was featured in a previous post. If you have anything like this record in your collection at home, especially if it captures the sounds of Imperial past, then please do get in touch. If you appeared on the disc we’d also love to hear from you.
Last time, in STOIC One, we looked at the very start of STOIC with clips from things like: an early promotional video to join the club and Morphy Day on the tow path at Putney. Staying with that line of thought, this time we’re going to see an early example of coverage of a rag event, Election Results ‘live’ from the Great Hall and the days when students had a “Mooney” for lunch rather than an sandwich.
Firstly though, the idea for IC Radio started in 1974. In the days prior to the internet, to be able to hear radio, you needed a radio. For a radio to hear your broadcast you needed a transmitter (a legal one too). So, for IC Radio to operate it would need to be able to transmit.
By the time that IC Radio was about to open, there were ways to achieve this ‘within’ a building (as opposed to an actual transmitting aerial as such). As you will hear in the interview, a ‘leaky feeder’ cable was the method used to enable broadcasts on the medium wave. Mark Caldwell (a former STOIC Chairman) and main presenter at the time, interviewed John Allen who became IC Radio Station Manager. This video is from 4 March 1976 and has a few glitches in its playback, but it’s not bad for 35 years of age. John Allen has his own archive website with loads of old photos and sound clips, so you may wish to hop over and read more about it, click here.
Coverage of rag events was a regular and popular item within STOIC’s programme schedule. Whether it was: a simple collection; tiddlywinks down Oxford Street or, as we’re about to see, “Guilds Silly Sports” outside Harrods in Knightsbridge. This was always a good location for all involved, as it’s about 10 minutes from the South Ken campus. So, no one had to travel too far and this was important for STOIC when a rag took place on a Wednesday afternoon – the time in the week when STOIC’s news programme was recorded and edited. So, returning with the videotape to start editing was always the main thought for those waiting back in the studio. This is one of the earliest rags recorded back in 1979. Colin Palmer interviews those taking part and more importantly, those giving money…
Mark Caldwell in January 1975
Hustings, elections and the UGM, (where the results were announced) were also high on the STOIC list of events to be covered each year. When, in the early 70’s, parts of the college were linked by both video and audio cables an idea came to mind. Why not try and link from the great hall and report the UGM live via STOIC? When the idea was first suggested the technology was not quite in place to allow video as well as sound to be relayed back to the TV studio.
So, in year one, Mark Caldwell presented live segments in sound only, with a photo of him showing in vision! Year two was a lot better and technology allowed a full linking in vision and sound. So, five years on from the first attempt, here’s a clip from the UGM of 1980 with Paul Johnson presenting.
But…this is just a bit different again. Why? Well, because by now STOIC was running its own live programme AND also linking into IC Radio at the same time. You’ll see what I mean in this clip and you’ll hear me on the earphone cue system which was clearly too loud that day! The slight pause before Dave Fuller starts speaking is because they were waiting for a cue from IC Radio to confirm the link-up between the two networks, all rather complicated for those early days.
Finally, if you were a student in the 1960’s to 1980’s you may well remember going for a “Mooney” at lunchtime. What was this? Well the answer is simple. Victor Mooney (Died on December 27th 2012 aged 89) was college Catering Manager from 1953 to his retirement in 1985. He became part of college tradition and so did his food, hence the reference “Mooney”. It’s a bit like saying you’re using a Hoover I guess. Over the years he came in for some serious complaining by the students, but, as he always said, if he was given a serious budget he could provide a serious meal. Here he is from 1979 talking to STOIC regular Dave Ghani.
For this entry I’m showcasing something that we’ll be visiting many times more. STOIC, the Student Television Of Imperial College was formed in 1969 and is still running today some 40 years later, in fact it’s their 40th Birthday this week. Because they were taking a student point-of-view on college life and were free to feature and record what they wanted, they have left us with a unique record of Imperial College that does not exist elsewhere.
20 Minute talks taking place in 1967
STOIC’s origins are with the Electrical Engineering Department (who owned and ran the original TV Studio) in January 1969, after being formed following a suggestion from Sinclair Goodlad. The initial idea was to help operate the cameras for the departments “20 minute talks” that ran each Wednesday afternoon (see photo from 1967). This would give them something positive to do and would also give them experience prior to the setting up of an official union club and by October 1969 this had happened. The first experimental news programme was recorded on 17 February 1970 and was called “IC Newsreel”. Now 40 years later, this programme still exists on videotape and an extract from that programme can be seen in the 10th anniversary recording at the end of this current blog entry. In it you’ll see Professor John Brown, then head of the electrical engineering department speaking about the death of Lord Jackson the Pro-Rector. John Brown being a relative of Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
STOIC in the original TV Studio in 1971
For the first and second programmes the technology limited the students to 1/ recording only within the confines of the studio and 2/ recording in one go, that is, without any form of editing. Because of this, showing things outside of the studio was clearly not possible, but there was a simple solution by using 8mm home movie film. STOIC shot short items on film and edited them into a suitable order for use in the programme. The films were silent and frequently in black and white, although some do exist in colour (the videod programmes were black and white). Although a small collection of those 8mm films are still around, the news programmes that they were shot for have long since been erased. This was due to the fact that videotapes cost around £30 at that time. So, all these years later we are still able to see short film clips of events and that’s what we’re going to do now.
This is a film clip from the early 1970’s and may well be featured in one of the first two programmes still on tape. But here it is in its original 8mm film version as used in the programme. It’s a student union meeting being run by the union president Piers Corbyn and we’re lucky that Lord Penney, the Rector, was clearly addressing and answering questions from students. This 8mm cine film is interesting because, besides the videotape interview, this is the only other moving film record of Lord Penney at Imperial College. Remember this is silent and in black and white.
STOIC were well underway by the time of this next video from June 1971. It focuses on the fact that they were heavily involved with the camera operation for the student’s 20 minute talks in Electrical Engineering. A mock-up talk is given by a STOIC member, who was also in the department as a student. The video was made to get members to join in the October of that same year. It should be remembered that at this time almost no one would have had access to video cameras, let alone a videotape machine, so being in STOIC gave people that access. Some of the technology behind the scenes is shown to enthuse students to join. It’s all very basic and looks a bit faked, you’ll see some flashes between sections where the videotape machine was stopped and then restarted to allow sections to be recorded (no editing as such at that time). Tim Dye, the chairman, appears at the end of the video to encourage people to join. This was made nearly 40 years ago so quality is poor, but it’s amazing that it has survived to this day!
Trevor Philips talking to Desmond King 1970’s
This next photo is interesting as it features the former Student’s Union President (1975-1977) Trevor Phillips being interviewed by Desmond King. This would have been for one of the weekly news programmes. Trevor went on to work (briefly) in TV himself with LWT, so perhaps these early outings were his first step towards that. Trevor will also feature in other videos in future posts on STOIC. He is (as of Feb 2010) chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. At this time, all main events were still studio bound, but things would soon change. 8mm cine film would soon be a thing of the past for their news programme coverage. Skipping forward some 8 years STOIC had bought their own portable videocamera recording system. This allowed them to go outside and record the type of events that students get involved with.
Morphy Day was one such event to be covered annually. Originally, on the day each year, just a cup was presented for rowing, but in later years on Morphy Day the towpath at Putney was also the scene for battles between supporters of the various teams. All sorts of waste food matter, flour and dead fish were hurled at each other. This was just too good an opportunity to miss and so we can now see Morphy Day from 1979, but we can’t smell it thank goodness. This event no longer happens and is therefore yet another unique record of college life and its traditions from years past.
Past STOIC chairman at the 10th Anniversary in 1980
Finally, to end this first look at STOIC we have a video made to celebrate the first ten years of its operation. Because students will come and go in a natural cycle of time I was the only person who knew the history and the people involved since 1969. Although the formation became official in 1969, the first 10 years were actually celebrated in February 1980, this was to coincide with the first programme being made in February 1970. In conjunction with the current membership we made a video that celebrated all that had happened since the beginning.
Indeed a lot has happened during the time, going from black and white into colour was an obvious improvement and being able to edit was a major leap forward. A party was organised and every STOIC chairman to date attended (above photo). Jumping forward some 30 years perhaps an updated version is now long overdue? I hope those who remember watching STOIC’s programmes, or those who were members, enjoyed this first look back into their archives. So it’s another Happy Birthday to STOIC, 40 years old this very month!
Because this years 2020 event is cancelled, let’s go back nearly 50 years for an on-location report by STOIC on the 13 November 1971 Lord Mayor’s Show. This was shot on 8mm film for inclusion in their weekly news programme, then called TOPIC. I made two very important discoveries when sorting out and collating the collection of either badly or completely unlabelled 8mm films. Firstly, this particular film was actually shot in colour, but only ever seen in black and white. Secondly, I also discovered an audiotape that had a listing inside. One segment was marked “Lord Mayor’s Show – long film report”, but with no date. Fortunately, the sound track commentary has a date mentioned, which led me to finding out that it was the same as the film. And, although the film was only marked as ‘BBC; Carnival; 1973’, the content was clearly the same thing, so the date was wrong. The clincher was the mention on the audio tape of that years theme title of “students today, engineers tomorrow”. Also, the BBC float was mentioned with ‘space men’ being located next to the C&G float, so that confirmed things. This could not have been any other year than 1971.
I’ve adjusted and corrected the film as best as possible. The audio was never intended to ‘sync’ with the actual film images, but rather to complement it with real ‘on-location’ sounds and a report with interviews. But to make this work I have had to second-guess the film speed. It could have been shot at either 16fps or 18fps, the reel doesn’t say. Also, when the film was projected did it run at the correct speed? Therefore, I’ve had to adjust the digitised film speed to attempt to match the audio duration. The person you’ll hear commentating is former STOIC Chairman Tim Dye. Were you a student on the C&G float back then and are you now retired?
