Just before the start of the 1979 Autumn term there was major controversy over who the editor of Felix (the student newspaper) should have been. John Shuttleworth was duly elected editor of Felix for 1979-1980 but was denied the sabbatical post because he had failed to meet the required academic standards of his current year of study. It ultimately ended up in the High Court after solicitors took action, and issued letters on John Shuttleworth’s behalf. In the end, Colin Palmer who had come second in the election race was appointed as acting Felix editor. When the new election for editor was run, he then won this to become the full-time sabbatical editor for that academic year.
Naturally STOIC were keen to follow all of this up and on 3 October 1979, Colin Palmer came into the studio to talk to Paul Johnson about the whole saga and what was to happen next.
Well, I’ve now worked my way through 90 videotapes that have been digitised. That’s 90 more occasions where I might find something very interesting or have something of historical significance to Imperial College. As you might well know, I’m doing all of this from home since I retired early, some 13 years ago. It can, at times, be a long process to capture content from even just a single videotape. Sticky-shed, as previously discussed, can make it impossible to play a tape back without heat treatment. But once completed (which can take a full day) a videotape might yield some interesting discoveries. Also, as discussed many times, the archive of STOIC is providing some incredible material with both interviews and also their coverage of college events. A recent discovery being that very short clip of Nobel Prize winner Abdus Salam in the Great Hall. I have also discovered a fascinating interview with previous College Secretary John Smith talking about his time as Governor of the Gilbert Islands. I’ll add this new video to my previous blog about him.
During the final few transfers, I found a very early clip of Pallab Ghosh who was standing for Felix Editor. My previous blog post included his 1981 interview about Wells Soc, but that was shot in black and white. This 1983 interview is in colour and is about him standing for Felix editor (which he became), it includes his election speech during the Hustings. He is now Science Correspondent for BBC News.
Simon Singh was elected as RCS President back in March 1983. He came into the TV Studio along with the rest of the executive and we now have those interviews digitised. He has gone on to be an author of many books and has presented several science TV programmes, so maybe his visits to our TV Studio helped him along that route. He was awarded an MBE in 2003.
Starting on 26 January 1979 in edition 506 of Felix the student newspaper, was Drake’s 7. The cartoon strip was the creation of Physics student Paul Williams. The first part in the Drake’s 7 story is seen above. He won a competition for his efforts and also had the entire story reprinted in a stand-alone book available for 30p from the Felix office. He also created materials for the Phoenix magazine at Imperial.
Following his success in the competition he came into the TV Studio and chatted to STOIC’s Paul Johnson.
In 1982 the Imperial College Students’ Union had the opportunity to make a TV programme in conjunction with the BBC’s Community Programme Unit. All services, facilities and camera crew were made available to them and for them to have full editorial control on the final film produced.
The clipping is from the Radio Times from April 1982. It outlines the content as ” In 1979 the Government introduced the idea of ‘ full cost’ fees for students from other countries who want to study in Britain. Now the overseas students are staying away in droves and it’s beginning to have serious effects, firstly on our higher education system, but just as importantly on Britain’s relationships with the rest of the world.” I never heard any feedback on the final programme and whether or not there was any government reaction to it.
In the programme were Lord Flowers then Rector, Prof Roger Perry, Professor James Whitelaw and Dr Adrian Evans along with a host of Post Graduate students. There are some, but only a few, shots of campus and undergrads as well as a sequence shot at Silwood Park. Strangely though, Union President Nick Morton, who was even credited in Radio Times, did not actually appear in the film! There was a front page mention of the film and the date of transmission in Felix dated March 19th 1982 (see above). I think that the announcement of the transmission date was so early, because this was the last-but-one edition of Felix before term ended for Easter. Sadly, I’ve never seen any photos of the production being shot or edited. I’m surprised that Felix didn’t take any whilst the film crew were on campus!
Mark Caldwell filming at Elstree Studios in September 1975
Today we go back to 1975 and a fragment of college history captured in the archive of STOIC. Very few items remain from this time period because of the very high cost of videotape. Programmes were recorded over the following week with a new programme, so we’re lucky that this survives today. On the 26 February 1975 Mark Caldwell was presenting the weekly news programme Lunchbreak in which the candidates for the post of Felix editor came into the TV Studio. Clive Dewey and Paul Ekpenyong were standing and also attending was Mike Williams, the then current editor. From Felix 7 March 1975 the results were 440 for Clive Dewey and 527 for Paul Ekpenyong who was declared the next editor for 1975/1976.
At 7mins 20secs into the video you will also hear something very rare indeed. The college bells on the top of Mechanical Engineering chiming 6pm. We must have had the windows open in the studio which was then located on level 3 of Electrical Engineering facing where the bells were. So not only do we know the date, but also the time of this recording, that’s unique.
I can’t find a great deal of information about the Pedal Car Club, other than there are several references in Felix to the ‘Guilds’ Pedal Car Club. One of the Felix mentions from August 1983 had this photo on the front page. In the video you’ll spot Bo, so does this confirm the Guilds link? The first mention in Felix was in 1967 and the last in 1983, so I’m assuming it no longer exists? Anyway, once again we can enjoy this 1972 8mm film shot by STOIC for inclusion in TOPIC and with the added bonus of the original commentary as recorded by Graham Foster. There are also some nice views of the original layout of the gardens along with brief shots of the old Southside and Weeks Halls.
Today we have yet another amazing discovery. Like the previous post showing the Rag Procession, this is the 1972 “24th Hyde Park Relay Race”, as captured by the 8mm film camera of STOIC. But I have also found the 50 year old recorded commentary that would have been used when the film was inserted into the news programme TOPIC. I can also tell you that Graham Foster, a STOIC member and regular reporter is heard on that commentary. STOIC used the TV Studio’s Uher sound recorder to capture the genuine background sounds during the race. This is also one of those black and white films that they processed themselves ‘in house’. I have included the section from the 1980 interviews with STOIC Chairman, where Tim Dye talks about that 8mm film processing. The commentary does not quite fit the full duration of the film that I have included here. Graham also mentions that the race was organised by IC Cross Country Club. The most recent mention of the club is in Felix issue 1744 dated 21 February 2020 and mentions the race the previous Saturday 8th.
There is a race report on page 7 of FELIX issue 310 (9 March 1972) the headline is down below along with the 1972 video.
During my time of writing this blog I have either discovered or rediscovered many items that are now considered unique. Most of the items are maintained on videotape, some on film and a few (very few) on audio tape. The archive that I created when the College TV Studio started is limited in its range. This is because of the nature of how we worked and how jobs were created and importantly who commissioned them. We were not able to simply go off and record what we thought might be nice and therefore create a stockpile of unwanted items. We had to wait for someone in college to request a job and ultimately book and pay for it.
STOIC, the Student TV Service did not have this problem. Everything, and almost anything, was fair game for them to record and to then be used in their weekly news-magazine programmes, either TOPIC, Lunchbreak or News-Break. As discussed in other blogs, in 2009 I was able to save the entire STOIC videotape archive from being put into a skip during major rebuilding work in the basement of the Students Union building.
When I was digitising a tape from their News-Break series I spotted something in the programme running order that jumped out at me. Item 7 “Prof Salam – Physics Lecture”. I realised immediately that this was Abdus Salam our 1979 Nobel Prize winner from our Physics Department. I recalled that I had looked before to see if either I had recorded anything of him or whether there was anything in the college archives – there was nothing. This then had to be important and potentially THE only recording that Imperial had and indeed it turned out (so far) to be the case.
Sadly this segment of Abdus Salam is brief, some 44 seconds remain. It was his lecture that took place in the college’s Great Hall in the Sherfield Building on 18 February 1980. Not only did STOIC cover the event but so did Felix and splashed it over their 22 February 1980 front cover with the headline of “Can I unify Gravity?”. The clip you’ll see includes the original studio introduction to the news item by David Ghani one of STOIC’s regular presenters on News-Break.
On 5 December 1979 the editor of the student newspaper Felix called into the TV Studio to chat to STOIC about the 30th birthday. Colin Palmer was then the editor of Felix having already appeared on STOIC several times. Adrian Jeakings chatted to Colin about the beginnings of the newspaper and we had an actual copy of the very first edition to show just how very basic it was back then in 1949. They even discuss the Felix cat!
Colin Palmer was indeed no stranger to appearing on camera having covered the Pram Race in 1978. I hope you’ll also spot the STOIC sweatshirt that he’s wearing during this interview.
Well, who remembers the Great Tartan Race? Other references that I’ve found also called it the Great Tartan Barrel Race, either way it seemed to involve beer! This news item from STOIC’s 8 June 1973 TOPIC programme is missed from the card index because it was shot well before the index was started. The original videotape is long gone, so this item would have been forgotten. But, once again I found this gem in the collection of 8mm films that I’m currently digitising. If you remember, film was the only way for the programme to provide coverage of events outside of the college TV studio. Sadly this film is all that now remains of the programme so I’ve had to revert to a news clipping from FELIX dated 3 May 1973. (And yes you will have noticed a month’s difference between when it was shot and actually used in the programme)
“A team consisting of two members each from City and Guilds’ Union and Royal School of Mines Union were outright winners in their class in the Great Tartan Race, run annually by Scottish and Newcastle Breweries. The race involves transporting an (empty) keg of Tartan beer from Edinburgh to London, and the various classes of entry are for the most novel way of doing this, the team collecting most money for their nominated charity and for the team completing the distance in the shortest time. The IC team made the trip in a tartan-liveried Morris Minor accompanied by tartan-clad dolly birds, and collected for Action for the Crippled Child. The Tartan Race was entered by teams from universities and colleges throughout Britain.”
Coverage of the race was not only from STOIC it would seem, but also from British Movietone News. I didn’t realise that news for the cinema was still running in 1973, but at least STOIC’s was shot in colour (although seen in black and white). You’ll also spot that I found not only the used footage from the programme, but also the off cuts. These I’ve also included to show all that is still available in the archive collection. And when you look at the British Movietone News coverage does anyone recognise the voice doing the commentary? It’s the first presenter of BBC Television in 1936, Leslie Mitchell.
Just before the start of the 1979 Autumn term there was major controversy over who the editor of Felix (the student newspaper) should have been. John Shuttleworth was duly elected editor of Felix for 1979-1980 but was denied the sabbatical post because he had failed to meet the required academic standards of his current year of study. It ultimately ended up in the High Court after solicitors took action, and issued letters on John Shuttleworth’s behalf. In the end, Colin Palmer who had come second in the election race was appointed as acting Felix editor. When the new election for editor was run, he then won this to become the full-time sabbatical editor for that academic year.
