38 years ago in May 1979, Michael Arthur held the post of Students’ Union Welfare Advisor. He later became College Assistant Secretary within Central College Administration.
Here he is talking to Paul Johnson about how to go about finding accommodation during the next academic year. Once again, this is an edition of STOIC’s Summer Lunch Break with an interview recorded in black and white, but with a colour introduction.
Colin Grimshaw November 2017
In October 1979 Imperial College Students’ Union staged a series of protests against government education cuts. Occupation of the Senior Dining Room was one part of these protests. Another took place on Commemoration Day itself. Those who took part in the occupation, together with many others carrying placards and wearing black armbands, joined in a “Funeral March” following a black coffin, held aloft by six students, through the Beit building and on a journey around the Royal Albert Hall. Students were already leafleting the parents and other visitors to the ceremony in the Albert Hall.
STOIC were there to record the event and reporter Bob Powell spoke to a future ICU President John Passmore. Note that the incorrect name was used by Mike Prosser in the studio introduction to the news report.
Colin Grimshaw October 2017
Way back in the days of black and white, the Student TV Service STOIC captured some of the excitement of the 1979 Students’ Union Rag Fete, that was held in Princes Gardens. This is also a good record of what the gardens looked like before they were altered at the time of the rebuilding of Southside Halls and Linstead Halls (see 1990’s photo on right). Guest celebrity was actor Christopher Biggins. The report is introduced from the TV Studio in colour, by Sarah Clifford.
Colin Grimshaw September 2017
In 1979 BBC Radio London obtained a world record for broadcasting for 48 hours non stop. IC Radio were there as part of the attempt and Paul Johnson spoke to Harvey Nadin the newly elected IC Radio manager about this and his plans for the station in the new academic year. However, in January the following year (1980) Harvey resigned from his post. This could well be the only interview with him about IC Radio, unless I uncover something else!
Page 2 of the January 14th edition of the student newspaper FELIX has the report on his resignation.
Some of the tape has been damaged which you’ll see as lines running down the screen.
Colin Grimshaw August 2017
In 1976 the student television service STOIC covered the student union election results live from the Great Hall. The videotape that we still have, these 41 years later, is the earliest one that still exists. One or two programmes were made in years prior to 1976 but as these were live broadcasts, videotapes were not made. It’s a fluke that this 1976 recording is still around. It was made as an ROT (Record Off Transmission) for no other reason than for us to be able to review what was done. I actually recorded it myself on a now redundant Sony open-spool half inch tape format machine (on the right is an example of such a tape). However, for some reason it was then copied onto the U-matic format which is still (just) in working order. We moved to U-matic in mid 1979. The recording is unstable in places and has many tape drop-outs (white flashes across the screen where tape oxide is missing).
This programme was amazing in a way. Up until then all videos were recorded, or broadcast live from the studio. This was different because I had made use of some new cabling that had been installed from the Great Hall to the TV Studio. I considered that it should be possible to use this to send video and audio both from the hall to the studio and back again. I also used one of the audio cables to feed ‘ear phone cue’ to any of the presenters. Amazingly it all worked and we did that for several years. This programme was introduced in the studio by former FELIX editor Mike Williams and from the Great Hall by Mark Caldwell also with them was soon to be STOIC Chairman James Sinclair. In the photo, Mike is top left with Mark lower left and James lower right.
Colin Grimshaw August 2017
On 2nd May 1979 Imperial College ran a PR exercise for the local residents around the South Kensington campus. The event was called Meet Imperial College. The objective was to inform, update and educate the residents on what the college was doing at that time. The following video is the only record of the event and was shot by the student TV service STOIC. Having said that, I actually shot the video using our newly arrived colour equipment as I wanted us to have a record of the event and to have it shot properly! I’m glad I did that, some 38 years ago, because now we have a chance to see it again. Grant Richmond was the STOIC reporter at the event itself.
FELIX the student newspaper reported the event as:
” The aim of this public relations exercise was to enhance goodwill among College’s nearest neighbours for IC by showing them something of what the College was doing. Residents from all walks of life received invitations including members of the Knightsbridge Residents Association, some of whom had been vocal in their opposition to the proposed Linstead Hall extension.”
You’ll catch a brief glimpse of Eric Laithwaite and his linear motor among the many things on display. Lord Flowers the Rector, put on a brave face and spoke about the number of people who attended! The picture quality is poor. Our colour camera (as mentioned in previous entries) needed loads of light to give good images, however the location in the Sherfield Building lower refectory was dimly lit. The studio shots prior to Grant’s location report were with the same camera, but under good studio lighting.
Colin Grimshaw July 2017
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.
httpv://youtu.be/8y3MnrOx3OQ
Colin Grimshaw December 2016
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
On 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
38 years ago on 15 December 1977 Mark Hamill visited Imperial College to promote the forthcoming release of a new film. That film was Star Wars. We were lucky to get him to visit the TV Studio (then in Electrical Engineering Building) as part of the publicity rounds to promote the film. I suspect we’d never get a look-in these days, but back then no one had heard of the film and they needed every drop of publicity. Coming to the studio for the STOIC interview was closely timed because we’d been informed that he was next going to the BBC TV Centre for a live appearance on Blue Peter (the Children’s TV Show). The photo on the left was taken in the studio at the time of the recording. He was talking to James Sinclair who also happened to be the STOIC chairman at the time.
The day before the Mark Hamill recording we had also managed to get Gary Kurtz who was the producer for the first film and whose name seems to have almost disappeared when the film is mentioned these days.
Sadly this interview is one of those programmes now frozen in time on the old Ampex A format one inch videotape which sadly we cannot now play without a machine and those are now rare. We were still a few years away from moving into colour so the Mark Hamill interview is in black and white. For copyright the film clips are removed.
Because of the “Imperial Storm Troopers” and the fact that Mark Hamill was coming to Imperial College we bought him a T-Shirt. He proudly and immediately put on the Imperial College T-shirt and said he would wear it on Blue Peter, which he did a few hours later. He signed my autograph book “Galactically Yours, Mark Hamill”. Here then is the Imperial College connection to Star Wars from December 1977.
We made use of the initial studio recording right away, but it was not ‘edited’ to neatly included the films clips until a later date. When you hear the reference by James to ‘earlier this year’ he’s referring to the academic year, which starts in October.
Colin Grimshaw December 2015