Tag: Students

Mary Attenborough: 1979

In January 1979 a mass boycott was organised against the college increasing the price of food on campus. From the 26th January edition of Felix it was reported that:

“The Union is to organise a 24 hour boycott of Southside Refectory in protest against poor quality food and high prices.
The decision by Tuesday’s Union Meeting reverses the recommendation of IC Union Executive to postpone the boycott. Union President Mary Attenborough appealed for mass support for the boycott.”

Mary Attenborough was the 73rd Union President (1978-1979) and here, from May of 1979, she’s talking to Mark Foley about this and the possibility of the union setting up their own ‘snackbar’.

(This edition of Summer Lunch Break was one of the first to contain material originated from the college TV studio in colour, but as we only had the one colour camera multi-camera interviews continued to be recorded in black and white.)

Colin Grimshaw June 2017

Life at Wye: 2003

In 2003 we produced a DVD for the undergraduate course in the Faculty of Life Sciences. The DVD covered course details for Biochemistry & Biology in the Department of Biological Sciences and Agricultural Science in the Department of Agricultural Sciences.

This section looked at “Life at Wye”

Colin Grimshaw May 2017

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

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

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

Pimlico Connection: 2006

Begun in 1975 as an undergraduate group project, the Pimlico Connection has grown over the years to become a key strand in Imperial’s widening participation activities. Emeritus Professor Sinclair Goodlad, founder of the initial project, recalls the early days of the scheme when just a handful of students began mentoring in local schools. “Originally we were looking at it primarily from the point of view of what students would gain from the experience – developing their communication skills and really getting to know their subject by finding ways to explain concepts clearly. However it soon became clear that there were great benefits to the schools as well.”

Students provide tutoring between 1-3 hours per week January-March. And now, in 2016, the Pimlico Connection is already celebrating its 40th year.

Colin Grimshaw April 2016

Star Wars comes to Imperial: 1977

Mark Hamill 3 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.Gary Kurtz 1 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