Four Fantastic Minutes Straight from 1979

My ongoing quest to salvage ephemeral goodness from British television's distant past continues, and, once again, I've been able to dig all the way back into the 1970s. And it's all courtesy of the mammoth haul of Betamax tapes which I picked up back in June. These intriguing tapes all date from the early 1980s, but the owner had previously owned a Philips VCR and had copied several of these tapes over to Betamax. Previously, I had found some very brief BBC continuity for Top of the Pops, but I've now uncovered four minutes of footage which contain nearly everything you could want.

YouTube Pick of the Day: Tees Street Isn't Working (1985)

The Thames channel on YouTube is packed full of fantastic gems from the archive, and that's exactly where today's YouTube Pick of the Day comes from. The video itself is part of an edition of current affairs programme TV Eye, which aired between 1978 - 1986, and focuses on the socioeconomic problems blighting the lives of those living on Tees Street, Birkenhead.

A Bertha Comic Strip From September 1986

Digging through my pile of Buttons comics, which I picked up on Ebay a few years back, I spotted this exclusive Bertha comic strip and thought it would make a fine addition to Curious British Telly. It hails from September 1986 and features a quick story about fireworks which didn't feature in the television series. So, yes, being an official piece, this is part of the Bertha canon, an intriguing body of work which, no doubt, Disney will be snapping up in no time to milk dry.

I've Dug Up the 1976 Christmas BBC1 Ident

I wasn't aware, until the last 24 hours, that the 1976 Christmas BBC1 ident had only been preserved in a particularly poor picture quality. However, after I stumbled across some Christmas 1976 recordings... well... I was informed the version of the ident I'd found was a significant upgrade.

So, if you cast your eyes upwards, there it is. All the way from 1976, it's a clearer view - although faaaaaar from HD - of this 47 year old ident. In my opinion, it's far from knocking the daddy of the BBC Christmas idents off the top spot, with that position obviously taken by the 1977 rotating Christmas pudding. Nonetheless, it's a nice find and hopefully it'll tickle your fancy.

Archive Tape Digging: June 2023 (Betamax Special)

It's been a long old time since I last did an edition of Archive Tape Digging, a situation enforced on me by a lack of tapes in the last few years. Sure, I've picked up a few in the last year, but in such small quantities there's been little to get excited by. Thankfully, following the purchase of my Betamax player, I've had not one, but two pickups of Betamax tapes.

As a result, I've now got close to 400 Betamax tapes to plough through. Progress, so far, has been relatively slow. But this is actually a good thing. You see, the reason that I've barely made a dent in this mountain of tapes is that they keep throwing up interesting finds. And these all need digitising in real time, so it's time consuming affair. The amazing payoff, of course, is that I've got a veritable bounty of finds to share with you.

Curious British Telly Enters the Betamax Age

Yes, the rumours are true, Curious British Telly has finally invested in a Betamax player. It's something I've wanted to get hold of for years, ever since I first started trawling through old VHS tapes. But the price of a fully functioning, excellent condition model had always been a little prohibitive. Okay, £175-ish wasn't exactly going to send me into a financial meltdown, but it was difficult to justify in the grand scheme of things. Luckily, the Substack I set up a while back has managed to secure a few paid subscribers and their funds have made this possible. Eternal thanks, once again, to them.

How I Wrote Lytton’s Diary: Writer Ray Connolly Tells All

Nearly four decades after its pilot episode aired, Lytton's Diary writer, Ray Connolly, remembers the series being a big hit with the very people it was profiling "All the journalists I knew loved it. We got Fleet Fleet as right as we could."

Curious British Telly Substack Subscription

Just a quick update to let you know that I’ve decided to try out the paid-subscription option on Substack to deliver exclusive Curious British Telly bits and pieces. You can find out more about the Substack here. There will, of course, continue to be free posts on the Substack and on here but I thought I’d see if anyone is willing to subscribe.

The articles behind the paywall will be similar to the articles featured in the now defunct Curious British Telly fanzine, and there will be at least one a week.

Any proceeds generated will go towards investing more money in the Substack and the main Curious British Telly e.g. trips to the BFI Archive and, as I’ve been threatening to for years, finally purchase a Betamax player and a mountain of old tapes to investigate.

However, there’s no pressure as I appreciate there’s a cost of living crisis hitting everyone and, well, archive television isn’t the most important thing in life. So, if you do want to subscribe - either to the free or paid version - then just click here.

The EastEnders Cook Book and Wicksy's Cocktails

It's debatable if EastEnders, despite running for 38 years now, is still considered a hot property. Nonetheless, when it launched in 1985, it was accompanied by a huge buzz of excitement which lasted for many, many years. Not surprisingly, this popularity quickly led to a nice line in merchandise to generate further revenue for the BBC.

And, in 1986, the first EastEnders annual appeared. I looked at this annual in an issue of the now defunct Curious British Telly fanzine, but I thought it would be fun to bring two of its more curious sections to a wider audience: The EastEnders Cook Book and Wicksy's Cocktails.