Back in 1979 the BBC produced a series of five half-hour documentaries about science fiction called Time Out Of Mind. I don’t think that I saw the programmes at the time, and I’m not sure that they have been shown again since. Given how sloppy the BBC are with their archives, they may even have lost the originals. But video recording had been invented in 1979, and now, thanks to British fan Arnold Akien, I have copies.
There are five programs in all. Four of them focus on specific writers: Sir Arthur C Clarke (plain Arthur as he was back then), John Brunner, Michael Moorcock and Ann McCaffrey. The Moorcock programme also features M. John Harrison — including some live rock climbing — and Hawkwind. But it is the fifth programme that really caught my eye, because it was filmed at the 1979 Worldcon in Brighton.
Yes, seriously, a whole half hour documentary devoted to Worldcon. There are interviews with the likes of Brian Aldiss, Fred Pohl and Robert Silverberg. There are interviews with fans. There’s Filthy Pierre (with a fine crop of dark hair) playing the Star Wars theme on his signature keyboard instrument. Somewhat to my surprise, there are Christopher Reeve and Tom Baker. And some of the best interviews are given by a very calm and professional looking con chair, Peter Weston. There’s film of the masquerade, including a young lady wearing nothing much except a pair of 40-foot wings. And the programme closes with a very happy Vonda McIntyre clutching a silver, rocket-shaped object and thanking Avram Davidson for inspiring her to write Dreamsnake.
I have to say that the quality is not great. This was the very early days of video, and the tapes are now quite old. But I do have digital versions. The files are currently VBOs and quite large, but I’ll see what I can do about converting them into something more compatible with YouTube and the like. There’s also a question of copyright, of course, but I don’t suppose the BBC will object to my posting a few minutes of a Hugo Award ceremony.
If anyone knows who at the BBC I should talk to about this stuff, please let me know. And if people are interested in getting copies, or showing it at conventions, let me know.
I’d contact the BBC Archives:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/contact.shtml
To be honest, I suspect they still have this. By 1979 the BBC had got their archiving sorted, and I don’t think there’s much, if anything, after 1975 that’s been lost. (And it wasn’t just the BBC – they are seen as the biggest villains, because they had more, and better-remembered, shows. But the ITV companies were just as bad, as fans of Ace of Wands, Callan and At Last the 1948 Show know.)
I remember those! I watched them avidly and was deeply jealous that I was not able to go to Seacon 79 (something to do with being 16. Bah).
As someone who once worked for a media-type company (a very small music label) and still retains an active interest in these issues, I would totally expect the BBC to object to you posting anything it owns onto YouTube, yes, even obscure 30-year-old footage.
OTOH, maybe you can convince the BBC that there is sufficient cultural interest to make it available on one of its own sites, though it’ll probably wind up locked to allow UK viewers only. (Insert standard rant from Americans who would love to be able to give money to the BBC in exchange for seeing content, if only it would let us.)
Ye Olde Technolgy of The Still Camera capturing the “young lady wearing nothing much except a pair of 40-foot wings”: http://fanac.org/worldcon/Seacon/w79m028.html
And the rest of Seacon ’79 trapped in time: http://fanac.org/worldcon/Seacon/w79-p00.html
Oh, we were so much younger then.
It was my first trip across the Atlantic, thank you Sir Freddie Laker! And then off to the Louisville NASFiC.
The bewinged young lady was Katie Davies, now Kate Solomon.
“Somewhat to my surprise, there are Christopher Reeve and Tom Baker.”
Christopher Reeve was a huge hit at Seacon, unsurprisingly; fans were thrilled to meet him at parties, etc.
I’m kinda alarmed at how you relate all this stuff as if you are an archeologist unearthing forgotten ancient tablets; I wasn’t even at Seacon ’79, but I remember it perfectly well. 🙂
Way to make some of us feel old. 🙂
(I wasn’t there, but I *was* the sole American Agent for the bid for quite a while.)
Reeve was present to accept the Hugo Award for Superman, and his charming apology for having kept Hitch-Hiker’s Guide out of the frame won over quite a few fans in the hall. The incident is recounted in M J Simpson’s bioraphy of Douglas Adams (although, as Mike wasn’t in Brighton, he quotes an old conrep of mine).