A Peek into a Forgotten Afternoon from 1975

Liquid nostalgia pumped directly into your hippocampus

The past is a funny old game - shut off immediately due to the dimensions of time and space, with only hazy, half-formed memories limping around our long-past-capacity memory banks. Luckily, we don’t always have to struggle with recapturing the past, as its curious ways have been captured on video for, we hope, eternal posterity.

Kaleidoscope are a Birmingham-based organisation who have been salvaging old television footage since 1988. Seen as one of the authorities in British television archives, they’ve managed to track down countless editions of television programmes long since consigned to a BBC skip. Accordingly, they have a bounty of fantastic vintage footage - please excuse me whilst I just nip off for a cold shower.

Now, a few years ago, Kaleidoscope started a YouTube channel to showcase some of their finds from over the years. And that’s where today’s clip comes from. Harking back to March 1975, it’s a treasure chest of content from BBC1 during the afternoon children’s schedule.

Starting with the end credits of Blue Peter, where Shep keeps a careful eye on the credits, we segue into a BBC1 Colour (yes, the progress of colour television was still ripe for celebration) slide for Roy Castle Beats Time.

Remembered by only a handful - probably - but I’ve never met one, and neither, I suspect have you, Roy Castle Beats Time flitted briefly across our screens for two series in the mid-1970s. The programme found the much missed Castle chatting earnestly with musicians. All but one of the episodes exist in the BBC archives, but don’t expect a repeat any time soon - if they won’t grant a repeat to The Tripods there’s little hope for anything else of interest.

Next, we get the jewel in the crown, a promo for an upcoming episode of Play Away. Spring is on the horizon and Brian Cant et al are practically giddy at the prospect. Curiously, rather than plumping for some video footage of the episode, the BBC presentation team go for a series of stills. To modern eyes, it’s a staid, static aesthetic and would only be acceptable in the 21st century if it was somehow underlined in bold with artistic pretensions. Different times, then, but also different budgets.

Following this, there’s an incredibly polite announcement that Lizzie Dripping is on the way before John Craven introduces John Craven’s Newsround with news that some blockading fisherman are set to move their boats - how very generous of them.

And so we arrive at the great existential question: were you watching BBC1 on the 27th March 1975? I certainly wasn’t as I was still several years away from clambering out of the womb into a world where, for a few weeks, there was still only three channels to watch. But even if you were watching, it’s unlikely you recall a specific slice of continuity from 50 years ago. Fortunately, this footage survives and we can relive its magnificence - the quality is top notch as it comes from a BBC master tape - once more.

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