Written out of History

One of my proudest achievements was finding a lost episode of Doctor Who, an honour I share in equal part with my good friend Neil Lambess.

Neil and I found a 16mm film print of The Lion (the first episode of the 1965 William Hartnell story The Crusade) in the collection of Auckland film collector Bruce Grenville in early January 1999.

Neil did the investigating that led to the find. Neil then contacted me and we went to meet Bruce and view the film together, thereby verifying that it was a missing episode. I then handled the episode’s return to the BBC.

Neil and I have always been of the view that we deserve to share equal credit for the episode’s discovery and return. We would not have it any other way.

I remember saying to Neil, shortly after viewing the film, that our discovery had surely earned us a place in the Doctor Who history books.

So it was upsetting to see in the recently-published Doctor Who Magazine Special Edition, The Missing Episodes - The Second Doctor Volume One that my part in the discovery and return of The Lion had been effectively written out of history.

The special itself is an absolutely superb record of the early Patrick Troughton stories, showcasing the missing episodes from The Power of the Daleks to The Faceless Ones with a series of telesnaps (photographs taken of the television screen as the stories were originally broadcast).

The special is prefaced with a four-page article by Richard Molesworth called The Numbers Game that covers the various discoveries of missing episodes. Many people responsible for making these finds and returning film prints to the BBC are name-checked in Richard's coverage of the subject.

The discovery of The Lion in New Zealand is covered in one paragraph. There is no mention of my name and, worse still, my involvement has been wrongly attributed to others.

The problem lies with the last two sentences of this paragraph. Here’s the first of these:

Grenville showed the episode to a friend of his, Neil Lambess, who was also a fan of the series, in 1999.

The friend of Neil's who was also a fan of Doctor Who was me, not Bruce. Grenville was not especially a fan (he wasn’t even aware that the series had missing episodes). He also did not know Neil prior to the episode’s discovery. They met for the first time when we went along to Bruce's house to view the film. What this sentence also omits to say is that Bruce showed the episode to both of us: I was sitting there right alongside Neil when we first saw the film.

Here’s how I think this sentence should have read:

Grenville showed the episode to Neil Lambess and a friend of his, Paul Scoones, who was also a fan of the series, in 1999.

Moving on to the paragraph's last sentence:

Lambess realised that Grenville had a missing episode, and helped facilitate its return to the BBC later that year.

This time it's Neil rather than Bruce to whom my involvement is wrongly attributed. I "helped facilitate" the episode's return: I negotiated the loan, physically collected the film and made the arrangements for its transportation to the UK. Furthermore, this all took place within days of making the discovery, not “later that year” as the article claims.

Again, here’s how I think it should have read:

They realised that Grenville had a missing episode, and Scoones helped facilitate its return to the BBC days later.

What I find most surprising about this is that the article's writer, Richard Molesworth, is the author of Wiped! Doctor Who’s Missing Episodes which is regarded as the definitive book on this subject. There is a section in the book where Neil and I are quoted about the discovery and return of The Lion. Richard only had to refer to his own book to fact-check his article and avoid making these mistakes.

I posted about the article’s errors on Facebook, and received the following response from Richard: “Sorry Paul, no slur intended - my brief was to be concise, and quite a few names got left out of the article - it was more of a 'what was found and when' piece. The 'who' often got truncated or omitted. Sorry if I've offended.” A short time later he added: “This had nothing to do with the editor, let’s make this clear.”

I can appreciate the need for conciseness, but this should never be at the expense of factual accuracy. Omitting any mention of my name from the article is annoying but not necessarily wrong; ascribing my role to other people most definitely is.

In the article, those two sentences amount to 40 words. My suggested rewrites above come to 43 words. That's right, just three additional words could have fixed this.

BBC Radio 4 Interview

I am interviewed in The Lost Episodes, a new BBC Radio 4 documentary first broadcast 26 December 2009 in the Archive on 4 series.

I was approached by BBC researcher Mark Harrison to take part in this production on 9 October this year. Mark described the documentary to me as 'a one-hour piece covering the wiping of some of the early episodes of the series and the subsequent hunt and restoration projects that bring these stories back to life.'

Mark invited me to be interviewed about my involvement in finding the last known surviving copy of The Lion, episode 1 of the 1965 William Hartnell Doctor Who story The Crusade. On my recommendation Mark also invited Neil Lambess to take part in the interview. As Neil and I found the episode together it is only right that he should be involved in telling the story.

Neil and I were interviewed together in a studio at Radio New Zealand in central Auckland early on the morning of Tuesday 17 November. This was a live link-up with the documentary's presenter and producer Shaun Ley, who was in the UK.

In a previous blog entry I discussed being interviewed for Stripped for Action for the Doctor Who DVDs and how I found this a somewhat nerve-wracking experience. By contrast the radio interview was a lot more enjoyable. Listening back to my comments I think it is plainly evident that I am far more at ease on audio than I am on video. In the radio studio I only had to focus on what I was saying and didn't need to think about where my eyeline was or whether my hands were waving about. It also helped that I wasn't the sole focus of the interview, so if I faltered or got anything wrong, Neil was right there to jump in and take up the story, and I supported him likewise.

At the time of writing, the documentary can be heard online via the Listen Again audio stream on the BBC Radio 4 website (though this will probably only be available for the next week).

I found it was fascinating and thoroughly engaging. The focus on audio restoration in the first half of the programme ideally suits the radio medium.

The story of the discovery of The Lion is featured towards the end, beginning around 47 minutes into the hour-long programme (that said, I recommend listening to the entire documentary).

The Lost Episodes is currently attracting some criticism in Doctor Who discussion forums. The central complaint is that it omits other individuals involved in the discovery and return of missing episodes. I have some sympathy with this view but I can also see the programme makers have chosen to focus on an individual episode find rather than covering the circumstances and people involved in each separate discovery. The Lion was selected, it seems, because it is of particular interest. As Shaun Ley says in the documentary, it is "perhaps the most remarkable rescue story in the Doctor Who Archive".

The documentary does however unfortunately misrepresent one aspect of The Lion's recovery.

In the documentary, Sue Malden says that the BBC asked Bruce Grenville if it could have a copy of his film print after an auction house had enquired about selling the print, and that Bruce then agreed to the BBC's request to loan the film. Shaun Ley's narration then states that it was after these "issues had been ironed out" that I went to collect the film.

These comments I think give the false impression that Sue Malden negotiated the return of the film with Bruce Grenville and that I was then despatched to collect it. In fact I sought and gained Bruce's permission to borrow the film to send back to the BBC some time before the auction house or Sue Malden got involved. By the time this issue arose the film print was already held, on loan, by the BBC.

This minor niggle aside, I'm delighted to have had the opportunity to take part in this documentary, which coincidentally was broadcast just days before the eleventh anniversary of the day that Neil and I made that historic discovery of a long lost episode of our favourite telesion programme.

Going Down in History

I'm concentrating most of my time on writing my book (latest word count: 152,000 words or thereabouts), which is why I haven't blogged in the last month.

I do however want to take a moment to mention the lovely surprise I received on opening the latest issue of Doctor Who Magazine (#405) today. Editor Tom Spilsbury's 'On this Month' column (which takes a nostalgic look at a past issue) casts an eye over issue 275 from ten years ago, and covers the article I wrote for that issue (one of my first professional writing commissions), about the return of The Lion. I wasn't expecting this, so it was a delightful to see that Tom namechecked both myself and Neil Lambess, and even quotes Neil on his likening of the find to something out of Indiana Jones.

After all this time it's still a thrill to see myself and Neil remembered for our small contribution to Doctor Who history.

Here's the item:

The Lion's Roar

This morning I received a text message from my old friend Neil Lambess wishing me a happy tenth anniversary.

It was ten years ago today that Neil phoned me to ask if I'd meet him later that day.

That was, for me, the beginning of a whirlwind of events that earned us a place in Doctor Who history books. Neil had contacted Auckland film collector Bruce Grenville, who apparently had a missing Doctor Who episode 16mm film print in his possession. Bruce agreed that Neil and I could come around to his Grey Lynn flat and view it on the evening of Sunday 3 January 1999.

The missing episodes are the Doctor Who equivalent of the holy grail; film prints and videotapes junked and destroyed by the BBC in the 1960s and 1970s in the belief that no one would ever miss them. This was in the days before repeat screenings were commonplace and home video was unheard of.

Bruce had the first episode of a 1965 story called The Crusade. The individual episode was called The Lion. It was the only known surviving copy in existence.

My own contribution to the discovery was to negotiate for the loan of the film print. The BBC wanted to borrow it long enough to clean up the film and make copies. I communicated with the BBC's restoration team and persuaded the collector to loan the film. I was nervous that at any moment the negotiations could have fallen through, and I'll never forget the moment I walked back to my car with the film safely clutched under my arm.

For one evening I was in possession of perhaps what was - at that moment - the rarest, most coveted Doctor Who item in existence. Here's a photo of me taken that evening, clutching the film.


(It's a sign of the changing times that whilst those shelves behind me are still in the same position in my study, these days they're filled with DVDs rather than videotapes...)

I despatched the film to the BBC's Doctor Who restoration teamin London by secure FedEx courier the following morning.

These days, the episode can be viewed on the BBC DVD Lost in Time. In addition to the episode, the DVD contains an interview with myself, Neil and Bruce Grenville. Our contribution to Doctor Who is recorded for posterity.

A decade on from that historic find, Neil and I remain very proud of our achievement. Neil - thanks for the memories, my friend. Isn't it time we found another one?

The full story of the film's discovery can be read online here.