The Brian Wilde Season on Sheffield Cablevision #1

There's something about the sheer, visceral nature of old PIFs that make them truly compelling viewing. The piercing screams, the smouldering acrylic polo necks and anoraks, the murky backgrounds ... they have an artlessness that is jarring in today's era of viral adverts and marketing-driven blandness. In addition, it's good to see that someone cared about you - children today wouldn't be warned on prime-time television about the danger of power lines (although to be fair not that many modern children would attempt to launch their steel-masted yacht on a canalside - it's all carbon fibre these days).

The presence of the late Brian Wilde on narration duties adds a certain urgency to the message - as if Foggy was just off camera, vigorously jabbing his walking stick at the young yachtsmen and fisher-folk before regaling them with a made-up war story.

Apocalypse at Rotherham Station

The building with the wonderful chimney-tree is next to Rotherham station, and was part of a canalside bar which had a barge available for 'drinking and cavorting'. The barge is still there, playing host only to rats and weed-smoking urban fishermen.

VHS Guerillas

Municipal Library

City Scene

The Cotswold Tape Recording Society

Cotswold Characters (Saydisc, 1972)

'In May of 1960, a group of amateurs formed the Cotswold Tape Recording Society and one of its earliest activities was the production of a programme of entertainment for local hospitals.

... In general there are two distinct voices: a high-pitched head-voice (exemplified here by Miss Amy Cook) and a more guttural chest-voice as demonstrated by Don Ellis.

With people like these an era will pass away yet, through the magnetic memory of the tape-recorder, their speech can still be heard and bring back the past."

Platform Guard

A buxom guardian found at Sheffield station, a Wilson-era Green Woman staring out at the commuters.