The study of history is not an exact science. We know about the big things like the depravities of Kings such as Henry VIII, the revolutions such as that of the USA and the machinations of politicians because people had the foresight to write about them and record their views of them for posterity. However, there are the little things and stories of the ordinary people and the events and cultural changes that seemed big at the time but which have been lost to history as they were not recorded and saved, are often the things that would tell a historian more about a culture than the official records.

Too much of the written and recorded ephemera of the past has been lost and we are left with a patchy record composed of what little has survived and come down to us to tell us what life was like for ordinary people in the past and about things like culture and the economy. We have some information in the form of land and job records, printed ‘broadsides’ detailing the final words of those executed at places like Newgate and Tyburn and the records of the trials and tribulations of the churches over the centuries, but it is data that is patchy, inconsistent and in the case of the ‘broadsides’ notoriously inaccurate.

The reason for so much ephemera not coming down to us is legion. Political pamphlets may have been published in small numbers, early photographs became separated from the families to which they belonged and were then destroyed. Disasters, both man made and natural have also taken their toll on the historical record with much early motion picture footage taken on flammable cellulose nitrate film that either burned in studio accidents or crumbled to dust due to poor storage. Modern ephemera from the era of electronic media has also suffered from being seen as unimportant and because in the early days of video recording the recording media itself was exceedingly expensive. Those few organisations with video recording equipment, mostly broadcasters, often taped over stuff that historians today would give their right arms to possess because the blank tape was worth more than the programme contained on it.

But there are some individuals, mostly from the late 1970’s and early 1980’s who had the presence of mind and the resources in the form of video tape and a video recorder, to record that ephemera that may otherwise have been lost. We owe a debt of gratitude to those with both the equipment and the foresight to record stuff that could quite easily be lost and not recycling the tapes. It is to these people that we must direct thanks for recordings of TV and radio shows that are no longer with us and stuff like station idents, test cards and in one fascinating case, Trade Test Transmissions. These Trade Test Transmissions were put out by both the BBC and ITV and were primarily intended to be viewed by those working in the radio and television trade back in the day when there were a multitude of TV and radio shops who not only sold equipment but also had to repair some of the often unreliable early TV sets.

These Trade Test Transmissions are often a fascinating glimpse into the technological world of the 1970’ and early 1980’s and also how it was operated. One of the videos below tells us of a time when TV transmitters were not automatically controlled and how an engineer had to travel to the transmitter each morning to switch it on. These videos also contain station hand offs and hand overs and another contains performers who are either long dead in the case of David Rappaport or who were later on rightfully incarcerated as is the case with Gary Glitter.

The test transmissions, handovers to TV stations that no longer exist and the fill in programming that was put out by broadcasters because of the multitude of strikes in the 1970’s are a window into the technology and culture of the past. We now live in a world where information is everywhere but as in the past, there seem to be few who are preserving it for the historical record. Maybe there is someone out there archiving dead websites, failed search engines, almost forgotten social media platforms and much more. I pray that there is or future historians will be in just as bad a place as those of today trying to piece together a culture from the little ephemera that was preserved by those who are now themselves dust.

Here is some of the broadcast ephemera, mostly trade transmissions that I’ve found. There must be much more out there and which should be preserved.

Temporary radio programming on the BBC stations due to a strike in 1978, a period that was known in Britain as ‘The Winter of Discontent’ due to the sheer amount of strikes and other industrial action.

Welsh independent broadcaster Harlech Televisions opening ident and sequence.

Closedown of the last Independent Broadcasting Authority 405 line transmitters operating on VHF

The close out ‘song’ sequence from now dead breakfast TV station TV AM with a handover to now equally dead ITV broadcaster Central Television. This is the video which shows the much missed David Rappaport and the fallen star Gary Glitter.

From 1983. The last Trade Test Transmission on the main ITV channel before the transmissions moved to what was the then new Channel Four.

BBC trade test transmission preparing TV engineers for the introduction of colour television in the late 1960’s.