June
1st 2001
Two
long lost classic Black & White episodes of Dad's Army have
been unearthed after the BBC recently launched an appeal to
recover archive material.
The
two episodes "Operation Kilt" and "The Battle
of Godfrey's Cottage" went missing shortly after they were
broadcast in March 1969. Apparently the cans containing the
film's were dumped in a skip at BBC's Elstree Studio's in the
early 1970's but recovered at the time by a man working there.
He was recently forced to pass them onto a friend after his
daughter made him part with the rusty old cans cluttering up
his home!
The friend saw the BBC's recent treasure hunt appeal for missing
BBC Archive material and realised he was in possession of two
missing episodes from the second season of Dad's Army . Five
of these episodes have been missing since their original broadcast
in 1969.
The
episodes have now been safely transferred to digital format
and are safely archived, although no broadcast date has yet
been confirmed for either of the programmes. The BBC recently
had a 1965 episode of "The Likely Lads" returned to
the archive which was broadcast on BBC2 on Wednesday 30th May,
literally a few weeks after its recovery and only two days before
it was announced that the Dad's Army episodes had been returned.
More information about the BBC's appeal can be found at http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/treasurehunt/
News
stories seem to be abound at the moment on this great news and
further updates will appear as and when I can locate more information.
June
29th 2001
Since
the announcement of the return of "Operation Kilt"
and "The Battle of Godfrey's Cottage" various "rumours"
have circulated amongst Dad's Army fans as to where and when
these episodes will be broadcast.
Rumours
have been particularly rife as BBC2 are currently showing a
series of reruns. Rather than publish false information here
I decided to contact the BBC myself and see if they could shed
any further light on the situation.
Cathy
McNeill of BBC information contacted me today with the following
statement...
