Zambia is a country that has become central to the omnirumour, being the source of many claims and suggested locations of materials or potential storage facilities.. but let’s look at the facts alone.
Zambia began broadcasting in 1961 with Zambia Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC), which is today known as the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC). The country bought the following Doctor Who stories which currently have missing episodes:
Marco Polo, The Reign of Terror, The Crusade, Galaxy 4, The Myth Makers, The Massacre, The Celestial Toymaker, The Savages, The Myth Makers, The Smugglers, The Highlanders, The Underwater Menace, The Moonbase, The Macra Terror, The Faceless Ones, The Abominable Snowmen, The Ice Warriors, Enemy of the World, The Web of Fear, The Space Pirates.
The destinations? Marco Polo and The Reign of Terror were sent on to Uganda, however there is no public record of what happened to any of the other prints. 73 missing episodes (including Enemy and Web) existed in the country at some point.
In April of 2003, there was a workshop for audiovisual archivists in Zambia which brought to light the following claim about the archives at ZNBC via the workshop’s official website:
“The second day, we visited the Radio and Television Archive of ZNBC, managed by Mr. Imanga Imakando. We were welcome by the General Manager and the Director of the Programme Department of ZNBC, who showed their interest in collaborating with FIAT/IFTA, and in the promotion of RTV archive work. Then we went around the Radio and TV archive.Our collegues in ZNBC work in extremely bad conditions : [highlight ]16 mm film (around 5.000 to 10.000 boxes)[/highlight] : no inventory evidence, no catalogue ; films are often stored without boxes and labels. Most of it is infected by vinegar syndrome. ZNBC lacks a correct telecine equipment. There is one editing table for review of film material. We found it in faulty condition, one film rewinder - which as I have estimated - could be repaired at low costs. Video tapes (around 500 to 1.000 two inches tapes) : no inventory evidence ; the tapes are piled up on the floor. There is not one correct magnetoscope in ZNBC. Actual production formats are U-matic and Betacam SP. These cassettes are labelled, but not catalogued. For lack of money, the biggest part of the transmitted tapes are not archived. Shaken with such bad conditions, I asked the head of TV archive to prepare a report with accurate information, so that the Executive Council can decide how to organise help.”
The cases were still there in 2007 when the director of the Zambian archive, Imanga Imakandoa stated:
“…The materials in question have not been used for decades due to lack of appropriate equipment. We are currently vigorously trying to source funds for purchase or hire of required playback/dubbing facilities to enable us migrate the materials from old formats to the current. The required equipment however is not only too expensive but it is also not available on the world market, or so we’ve been made to believe. I’m personally very worried about the state of information recorded on these formats, considering that their lifespan may have expired years back and the fact that the rooms in which these materials are stored are too hot, moist and dusty - they are simply not ideal for the purpose of preservation of audio-visual materials. Besides, even if we came across some of these precious materials (including indegenous recordings), we still won’t be able access their contents. Staffing is another serious challenge. All the archives are not manned as a result. All staff restricted to the Library. The concept of recruiting Archivists is still very alien in most institutions here…”
An interview with Sue Malden by Douglas Wolf in March of that year also revealed the following:
Could this collection of films described from 2003, if it still exists, potentially be a source of missing episodes?
It’s possible. Dr. Branko Bubenik, who did the survey, was a close colleague and is now retired. He did know about our hunt for Doctor Who, so I would trust that he had that title, among other things in his mind when he was looking there. Since then, FIAT has been able to help someone working in the National Archives of Zambia, and she came over to the UK, in the summer last year, to do a media archival awareness course and was partly supported by BBC and BFI. So, I did ask her to look thoroughly in their National Archive, if there was anything and also to contact the archivists at ZNBC. Now, they’ve always come back and said nothing is there. But you never know. I’m not 100% sure. Because there was so much stuff there, it seems it would be useful. Because certainly what I’ve found in some other archives, particularly in the Caribbean, a lot of the film recordings they were keeping were not their own productions, and they were often bought from other countries. So I think Zambia is still worth pursuing, and it would be fantastic if we could get someone to fund an expert to go out there to follow up on the work that Branko Bubenik started. By offering them, maybe support, detailed training and information and advice on how to run their archives. But, at the same time, we could begin the process of doing a more detailed audit of what is there. That would obviously be of benefit to groups of people - those whose materials are found in the archives and also those who are trying to manage the archives. So, if anyone’s got any ideas on how we could fund a project like that, I’m sure we could make it happen.
Well, this has been a fan-based idea to raise funds to send an archivist from FIAT along with necessary equipment to archive this, because it seems that in a country such as Zambia, there is a recent report of quite a few unlabeled 16mm films, which probably need to be properly looked at to see if there is anything of value there.
Another thing I’m hoping that we can draw out in this UN project that I was reporting to Kofi Anan about is that our intention is to set up a website to publicise the problems of endangered archives. And on that website, we would want to put extracts of kinds of material that the world would be a lot better place if we can preserve it and make it available in some ways. And secondly, that site would have links to related projects, relating to the archiving of television and film. I did think it would be possible to try and use that site for a kind of exchange forum to be able to say, you know, “I found this in my archive. Is anybody interested? Does it belong to anyone else?” So again, to give people an ongoing opportunity or forum to mention the material, as opposed to these kind of one-off initiatives all the time, because all the people who would visit that site are not going to know that.
Yes, it seems that greater organisation and communication would be important. I would be curious to know: the prints in Zambia are described as being infected by vinegar syndrome. Were foreign prints sent to Africa and other places from the BBC stable acetate prints or were some of them the more unstable cellulose triacetate?
No, they would have been as stable as possible at the time. I’m sure the BBC and other broadcasters would have made no distinction about the quality of the prints they were selling. I think the problem is that the storage conditions in some parts of the world are just not as heavily invested in as in other places. And secondly, the climate offers much, much greater challenges in some parts of the world as in others. There is a lot of vinegar syndrome attacking film archives all over the world. No matter how they are stored or whatever the climate.
Does FIAT or the BBC deal with the recovery of vinegar-syndrome prints frequently?
In fact, from the BBC’s experience, the biggest problem was affecting their soundtracks, rather than their prints. And all their affected soundtracks, have been transferred to new stock. Now, wherever possible, FIAT is offering advice on how to do that to other archives and part of our endangered archive project is to try to find funding to help archives that have these problems. It’s early days on that yet, but, first of all, we would offer advice and information on what to do and how to do it. But, of course, the biggest obstacle is finding the money to do it. So really, that will be the second stage of the work that we are doing.
In May of 2007 an article was published in The Lowdown magazine appealing for information:
Phil Morris made an inventory of materials at ZNBC in 2008.
In December of 2009, Paul Vanezis updated the situation at the Missing Episodes Forum by stating “The two countries Phil has visited and for which we can say there is no ‘Doctor Who’ or other BBC material are Zambia and Kenya. Whilst both displayed evidence of BBC material being there in the past, there is certainly nothing there now.” He went on to state that both the national and TV archives had been checked and foreign films had been disposed of in the 1980s. In 2011 he would add that one vault in Zambia had a smell of vinegar that was almost overpowering and that material was still being collated. Black and white 16mm prints of Joe 90 were still there alongside some Thames wrestling from the 1970’s on two inch tape as well as a lot of material from the United States. Those involved were trying to compile a complete list, but the problem of playback facilities locally continued to persist. At the time they were still working with various broadcasters to fully catalogue the material and were looking to finish the endeavour by around February 2012.
And that’s where the tale would end, another tragic loss of many classics in the 1980s with just a few vinegar soaked remains left behind. However in February of 2011 the following was posted online at Roobarbs by Richard Barker:
“I work at a regional branch of a large international logistics company. On Tuesday morning a customer called in to collect a box sent from Zambia via Nigeria containing BBC tapes and 16″ films, supposedly for returning to the archives. The guy apparently said (I didn’t serve him myself) that the box contained recovered 60s material including episodes of Doctor Who (the only programme he mentioned by name, it seems) and that we’d be hearing all about it before the end of the year. Naturally I was keenly excited, particularly given that this seemed to suggest a major find, but, having encountered neither box nor customer myself, I couldn’t pursue the matter directly. I’ve checked the paperwork but I can’t fathom why BBC archive stuff would be addressed to a Merseyside address, especially one where the company name given doesn’t match the stated premises or postcode (hence why we couldn’t deliver the box and the customer had to fetch it himself). Then again, the shipper may have just cocked up the address slightly, it’s all perfectly kosher and I’m just fretting inappropriately. After all, the customer did say all would be revealed in time.”
It should be noted that while Philip Morris was once a resident of Formby in Merseyside, a local newspaper report from early 2007 suggests that he was preparing to move from the area, which may cast some new doubt on the whole posting if Morris wasn’t actually in Merseyside at the time. It is of course also possible Mr Morris relocated within Merseyside before moving to Wigan.
In September of 2011 Morris shipped 3 tons of “old films” from Nigeria, reportedly again having arrived there from Zambia
After fevered speculation online Phil Morris and TIEA issued the following statement on the matter in June 2013:
“A BRIEF STATEMENT .
T.I.E.A DOES NOT HOLD ANY MISSING EPISODES OF THE LONG RUNNING DR WHO SERIES. THE ORIGINAL VIDEO TAPES WERE WIPED SUBSEQUENT FILM COPIES WERE EITHER RETURNED TO THE BBC AND SENT TO LANDFILL ODD FRAGMENTS HAVE SURFACED TWO EPISODES ON 16MM FILM BUT THATS IT. THE PROGRAMMES IN QUESTION LIKE MANY OTHERS WERE DESTROYED AS THEY HAD NO FURTHER COMMERCIAL VALUE .THEY ARE NOT MISSING BUT DESTROYED THE END.I am sorry if this upsets some people but these are the facts.I have also become aware of the tracking of some of our clients shipments these are local cultural materials sent to us for migration to a modern format as the playback equipment in the country of origin no longer exists and as such is the best road to preserve international cultural heritage .I will be making no more statements on this subject.Philip MORRIS Executive director T.i.e.a”
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