Transcripts of What Was Actually Said at Missing Believed Wiped

The following have been provided online (originally from Nick Gilbert at the Roobarbs forum) as direct transcripts of what was said at Missing Believed Wiped during the Native Hue of Resolution documentary. They are quite revealing in the information provided.

Chris Perry (talking about TIE being no longer in existence): … so he (Morris) formed them again … he could quite legitimately say I’m the managing director of this company, please give me the footage back.

Dick Fiddy: The BBC were giving him a letter showing he could act as their representative so we arranged … give him a letter saying he could also act on behalf of ITV as BFI are official archivists …. The BBC arranged to have this material shipped back whenever they could and actually encouraged him to stop looking for individual titles but just to send back any British material he could and they also altruistically said if material which came back contained any ITV stuff they would hand it over to the BFI. Rumours were coming back to us that he’d found in colour some of the Steptoe and Sons that hitherto only survived in black and white. Rumours were coming back to us he’s found missing Dad’s Armys out of the three that were missing, etc., etc. The problem with any of this is the fact that as soon as Doctor Who is mentioned the word will inevitably slip out and people will get excited and with the sudden flurry of interest in what might have been in Phil’s finds were problematic.

Perry: So suddenly lots of rumours started flying round and it hasn’t been helpful. It’s done nothing but cause extra grief and delayed the process because Phil has been put under all sorts of personal scrutiny.

Fiddy: The primary aim is to get the material safely back in the archive to the benefit of all of us not for the benefit of one or two manic collectors who wanted it in their own private collection. I think, I believe it has all been returned to the UK now. The majority most probably will have been returned to the BBC. Assessing this material will take a long time and restoring it will take even longer … we know this is a major find. The BBC are in a difficult position. They had to deal right with Phil Morris and make sure they were doing the right thing as opposed to their own charter. It hasn’t been an easy ride and the more they could have kept it under wraps the better so I don’t blame them for not making this public earlier. The bottom line is that when we find whatever these titles are, we know this is a very, very significant find.

Fiddy: At the time of taping this interview I can only elucidate on what I’ve been told and some of that might only come under the heading ‘rumour’. I think that what we know, we’re not talking about hundreds of titles, we’re talking thousands, tens of thousands maybe

It should be noted that Mr Fiddy offered the following clarification online following the event and as a response to the varied opinions as to what was actually said:

“To qualify – that statement was from the MBW documentary and needed further elaboration. The full context is that the paper trail (ie the original sales documents) plus the number of separate broadcasters, warehouses, facility houses on the African continent that are being checked could potentially (and very probably) yield that sort of number. As to how many of those titles would be extant and of any use (ie not defunct) is debatable as would be how many are actually missing. In a nutshell what I was indicating was that there is a strong possibility that it’s a huge number of titles that are potentially out here and which Phil Morris is our best hope when it comes to retrieval.”