I’m  following up with a natural second part to this which is: what to do about all those significant interview videos and audio tapes that are in warehouses and are historic in value. I made three Timewatchs in the 1990s with people who have never otherwise been interviewed. I interviewed at length a range of USAF (SAC), RAF and Red Air Force officers, from generals right down to crew, and then a long list of Cold War players including J K Galbraith. I would say many are of historic value and only a few minutes were actually broadcast.

There were lots of other significant interviews in other projects I worked on. Mostly we edited in 30 – 60 seconds but there were dozens of hours of tapes. While I have transcripts in my paper archives the beta tapes are stored somewhere by the independent TV company I was working with and I suspect other journalists and film-makers have this problem. Please tell me your story:  paul.lashmar2@btinternet.com