A little piece of history.
A clip of The Beatles performing on Top Of The Pops that was once thought lost has been unearthed in Mexico. Check it out below.
The silent 11 second clip is the only surviving footage of the band miming to ‘Paperback Writer’ on the iconic show back in 1966, as the BBC did not keep the tapes. However, one family in Liverpool happened to be filming the footage from a television on an 8mm camera.
A collector in Mexico then happened upon the footage, who handed it over to missing TV footage specialists Kaleidoscope in Birmingham.
“I think if you’re a Beatles fans, it’s the holy grail,” Kaleidoscope’s Chris Perry told the BBC. “People thought it was gone forever because videotape wasn’t kept in 1966. To find it all these years later was stunning.”
While the band pre-recorded a number of performances for Top Of The Pops, this was their only live appearance.
“We don’t know whether or not this particular piece of Top of the Pops history has disappeared forever, but unfortunately there was a time when BBC programmes were not archived as carefully as they are today and some programmes were sadly lost,” said a BBC spokesperson back in the year 2000.
Similarly, the ‘Holy Grail’ of David Bowie footage was unearthed this year when his first TV appearance as Ziggy Stardust was uncovered.
Meanwhile, one of Paul McCartney‘s old school books, which contains notes and grades written in by his English literature teacher, recently sold at auction for a staggering £46,800.