From The Archive: STOIC Memories

David Attenborough, Mark Hamill, Mel Brooks … it could be the green room of a particularly good edition of Parkinson, but no. They are just some of the household names who appeared on student television screens at Imperial College London.

May the mic be with you - Mark Hamill chats Star Wars in the STOIC studio in December 1977

Many older alumni will remember the brilliantly-entitled STOIC (Student Television of Imperial College), a prominent broadcaster from years gone by. Latterly rebranded as ICTV, the station sadly folded in 2021, a casualty of college closures during the pandemic and dwindling membership.

But all is not lost, thanks to the tireless work of Colin Grimshaw. He has meticulously digitalised and preserved the STOIC archives. His blog offers a fascinating dive into STOIC history, whilst highlights from decades of programming is available to watch over on YouTube, including an interview with Tim Curry with well over a million views...

The ILEA control room

Colin Grimshaw: “The Tim Curry programme was, and still is, interesting. At the time, our studio was out of commission and I’d gained access to one of the broadcast studios at the ILEA Television Production centre in south London. They allowed access but were cautious about letting students run wild on broadcast kit, and potentially getting them a bad name through it all going wrong. The other side of things was the that fact STOIC did not want anything to go wrong when these ‘stars’ turned up in the studio and neither did the film companies. In the case of Tim Curry we had various clips from the Rocky Horror Picture Show which were supplied on 35mm cinema film. We couldn’t cope with this but the ILEA studios could, but, these had to be telecined onto 2inch tape for use in the programme and run in ‘live’ with a 15 second run-up time. This was all a bit much and I was asked to direct the programme, but every other studio operation was carried out by STOIC. It shows that with good direction, students can work wonders. Mark Caldwell was the interviewer, and he went on to work in broadcasting himself. The Tim Curry interview, like most of the earlier interviews, was recorded in one take from start to finish – no editing!

20th Century Fox had phoned us previously to offer us Mel Brookes! Young Frankenstein was about to be released and they were trying to attract a ‘student’ audience for the film. Having said this, we did have a few earlier interviews with various people from TV through some BBC contacts that we had. But the real household names started after Mel Brookes and that opened a LOT of doors to the film industry. Now, those interviews had a massive audience within Imperial and were well received. It started to snowball in the end. Good interviewing, good production standards and a professional approach created a name for STOIC within the film industry. Oh, and also being in London was key.

Hello Possums - Dame Edna AKA Barry Humphries kept students laughing in 1975

STOIC began life in 1969, during student television's fledging period, and before the introduction of annual NaSTA conference. At the time, Coiln was working at the college.

I was involved from 1969 until STOIC departed from our studio in 1986 to run independently from their own facility.

Back in 1969, we were running recording sessions for students to be able to see themselves presenting scientific information. It was a basic ‘stand up and talk’, but within a 20 min timescale. We were already set up with three cameras and a Philips EL3400 1inch videotape recorder, this was the first non 2 inch (broadcast machine) available outside of places like the BBC. Having three cameras was great, but we couldn’t operate them all. The idea was then put forward that perhaps some of the students attending these sessions might like to also operate cameras. One thing led to another and soon STOIC was being suggested, and ultimately established.

A lot of interest was created when they started these early productions (1970 onwards). I think it was the fact that students might be able to see themselves on TV or their mates that caused early interest. Nowhere else could you see a video recording, outside of a broadcast studio, so that fascinated many people. Interest grew when STOIC started to make real programmes that had a specific interest to students. And college news was the key to this interest. Programmes were only shown in the junior common room in the first instance.

What might be considered the best times were when decent programmes were being made that had great production standards and content. The weekly news programme evolved and was watched by a great number of people. They were well-made and the presenters did a great job. The worst was when they attempted to create ‘funny’ programmes that perhaps mimicked broadcast TV shows (e.g Monty Python). The audience was zero; amateur and very UNfunny!

I took pleasure in knowing that all of the students that passed through our studio doors might have gained something to help them in later life. Even the art of presentation and organisation can be appreciated from making a simple video.

Preserving these archives has been a labour of love for Colin, who managed to avert disaster and save a lot of material from being thrown in a skip.

It was pure luck that we happened to have a meeting that included some members of STOIC. At this time they had stopped using our studio so I’d sort of lost contact with them and didn’t know who was who. I was asked at the end of the meeting if I’d like the archive as it had to go somewhere or be skipped because of building work. They obviously had never used the archive and had no idea what was on it – but I did! If we’d not had that meeting they would have long gone into a skip by builders. Sadly, students are maybe not the best at what you might call ‘continuity’ from year to year, unlike staff members who know what has happened year after year. I arranged and had collected the entire archive within a week.

The biggest problem are the repairs and servicing of players to be able to digitise. I’m lucky that Imperial is backing my work to achieve this, with the STOIC archive that runs from February 1970 on Ampex 1inch tapes. When video heads are no longer obtainable (for any format of machines) then we are all screwed. A single tape can take all day to get to play back correctly and enable a good capture, it’s hard work at times. One good thing was that I advised them to start a card index of anything that was recorded, especially their news programmes. The studio running order was automatically put into each tape box so now I’m able to easily see what’s in the archive.

Looking back, the most challenging content we produced was a series of news programmes that I maybe foolishly suggested to STOIC that were once again produced at the studios of ILEA. The Inner London Education Authority ran the London wide cable TV network that connected every ILEA school in London and also every University or Polytechnic etc. We did a series of these that went out live from the studios based in Battersea in South London. Hairy to say the least but we did it.

The STOIC archives are a wonderful record of student television's past, but these preservations are only possible with the work of people like Colin. He offered his advice on how others can ensure their work is properly looked after.

Let someone within the staff know what’s happening and get them involved - in most cases speak with whoever runs the archive or similar. Money will be required to save any archive material and getting admin involved might raise the funds needed and there might be a lot of funds needed too. Other side of the story is deciding what is really required to be kept and whether copyright might stop it ever being seen on YouTube or similar. No point archiving materials that can never be seen or accessed I guess? There MUST be an outlet for anything that’s going to be digitised and YouTube is the best option."

We congratulate Colin, and thank him for preserving this incredible student media for generations to come.