Well, here we are. Our 19th Anniversary. My Cine Film archiving career (1st February 2003 – February 2022 and counting), has finally overtaken my Pharmaceutical career (October 1988 to September 2006), with a small overlap in the middle as I dipped my toe in the water of Professional archiving. It has been the most fulfilling and rewarding time. Saving irreplaceable material, it’s great working for institutions and high-end archiving, but it has to be said the best work is providing materials to families. This is a direct quote from a customer who said to me just yesterday (2nd February 2022) “My elder brother was 9 years older than me and my memory says that he was never around, I barely remember him being there. These films show that he was there, he was in everything, right with me”
This was 52 hours of growing up on video tape covering 1986 to 1994, a mammoth effort all recorded by their Mum on a full sized VHS camera “as big as a tank”. This small throwaway sentence sums it all up for me. Not only did this archive provide what seemed to be every single family event from my customer’s 2nd to 10th birthday it also showed that thing’s weren’t quite as he remembered. They were much closer than he ever remembered.
So here is to the next decade of saving archives. Maybe not as massive as 52 hours covering 8 years, it might only be a couple of tapes or cine films, but either way, it’s time to save those memories.