Who Knows Where The Time Goes?

“Hi Chris, I don’t look at this inbox very often so I’ve just picked up your email. I don’t think I can help much here — I didn’t go to the festival and I wouldn’t know who did. I guess you have tried the TVNZ archives out at Avalon… P Janes.”

Our sources suggested that, if there was any remaining footage of the Ngaruawahia Festival, it would only be newsreel material rather than music. Our next step was to ask Michael Higgins, who put together the Give it a Whirl series, and who therefore went through all extant footage from that and most other festivals that have taken place on New Zealand soil. But although incredibly helpful and very detailed in his reply, Michael didn’t provide us with grounds for optimism:

“Wonderful thought that such footage could be out there, but don’t get your hopes up. I’m pretty certain there is no Ngaruawahia footage in the TVNZ Archive. We were very interested in the festival when we were making Give It A Whirl because Dragon and Split Enz both appeared in very early incarnations. We would have found a way to use anything at all from Ngarauawahia, but we ended up with a handful of stills and cheated some crowd shots with footage from a festival several years earlier.

“The BBC wasn’t the only broadcasting ones who got rid of vast amounts of film in the sixties and seventies. In my time at TVNZ I spent a lot of time searching the archive for music related material. I’m a Sandy Denny fan — and I would have noticed if there was anything in there featuring her.

“Unlike the ABC in Australia, who seem to be regularly releasing details of previously un-catalogued footage, there is nothing left un-catalogued at TVNZ. They know everything they’ve got from the sixties and seventies down to the last frame.

“And the Film Archive, from a quick search, hasn’t got any festival footage (although they do have a lot of un-catalogued holdings).

“It isn’t impossible that the cameraman hung onto the footage himself. However we did canvas widely for any music related footage still in private hands, with very little success.

“If he ever worked for NZBC/TVNZ in an official capacity there’s an outside chance he might be identifiable. There is an organisation of former NZBC/TVNZ employees who get together occasionally and someone there may know. But it’s a long shot.

“Not sure if this is any help at all but I do understand — there are ghosts of lost footage that haunt me too.”

So, if any NZBC readers are members of that organisation of former NZBC/TVNZ employees and would like to get in touch, drop us a line. Needless to say, we’ve forwarded all of this information to blogger Philip M Ward over at the Sandy Denny blog, who kindly responded to say:

“Thanks for getting in touch. Sandy’s circle of friends really does circle the globe! It would be fabulous if you could find anything in the archives. I’m not holding my breath, though, as John Penhallow’s anecdote implies that the broadcasters didn’t want the footage when it was offered to them. More fool them, eh?”