What's New at MACE?

Here at MACE we're dedicated to getting more material on-line and seen. Hopefully, our latest uploads can help you disappear down the many rabbit holes of discovery that a wide-ranging archive collection can provide. Putting a few of them together here helps show the scope of what we're proud to preserve and save for the future. We always enjoy digging into our large collection of news inserts. Central News East began over forty years' ago, with the first programme coming in October 1983 from a temporary studio at Giltbrook near Nottingham (originally intended for January 1982 a dispute over staffing had held up the introduction of the new service...) A lot has changed in that time and here we can look back to an item from 1988 featuring the iconic Dr Marten boot, then still being manufactured in its traditional Northamptonshire home. Also on show from ATV Today which eventually took over from Midlands News (after running alongside it for a few years) we have a 1978 report from John Mcleod in which he test drives the latest in electric cars as the technology tried to get away from its milk-float origins. Whilst we're considering technology, have a look for John's trailing microphone lead, a reporting hazard from the era before radio microphones became common place. We've also recently scanned the opening episode of one of the longest running regional programmes shown by both ATV and Central Television in the Midlands - the series Farming Today was first seen in October 1972 and lasted in the same format on Sunday mornings (with only a name change in the Central era) until 1985. We also love home movies here at MACE and continue to be amazed at how films that can be 80 plus years old can shine as good as new. So welcome to newly uploaded films from the 1930s onwards incluing an outing by the Birmingham Jewish Boys and Girls Club to Shropshire and the 1953 Coronation being celebrated at Leek in Staffordshire.