A long lost clip of The Beatles has been unearthed in Mexico and made available to fans.
It is believed that the clip is one of very few surviving tapes from the iconic Liverpool band miming along to ‘Paperback Writer’ back in 1966. At the time of recording, the BBC did not keep the tapes nor did they make copies which resulted in mountains of footage being lost.
“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,” a BBC spokesperson said back in 2000 about the lost tapes.
However, the 11-second silent clip in question, has been recovered after a family member in Liverpool filming the footage from a television screen via an 8mm camera.
“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.”
