| Description | Reel-to-reel tapes mostly of radio programmes, with some soundtracks for films made by Charles Parker during his time as a producer at the BBC and afterwards, with CD copies of the tapes. A reel to reel tape includes the tape itself, its box, usually annotated by Parker, and recording reports and other papers found inside the boxes. Tapes created during the making of a radio or TV programme may include actuality recordings, music, clips and inserts, and sound effects, as well as copies and versions of the final programmes. There is also a large amount of miscellaneous material recorded by Parker, which reflects his research interests, copies, made by Parker, of broadcast programmes by other people, and programmes and interviews about him and his work. |
| Arrangement | Sound recordings created during the making of Parker's programmes and projects have been listed in chronological order by project (MS 4000/6/1). Most of these are programmes made by Parker during his career at the BBC, but there are other projects involving his church, and other organizations such as Centre 42 and Banner Theatre. This category includes copies of broadcast programmes and material, mostly not broadcast, created during the making of the programmes.
The archive also includes a large number of interviews and actuality recordings which, although they do not appear to have been made with a specific programme or project in mind, show Parker's wideranging interests (MS 4000/6/2-3). Since these have no obvious original order, they have been arranged in chronological order in two - deliberately broad - categories: music, drama, and speech; and politics and local history. These are artificial categories and do not reflect Parker's working methods or beliefs; the connections between art, politics, drama, speech, and history are fundamental to his work. Groupings of tapes relating to a particular project or subject area have been kept together: the rest of the tapes have been divided into two categories: music, drama and speech (MS 4000/6/2/6) and politics and local history (MS 4000/6/3/3) and then arranged in chronological order.
MS 4000/6/4 includes copies, made by Parker, of programmes by other people. Many of these are documentaries, particularly about history, speech, and the folk tradition; there are also extracts from news programmes and copies of Radio 1 DJs' shows. These have been arranged in chronological order.
MS 4000/6/5 includes interviews with Parker's colleagues and friends, and copies of radio programmes about Parker, his collaborators, and the Radio Ballads. |