Long running and popular afternoon half hour documentary series All Our Yesterdays used old newsreel footage to look at what the world was up to 25 years previously. Early editions just featured the footage and were narrated by James Cameron for the first couple of years whilst later editions were hosted by Brian Inglis and also featured guests in the studio.
Most of the material came from the Pathe Film library (based in Wardour Street in Soho, London – material was kept there and also in specially constructed vaults at EMI Film Studios in Elstree). Pathe produced two newsreels each week so it was a fairly simple matter for the production team to focus on a particular week and pull out the interesting bits from there.
The series finished in 1973 but then was revived in 1987 for another couple of seasons, this run was hosted by Bernard Braden. Sadly only 47 episodes of the original series are still in existence. The interesting side of that of course is that all of the original Pathe film footage still exists.
A similar format was used for the series World At War as well as the 1980’s series The Rock N Roll Years.
production details
UK / ITV – Granada / 638×25 minutes (original run) / 1960 – 1973 and 1987 – 1989
Historical Advisor: Professor Asa Briggs
Producers: Tim Hewat, Bill Grundy, Douglas Terry
One of the Directors was Michael Apted
EPISODES
1971
1 January 1971