The Big Smoke

Along with a set of golf clubs and a dartboard with Field Marshal Montgomery's face on, a monster trawl of Associated Press newsreels from the 1960s and '70s has been discovered in a bunker used by Eisenhower as his WWII headquarters. You can find it just down the road from us on Tottenham Court Road - it's called the Eisenhower Centre. It's one of the eight deep-level tube shelters built during World War II – Big Smoke editor Peter Watts saw inside one of them at Chancery Lane last year.

The haul was unveiled last night at BAFTA in Piccadilly, and it's a real (reel?) treasure trove. The 3,500 hours of ace footage include waterskiing in 1973's top tourist destination of Beirut, Education Minister Margaret Thatcher campaigning for a Yes vote on Europe in an EEC jumper, and Saddam Hussein being shown round a French nuclear facility. Those French, eh?

It'll be made available to researchers, broadcasters and filmmakers, which should freshen up all those hackneyed home-video shows – you know, 'World Leaders Do The Funniest Things' , and so on.