The Complete Doctor Who Tele-Snap Collection

Below is a chart that explains which episodes were Tele-Snapped and which images still survive. Information has been gathered from various sources and contributions by various people in the know (special thanks to Derek, Ash & Richard). However, it should be pointed out that this chart has been created using information and Tele-Snaps that we know to exist. Should any future documentation or Tele-Snaps currently listed as missing come to light, this chart will be revised and updated accordingly.

Who Discovered What: Marcus Hearn

Marcus Hearn was an employee of Marvel Comics & a Doctor Who fan, and in 1993 began researching the production history of show. He visited the Written Archives Centre in Reading, near London, and started sorting through the paperwork. He was granted access to documents and files but progress was slow and in the end he asked if he could see the list of every single file the WAC contained. Upon checking the register, Marcus spotted the final listing at the bottom of the page read as follows:

Tele-Snaps : Series Z-UU

Marcus was surprised and a little excited; at the time Tele-Snaps weren't supposed to exist. He asked the assistant to see if he could see these files, and they soon returned with folders resembling scrapbooks, that contained the valuable images. Marcus checked and would later find that with four exceptions (The Enemy of the World 4, The Dominators 5 & The Mind Robber 4 5), all episodes from Story Z to Story UU were present. Marcus immediately contacted Doctor Who Monthly magazine editor Gary Russell, who both agreed the images should be published as soon as possible for all of Dr Who fandom to see. At the same time, Stephen James Walker, a notable Doctor Who author, was researching at the Written Archive Centre. He had also found the Tele-Snap Scrapbooks, yet didn't have the resources and contacts that Marcus Hearn did. Despite Marcus' belief that "Scrapbook One" existed, which supposedly contained all the episodes pre-The Gunfighters, all documentation found to date says otherwise. It is accepted that John Cura only Tele-Snapped stories that he was requested (and paid) to snap, and not just every single story that was produced in the 1960's. Tele-Snaps founds were The Gunfighters 1 2 3 4, The Savages 1 2 3 4, The War Machines 1 2 3 4, The Smugglers 1 2 3 4, The Tenth Planet 1 2 3 4, The Power of the Daleks 1 2 3 4 5 6, The Highlanders 1 2 3 4, The Underwater Menace 1 2 3 4, The Moonbase 1 2 3 4, The Macra Terror 1 2 3 4, The Faceless Ones 1 2 3 4 5 6, The Evil of the Daleks 1 2 3 4 5 6 7, The Tomb of the Cybermen 1 2 3 4, The Abominable Snowmen 1 2 3 4 5 6, The Ice Warriors 1 2 3 4 5 6, The Enemy of the World 1 2 3 5 6, The Web of Fear 1 2 3 4 5 6, Fury from the Deep 1 2 3 4 5 6, The Wheel in Space 1 2 3 4 5 6, The Dominators 1 2 3 4 & The Mind Robber 1 2 3.

Christopher Barry

Esteemed BBC director Christopher Barry, in charge of such classics as The Daleks and The Power of the Daleks,  was one of the few directors to retain the Tele-Snap collections from his stories of Doctor Who. These were offered to the BFI sometime in the nineties, although had become known about in fan circles well before this. His collection consisted of The Daleks 1 2 5, The Rescue 1 2, The Romans 1 2 3 4, The Savages 1 2 3 4 & The Power of the Daleks 1 2 3 4 5 6.

George Gallaccio

In the late nineties, another set of Tele-Snaps were discovered. DWM reporter Peter Griffiths spoke to George Gallaccio, one of the production managers during the Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker eras. George was part of a team that was cleaning out the production office when a handful of Tele-Snaps were taken from a cupboard. Just seconds away from being tossed in the bin, George grabbed them. The collection also included various Tele-Snap enlargements from The Smugglers, The Tenth Planet, The Highlanders & The Underwater Menace. While the Tele-Snaps for the latter four stories were either already existing or the episodes themselves had already been recovered, the Tele-Snaps for The Crusade were a prize find, as the story was missing two of it's episodes.                                      

The collection consisted of The Crusade 1 2 3 4, The Time Meddler 1 2 3 4, The Tenth Planet 1 2 3 4, The Moonbase 1 2 3 & The Evil of the Daleks 3 4 5 7.

Derek Handley

In June of 2003, Derek Handley of Loose Cannon Productions, the group that make Tele-Snap reconstructions of missing stories, had the chance to meet the original director of Marco Polo, Waris Hussein. During the conversation Derek enquired about the Tele-Snaps for the lost story, to which he got the surprise reply of "I might have them". Apart from Mission to the Unknown and The Massacre, Marco Polo has the least surviving evidence of off-screen visuals known to exist, save for eight photographs from the final episode grabbed by an Australian fan during the screening in Australia (later published in DWB 57). These photos can be seen here. In October Hussein confirmed he had the Tele-Snaps, although his collection didn't include any for Episode Four as that episode was directed by John Crockett. Unfortunately for Derek, Waris Hussein was a very busy man and it wouldn't be until February 2004 that Derek would be able to finally obtain the snaps. Doctor Who Magazine agreed to pay the rights for use, thus allowing the snaps to be seen by the public for the first time in almost 40 years. Waris held Marco Polo 1 2 3 5 6 7.

Publishing the Tele-Snaps

I have decided to drop this section of the article. Please refer to the brilliant Tele-Snap article by Richard Bignell in 'Nothing at the End of the Lane' Issue 2 for more information. Tele-Snaps can be viewed online here.

Epitaph

The final episode Tele-Snapped for Doctor Who was Episode 3 of the Patrick Troughton adventure The Mind Robber, which aired on the 28th of September, 1968. Cura ended his Tele-Snapping career the same year, after an impressive 21 years. John Cura passed away on the 21st of April, 1969, at the age of 67, after contracting cancer of the colon. After his death, his wife Emily attempted to see if the BBC wanted his collection, which stood at approximately several hundred thousand images. They didn't, and as a result the entire collection, like the Doctor Who episodes themselves, were destroyed (a handful of his collection did survive, mainly from the Royal family and the Beverley Sisters). Doctor Who fans owe a debt of gratitude to him and the service that he provided for this and other series. Without John Cura, many Doctor Who memories would be lost forever.