It’s been a busy week of making contact with people who have cine film of interest to the Archive – home movies mostly, reflecting people’s lives from the 1930s to the 1970s, in various part of Wales. What strikes me during our conversations is the variety of subjects that are mentioned – it seems we can expect films showing everything from chapel outings to scouting activities, from farming to ships docking at Cardiff and Liverpool – including, I believe, the famous Lusitania. Almost all of the potential donors I spoke to stressed that their cine films may contain much more of interest – images that they may just have forgotten about as they are no longer able to project them. So when the reels arrive we will all be holding our breath – you never know what treasures will escape from a rusty can!

[A word to other potential donors: please do not project your old cine films even if you have a working projector - the film is likely to be fragile, and may be in need of repair, cleaning etc before being transfer to DVD or other format. Let us do it for you, safely!]

Edinburgh has two important visitors today: Iestyn Hughes, Head of the National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales, and Pope Benedict. The thousands expected to throng the streets of the Scottish capital are probably there to catch a glimpse of the Pope.

Pope John Paul II’s visit to Britain in 1982 was given much coverage. Today, however, the might of the media is far greater. We live in a time of 24 hour news coverage, and an age of endless discussion just to fill those hours. But for someone who works in the world of audio-visual archives it is interesting to note that what most people remember of the Pope’s visit to Cardiff are the pictures of the crowds lining the streets to greet him, the tens of thousands on Pontcanna fields, the Hennessey’s singing and the Pope himself greeting those crowds in Welsh with the words “Annwyl bobl Cymru” (dear people of Wales).

That is the power of pictures and of sound. In the case of sound – the sound itself perhaps, more than the words uttered. How many remember what exactly Pope John Paul said twenty eight years ago? But, by recording them all, we can return to the words as well.