Sherlock Holmes fans overjoyed as lost Peter Cushing episodes uncovered - Tony Earnshaw

Fans of Doctor Who were rejoicing a few years back when nine episodes of the show were located in the storeroom of a television relay station… in Nigeria. That’s about a tenth (or thereabouts) of what’s missing from the Time Lord’s early adventures.

And it’s rediscovered gems like these that form the basis of the British Film Institute’s annual Missing Believed Wiped event along with other rarities such as a segment of Top of the Pops featuring David Bowie.

A huge amount of BBC material was wiped in the 1970s, allegedly to allow tape stock to be re-used. Among the victims were Doctor Who, Dad’s Army and Sherlock Holmes.

More than 20 years ago when I was researching Peter Cushing’s interpretation of the Great Detective for what was to become my first book, An Actor and a Rare One, I searched in vain for copies of his 1968 colour TV series.

Via a friendly mole at the BBC I was able to watch on time-coded videocassettes the handful of episodes that still existed. The rest had been wiped. Later those remaining stories would emerge on DVD. Fans of the character – and of Cushing – could only lament the loss of the others and, if old enough, recall their broadcast all those years before.

Flash forward two decades and Holmes aficionados have thrilled to the news that clips of the missing episodes have been found in the public television archives of Holland and Flanders. Just like Doctor Who, Cushing’s TV series had been transferred to film for overseas syndication.

Cushing’s incarnation as the sleuth of 221b Baker Street spanned 25 years, from The Hound of the Baskervilles in 1959 to The Masks of Death in 1984. In between was Sherlock Holmes.

Cushing professed himself not happy with his performance as the series was rushed and began transmission before all the episodes had been shot. But there is ample evidence of the actor’s tenacious preparation and attention to detail. The look and atmosphere of Conan Doyle is present throughout. And the double-act of Cushing and Nigel Stock, playing Watson, is terrific.

And so, from Nigeria to Flanders, the search goes on. Somewhere out there, in unmarked tins in a basement film store, their adventures may continue.

As Vincent Starrett wrote: “So they still live for all that love them well; in a romantic chamber of the heart, in a nostalgic country of the mind, where it is always 1895.” This quasi-Sherlockian, for one, would love to think so.

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