Local history treasures

Delving into local history museums can unearth some unexpected troves of moving image artefacts. Gunnersbury Park Museum in Hounslow, West London may not immediately spring to mind when researching film and television but a clue can be found in the London boroughs it serves, Hounslow and Ealing. Over the years the museum has built up a significant collection of material relating to Ealing Studios, primarily of scripts, posters, campaign books and includes oral history interviews with the editor and producer Sid Cole, his daughter and the assistant director, Tom Pevsner. A couple of models are of special interest in this context, a post production model of the Titfield Thunderbolt and one of the set of Passport to Pimlico. Television researchers can even find the head of the Robot of Death from Dr Who alongside headdresses from Elizabeth R. All research access is by appointment between 9 and 5, weekdays only.