Discovering hidden treasures

Over the course of the past five weeks we've been collecting a wide range of archive material on Spike and his life, particularly with his family.

There is a wide range of photos, newspaper clippings, and letters. We finally found a reel-to-reel player so we could listen to the suitcase full of audio tapes that his daughter Jane has been keeping under her bed. These are mainly of Spike talking to his children but also many unpublished musical compositions and a range of weird and funny stories and voices. There is a song he wrote for Dusty Springfield which she sings, Spike playing trumpet and several songs written especially for his children. Slowly and with great care we have been transferring all this material to digital format.

There is also a box of 8mm films and we've spent the past few weeks working out how to view and transfer this material to digital. Finally we bought an 8mm projector and were able to watch and film the old footage ourselves. It has been an incredible experience for Spike's daughters Jane and Sile - they have never seen these films before and watching themselves as small children with their mothers has been both emotional and funny. Tonight Jane watched a reel of film of her mother and father in Australia. Paddy died when Jane was 11 so this reel is particularly precious to her. Sile has also provided several video tapes of footage she took of Spike in his last years in his home at Rye, enjoying Christmas with the whole family around him. There is plenty of great footage of Spike, his parents, the house at Woy Woy, Desmond as a young man and Spike with his children and all three of his wives. Some of this footage will undoubtedly be used in the film and will enrich beyond measure the picture this film is painting of Spike as a father, brother, son and husband.