When maintenance crews are involved in engineering works across the UK they are probably well used to finding weird and wonderful things which have been buried for years as they\u2019re lost by passengers. But even so the latest discovery on the Tyne and Wear Metro is probably more unusual as a set of cassettes featuring a BBC Radio adaptation of The Hobbit has been found during recent work on the network.<\/p>\n
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The tapes were found buried at the base of an overhead line mast during works taking place between Chillingham Road and Walkergate. The adaptation was originally broadcast on Radio 4 in 1968 and then released as a cassette box set 20 years later.<\/p>\n
Rob Cochrane, Head of Infrastructure Works Delivery at Nexus, was on site when they found. He said: \u201cWe were just walking next to the Metro line when I saw something out of the corner of my eye at the base of an overhead line mast.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I went over to have a closer look, I could just see the gold front cover of the cassette box underneath the ballast. I dug around that and all four tapes were there, and you could see straight away what they were, as they had \u2018The Hobbit\u2019 written in black lettering on the front cover of the box.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an incredible find and certainly not the kind of thing you expect to discover when you\u2019re out working on the track.\u201d<\/p>\n
David Punton, Nexus Communications Officer, added: \u201cIt was astonishing. It was the last thing that we were expecting. Without the tracks being excavated we may never have made the find. It\u2019s up there as one of the more weird and wonderful items we\u2019ve found during a major project.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got no idea how the tapes got there. It\u2019s baffling.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I went out on the site visit that day, I didn\u2019t expect to come back with the main talking point being JRR Tolkien and The Hobbit.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve since listened to the recordings and I am pleased to say that most are still just about working. It\u2019s a wonderful radio adaptation of Tolkien\u2019s novel. As we understand it, this was made by the BBC for Radio 4 in 1968 and then released as an audio book in the late 1980s, almost 40 years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve no idea how long these cassettes were buried next to the Metro line. We definitely don\u2019t encourage the public to go on to the railway and hide items in this way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When maintenance crews are involved in engineering works across the UK they are probably well used to finding weird and wonderful things which have been buried for years as they\u2019re lost by passengers. But even so the latest discovery on … Continue reading