New gems from the ITN Archive - December 2023

Newly digitised from U-matic tape – the rushes from Margaret Thatcher’s landmark five-day visit to Moscow in March 1987. The visit was widely considered a huge success, and the optics certainly did not hurt her re-election campaign that year.

We've also uploaded a huge set of newly-digitised Gulf War rushes – including Ted Heath’s visit to negotiate the release of British hostages, spectacular aerial views of British warships patrolling the Gulf, George Bush visiting troops in Saudi Arabia, and Yasser Arafat in Baghdad.

Poet Benjamin Zephaniah has sadly died aged 65. In 2003, he convinced journalist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown live on air to return her MBE.

Actress Shirley Anne Field – a key figure in the British New Wave – has died aged 87. In 1961, ITN’s Richard Dixon interviewed her alongside director Karel Reisz, ahead of their trip to the Buenos Aires Film Festival, to promote Saturday Night and Sunday Morning.