Letter: Quatermass lives

Sir: Dr Peter Baker asks what happened to the original recordings of the Quatermass TV series (letter, 9 October). Of The Quatermass Experiment sadly only the first two episodes are known to survive. However, all the episodes of Quatermass II and Quatermass and the Pit still exist in their entirety. The BBC issued the entire Quatermass and the Pit story on video several years ago and the others are occasionally shown at special screenings.

I think it is difficult for today's audiences to imagine the impact that Nigel Kneale's stories had on popular culture at the time they were broadcast. Stories of pubs emptying and council meetings adjourning early on "Quatermass night" were commonplace. I think their main impact was down to Kneale's superb story-telling - a skill that modern TV scriptwriters seem to have forgotten. Surely it must be time for the BBC to show these stories again, or remake them?

TEX BENNETT

Colchester, Essex