This month the BBC celebrates its centenary. We have partnered with the BBC Archives and Greater Manchester’s ten archives services to select interesting local items from the BBC’s radio and TV archives.

On 18 October a digital exhibition will open on the Greater Manchester Place screen at Archives+ showing content for each of the ten local authorities. This is supported by local and online content around Greater Manchester:
- BBC TV news footage about Oldham selected by Oldham Archives & Local Studies Library
- BBC Radio Manchester stories about Bury selected by Bury Archives
- Photographs, radio and TV showing how Salford has changed through the years
- Watch this space for more updates…
The BBC Archives has selected BBC TV items about each borough. These are some extracts from items relating to Manchester – you can see the full films in the exhibition at Central Library:
Can you spot any of the locations the procession passes through?
This piece on the Manchester Corinthians Women’s Football Team shows how the Corintians team managed to continue to thrive despite the FA ban on women’s football in 1921 in FA grounds by playing exhibition matches all over the world instead.
The Chinese New Year footage from 1986 captures one of the early years of what has become one of the city’s biggest annual cultural occasions. A radio news item from around the same time features Loret Lee, the founder of Manchester’s Chinese Centre, explaining why the centre had started classes for Chinese children to learn Cantonese and Chinese culture. The children then talk about their classes and motivation to learn their mother tongue.
And here are some selections of radio content from the BBC Radio Manchester collection held at Manchester Central Library chosen by archivists around Greater Manchester:
All material copyright BBC. Video reproduced with thanks from the BBC Archives. Radio extracts used under fair dealing. If you have any questions or would like to request material to be taken down please get in touch.
You can browse and watch much more Greater Manchester TV content online at BBC Rewind. You can browse the catalogue for the BBC Radio Manchester archives at GMLives and listen to digitised shows at the Archives+ search room at Manchester Central Library.