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Saturday 9th-Sunday 10th March 1996

Afficiandos of old TV and film merchandise will already be familiar with the massive Memorabilia Fairs that run quarterly at the National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham. These events organised by Henry Cook (pictured above right, with Kaleidoscope's Chris Perry) of Made in Heaven see hundreds of dealers gather for a two-day extravaganza of buying and selling, with loads of exhibitions and displays thrown in. The previous event in October 1995 saw 11,000 people through the turnstiles. The theme of the latest fair, Memorabilia '96, was Classic Television.

Kaleidoscope was involved in the event from its earliest stages of development and our impressive stall, the largest at the fair, proved a huge success with visitors. Two giant video screens replayed classic programming continuously throughout the whole weekend and the entire Kaleidoscope team were on hand to field enquiries from the public, be they general TV queries or requests for information about our group. We also provided an exhibition of vintage 405-line televisions and numerous Doctor Who monsters, the latter of which were especially popular among photo-seekers. When we were not frantically running around, we somehow also found time to put in an appearance on BBC Radio WM's live broadcast from the event.

Best of all, we managed to secure an adjacent stall for our designated charity, the RNLI, which, as a result of frenetic joint fund-raising, managed to raise over £200 for this worthy cause by the event's end. Kaleidoscope would like to thank everyone who gave a donation and expressed an interest in our own activities.