But the Observer has learned that the owners of the rare, rediscovered footage are not prepared to hand it over to the BBC, even as the clock ticks down to the 60th anniversary of the show’s launch this month.

This would reassure British amateur collectors that their private archives will not be confiscated if they come forward and that they will be safe from prosecution for having stored stolen BBC property, something several fear.

Discarded TV film was secretly salvaged from bins and skips by staff and contractors who worked at the BBC between 1967 and 1978, when the corporation had a policy of throwing out old reels.

Franklin’s plea was supported by Mark Stuckey, a film and projector restorer who appears as an electronics expert on the BBC’s The Repair Shop.

“BBC Studios, the corporation’s separate, commercial arm, have already spent money animating some lost Hartnell episodes, so surely they could spend a little more on restoring the originals and perhaps pay something to these elderly collectors, a few of whom are now unwell, or caring for others.”

After all, as Phil Collinson, executive producer of the new colourised episode has attested, the Hartnell adventures are “a masterpiece of 1960s drama” and “literally the foundation stone of all that Doctor Who has become.”

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