MP's donation to film archive

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Thu 17th Apr 2008

Four videos from the time he was Mayor of Colchester will today (Tuesday) be donated by MP Bob Russell to the East Anglian Film Archive. Mr Russell was Mayor in 1986 to 1987. He is the only former Mayor who was later elected to serve as the Town's MP.

The four videos record the ceremony in the Moot Hall when Mr Russell was enrolled as Mayor in May 1986, his Civic Service the next month at the now demolished St Mary Magdalen Church, the Opening of the Oyster Fisheries in the August and the town's historic Oyster Feast in October.

Mr Russell, who was first elected MP for Colchester in May 1997, said: "I thought that it might be of interest for social historians in the future to have access to films featuring four traditional civic events, from 1986, in Britain's Oldest Recorded Town. It is far better that this footage is preserved and stored in the region's film archive than being kept at my home."

The East Anglian Film Archive is owned and operated by the University of East Anglia at Norwich.