The Green Cross Code Man (download image from: www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/films/downloads.htm)

It has been announced that the Central Office of Information (COI), the government communications and marketing organ is  set to close shortly. Responsible for making thousands of public information films since the 1940s, though the COI has antecedents going back almost a century, many of these can be viewed online at the National Archives website at: www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/films/

Set up in April 1946 to take over from the Ministry of Information, the COI over the decades has created many memorable campaigns including the Charley Says series and the ‘Green Cross Code Man’ films starring Dave Prowse as well as hundreds of cinemagazines. Details of these can be found in the BUFVC’s comprehensive News On Screen resource – a simple search for COI here will return in excess of 4,500 results.

By using the new BUFVC integrated search environment available at http://bufvc.ac.uk/, users will also be able to find details of COI releases commercially available on video as listed in Find DVDs, freely accessible online as detailed in our Moving Image Gateway and related television and radio broadcasts available to order by ERA-licensed bodies via TRILT.

For further details about the COI, its long history, and its films, visit their homepage at: http://coi.gov.uk/