Tele-snaps

From an early age, Cura had been interested in electronics and photography, developing a reputation among his family as a "Heath Robinson inventor".

Cura, recently demobilised from the RAF, combined his twin passions of photography and electronics and began to experiment with developing a camera that could take pictures from a television screen.

Once satisfied with his process, Cura wrote to the BBC on 11 September 1947 enclosing samples of his work and requesting permission to exploit the images commercially.

Cura also enjoyed success with two best-selling books on improving television reception and correcting picture faults, which were illustrated with his tele-snaps.

By 1959, Cura claimed to have taken over 250,000 tele-snaps and that sets of his tele-snaps had been "presented to and graciously accepted by the Royal Family; Their Majesties the King of Denmark; the late King of Norway; Queen Juliana of the Netherlands; Ex-president Auriol of France; Earl Attlee; Sir Winston Churchill; Mr Charles Chaplin; Mrs Eleanor Roosevelt"[4] as well as a wide range of newspapers and periodicals.

[5] However, many copies of tele-snaps survive on broadcasters' production files and in the private collections of many of the artists and technicians whose work Cura photographed.

Most notably, this technique has been employed, on an amateur, not-for-profit basis, by some enthusiasts of the British science fiction series Doctor Who, which has nearly a hundred missing episodes.