The Cellar Videocassette was discovered in a rust-colored 6-by-9 envelope in the northeast corner of the Salisbury House basement. The Cellar Videocassette was wrapped in a pliable transparent plastic material of small, deflated protruding circles originally filled with air. This plastic material was secured with a wide strip of transparent tape. The envelope was found beneath a freezer filled with sixteen boxes of frozen cod fish covered in batter.
The unlabeled Cellar Videocassette is the only restored Salisbury House videocassette. Five videocassettes were also found in a plastic box on the top shelf of the Salisbury House garage. These videocassettes have handwritten labels: “Casualty 93-94,” “Mum Dad Anniversary,” “Man U CL Final 1999,” “Portugal,” “Diana Funeral.” The garage videocassettes have disintegrated to an extent that their restoration is currently impossible.
For the first 30 seconds of the Cellar Videocassette the camera focuses on different areas of a pale grey carpet. Fabric analysis dates the carpet between 1985-1991 CE. Carpet samples contain traces of alcohol, carbon monoxide, sugar, phosphoric acid, petroleum by-products and blood from eleven individuals, five related to the Salisbury House family (for a complete list see Evans, Rodfrey; Analysis of the Carpet Fibers in the Salisbury House). The renowned brass base and glass top of the Salisbury House Table and the beige leather Salisbury House Couch are visible in the background.
In the second scene, the male subject is alone, dressed in the popular blue jeans pants and a black shirt with short sleeves. He approaches the camera and stares into the lens while backing away. The male subject spends two minutes lying on different areas of the Salisbury House Couch and the grey carpet while periodically adjusting the focus and angle of the camera.
In the third and final scene the male subject and a female subject engage in copulation. The male subject was identified as the Salisbury House patriarch, (nicknamed Bruce by the Evans team) shortly after the restoration of the Cellar Videocassette was completed. He has removed the blue jeans pants but not the black shirt with short sleeves. Bruce has also removed the gold band he is wearing on the fourth digit of his left hand in every photograph of him recovered from the Salisbury House site. In the United Kingdom in this era a ring on the fourth digit of the left hand was indicative of a matrimonial relationship.
It has been conclusively established that the female subject of the Cellar Videocassette was not the Salisbury House matriarch (nicknamed “Sue” by the Evans team), nor does the female subject appear in any of the 78 Salisbury House photographs. Throughout the Cellar Videocassette the female subject wears a ring on the fourth digit of her left hand. This intriguing discrepancy is a source of speculation, with little conclusive evidence. Also of interest is the green ink design, which is coiled in a band around the female subject’s upper arm. The religious or social significance of these markings is a divisive and contentious discipline.
The sound restoration is thorough. The call of a robin bird outside has been isolated. Five automobiles can be heard driving past the residence.
The male subject speaks three times during the 14-minute Cellar Videocassette:
• 5 minutes, 2 seconds: “Do you like that?”
• 8 minutes, 17 seconds: “Mind your head against the table. Mind it, mind it.”
• 9 minutes, 42 seconds: “I’m sweating. Be nice. Don’t worry about upsetting me, tell me I’m sweating.”
The female subject speaks twice:
• 5 minutes, 11 seconds: “It’s all right.”
• 13 minutes, 12 seconds: “I can hear the postman.”
In his most recent publication, Evidence of Cellar Videocassette Clusters in Salisbury, Grimstead and Dumford 1980-2000 CE, social historian Rodfrey Evans hypothesizes that making these videocassettes was a popular recreational activity in Salisbury and its surrounding regions at the end of the second millennium. The Cellar Videocassette remains the only restored unprofessional recording of human copulation in this primitive recording medium.