Jonathan Sale on how broadcasting grew from a humble hut near Chelmsford


Radio Shack


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roadcasting in Britain started at 7pm on February 14 1922. To put it another way. from a small hut in Writtle near Chelmsford, the Marconi Company had


established a short-lived experimental radio station which, without being part of the BBC, put out our first regular broadcasts (on Tuesdays only). Its faint whisper on a long-wave signal led to the mighty roar of the big broadcasting events to come: the abdication speech of Edward VIII; Winston Churchill declaring we would fight them on the beaches; the Queen’s rainy coronation on black-and-white TV; David Attenborough and David Dimbleby in living colour; Boris Johnson not being interviewed by Andrew Neil. There had been earlier transmissions over this


new-fangled medium. These were initially in Morse code, and included those giving weather forecasts for Wisconsin (presumably on the lines of warnings of ‘outbreaks of dashes followed by scattered dots’). Guglielmo Marconi of Bologna, one of the


early wireless inventors, had offered his services to the Italian government, which clearly decided that these mysterious gizmos would never catch on. Fortunately, he had an enthusiastic reception in Britain, where he moved in 1896 to set up his own manufacturing company. Captain Peter Pendleton Eckersley (known as


PP – many radio pioneers were identified by their initials) was one of the leading boffins at Marconi’s before becoming the first chief engineer of the BBC. At his co-ed boarding school, Eckersley had built his own radio transmitter and receiver, which was used to send cricket scores from the more distant pitches and also to lure girls into the chicken hut where he kept his technical gear. After his war service, which involved


communications by primitive radios in 12 | theJournalist


primitive aeroplanes, he began working in “a long, low hut for long, low people” – ie at Marconi’s in Writtle. There had been a time when the few thousand


geeks or ‘hams’ licensed to tickle their hissing ‘cat’s whisker’ sets could truthfully grumble that “there’s nothing on the radio” because there wasn’t. In order to fill this gap in the market, the long, low people began to put out long-wave signals: actual programmes or, to put it no more highly, words and music. In the last week of February 1920 ‘2MT Writtle’ put out two half-hours of snippets read from newspapers, records from a wind-up gramophone and live performances provided (free) by Marconi staff members. Don’t laugh: there are local radio stations now offering less. This daily format, delivered by technicians


TO EDUCATE, inform and entertain the British public, but with NO news gathering, advertising or controversial content to be originated by the company” is the summary of the aims of the British Broadcasting Company, whose radio service began in 1922. BBC television was


switched on in 1936 but screens went blank in 1939, with a long intermission until 1946. With only one


channel, there was no choice of viewing


until the start of ITV in 1955. This began, not with a


real programme but an outside broadcast of the dinner in the Guildhall to commemorate the channel’s launch; it is no wonder that 20 million listeners chose instead to switch on BBC radio for the dramatic death by


originally hired for their skills in twiddling the knobs rather than tickling the ivories, could be kept up until only the end of the first week of March. Broadcasts then become more sporadic but they certainly involved fees – 25p to an amateur soprano from a local factory and a whacking £1,000 (paid by the proprietor of the Daily Mail) for Dame Nellie Melba, one of the few operatic singers after whom an ice cream dessert is named, to traipse all the way to Essex to warble Home, Sweet Home. Unfortunately, there were complaints – not from listeners, it should be said. Unharmonious officials declared that the signals were interfering with communications to aircraft and shipping and, in November, the plug was pulled. It was not plugged back in until two years later. In the meantime, listeners in Britain had to make do with a Sunday afternoon concert from Holland with occasional interruptions by air traffic control from Croydon airport. Finally, harmony was restored and, in mid-February 1922, 2MT Writtle prepared to hit the airwaves again, now with a new transmitter. There being no Radio Times until September 1923, the wireless societies were sent a note of the time and date. A script was prepared, consisting largely of the repetition of ‘Here is a gramophone record entitled…’ The first platter (as they didn’t say) was then followed by a three-minute silence into which any official announcements would be dropped. “At 6.50pm, there was a loud explosion from the transmitter,” wrote Eckersley’s son Myles in Prospero’s Wireless in his biography of


The rat’s whiskers


fire of Grace Archer in The Archers, cunningly scheduled for the same evening. Much more radio


competition for the BBC arrived in 1964 – this time on the high seas from Radio Caroline and other pirates. BBC2 also started up


that year, adding colour in 1967, which was the year Radio 1 started broadcasting (presenters included many of the pirates whose ships had been sunk by hostile legislation) and BBC Radio Leicester


became the first local radio station. The year 1973 saw, or rather heard, the first commercial radio stations, LBC and Capital. Channel 4 followed in 1982. Channel 5 started up in 1997, in premises originally occupied by TV-am. The TV-am breakfast


time show brought wake-up calls to the nation only from 1983 to 1992 and is fondly remembered for its puppet Roland Rat and also for Anna Ford throwing a glass of wine over the executive she blamed for sacking her, Jonathan Aitken.


SHAUN HIGSON COLOUR / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO


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