his father. “One of the condensers blew up.” It was replaced but, thanks to a misreading of the label, with the wrong condenser. This in turn was soon replaced but, in a few


weeks’ time, another explosion followed, this time from the bigwigs ‘upstairs’ (if that’s the apposite word for a workplace based in a hut). The anger was sparked off by the fact that, compared with the sober engineers who doubled as presenters in his team, Peter Eckersley was very much a live wire – perhaps too highly charged. On Tuesday afternoons, a piano would be trundled into the hut, on loan from the pub; the multitasking presenter could be heard announcing the next item, then his footsteps as he ran to the piano, then his opening chords and, finally, his voice. Most of the records they were provided with


were rejected as being too highbrow, according to a colleague, the highly initialled RTB Wynn, a quarter of a century later. He added: “Programme planning was done at the Cock and Bell up the road about half an hour beforehand.” Today, that might sound like standard practice for some stations but it would have rung alarm bells in 1922, especially if the bosses had known that Eckersley’s tipple of choice when gargling before the show was not water but gin. One fateful March evening, he left the pub as


“before” that broadcast and it now looked as if Eckersley would not be enjoying much “after” in the business. The bigwigs were furious at this anarchic,


JEFF MORGAN 14 / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO


usual on his motorbike and roared up the lane to take over from an increasingly horrified duty engineer. For Myles Eckersley, this could well have been


“the moment when the human face of British broadcasting was inaugurated”. His father was, in the words of his son, “part amateur comedian and actor, and part chattering professional technician… songs, rhymes, pub stories, anything; but no records, no official pauses. It was an approach quite unlike anything that had gone before.” There was, of course, not much


outrageous display – but, again, not the listeners. Enthusiastic letters and cards poured in from all over the country, begging for more of the same. The postmaster general – the official ultimately responsible for radio – held his peace, realising that these hordes of wireless folk should not be dismissed; they all had votes. And, adds Eckersley junior: “It was now plain that the government had to establish some sort of British national broadcasting service… here were some signs that Writtle might be a forerunner.” It was indeed. The British Broadcasting


Company (as it was first known) was set up soon afterwards and Eckersley became its first chief engineer. 2MT Writtle’s regular scheduled broadcasting lasted for less than a year. No recordings survive but the actual hut, after being used as a cricket pavilion, was shifted to Sanford Hill Museum in Chelmsford as a place of pilgrimage for radio enthusiasts. Further details can be found at Radio Emma Toc (www.emmatoc.com). Yes, that’s a website, a concept that no one could have dreamed of back in the early 1920s – not even the great PP Eckersley.


theJournalist | 13


HULTON DEUTSCH


Looking back to:


1922


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24