The British Broadcasting Century with Paul Kerensa

The BBC in WW2 is our focus for the third of our summer specials - longer-form chats with brilliant authors and their take on a century of British broadcasting. This time meet Auntie's War author and BBC presenter (Today, Sunday, The World at One, and plenty more), Edward Stourton. We can only ever scratch the surface in half an hour (what, no John Snagge?) - but it's a helicopter view of the key moments, from Munich to victory marches in Italy. Discover why reporting from Dunkirk to D-Day differed so much, and which BBC reporter gained notoriety for treating a war report like a football commentary. Hear tales (and clips) of Edward R Murrow, Guy Byam, George Orwell (no clip there alas), J.B. Priestley, Charles Gardner, Winston Churchill.  Professor David Hendy joins us too to shine a light on a forgotten figure of D-Day: Mary Lewis, a BBC duplicator.  (There's a supplementary episode too, next time - on the flipside of broadcasting in WW2: black propaganda, as programmes were sent from Germany to Britain by Lord Haw-Haw and co, or from Britain to Germany by Sefton Delmer and co... and somehow involved in both, was our favourite radio pioneer, Peter Eckersley - next time!)   SHOWNOTES: Edward Stourton's book Auntie's War is available from your local independent bookshop, or online inc: https://amzn.to/3dTA6gX David Hendy's book The BBC: A People's History is available from your local independent bookshop, or online inc: https://amzn.to/3TnsX8Z Our previous summer specials included authors Sarah-Jane Stratford (https://amzn.to/3CHhFqk) and Stephen Bourne (https://amzn.to/3ARHoKf) Join my mailing list for updates on my forthcoming novel Aunties and Uncles: http://eepurl.com/M6Wbr ...or find my existing books including Hark! The Biography of Christmas (https://amzn.to/3AZCzjf) Be on our centenary special! '100 Years in 100 Minutes'. Pick a moment (the start of television? The final Top of the Pops?), a programme (Python? Grandstand?), or a year of broadcasting history, record yourself talking about it for 20-60sec, and send it to me: paul at paulkerensa dot com (spelt out to dodge the spambots!). I'd love to get lots of different voices on that episode, and who better than the voices of listeners! Go on. Send something in.  If you like the episode, share it! It all helps get this project out there. If you like the podcast enough to want to support it, help it continue, £5/mth on www.patreon.com/paulkerensa gets you extra behind-the-scenes videos, written updates, filmed walking tours of broadcasting heritage sites, readings from the first ever book on broadcasting... and anything else you'd like. You request, I'll see what I can do! Thanks for £supporting - it keeps me in books and web hosting. We're on www.facebook.com/bbcentury  and www.twitter.com/bbcentury We're nothing to do with the BBC - just talking about how they used to be. Next time: More WW2 broadcasting tales from Auntie's War author Edward Stourton, plus author of 2MT Writtle Tim Wander, on black propaganda. It's quite a tale... Stay subscribed to hear it!

How many pre-WW2 black British broadcasters can you name? We’ll let's change that after this episode: summer special no.2 from The British Broadcasting Century... EARLY BLACK BRITISH BROADCASTERS - WITH STEPHEN BOURNE Author and social historian Stephen Bourne specialises in black heritage, and joins us to inform, educate and entertain us about people of colour on air between the wars. I first encountered Stephen’s work when I spotted Evelyn Dove’s scrapbook in the BBC100 ‘Objects of the BBC’ season. Stephen owns her archive, and was keen to chat about some of the early black stars of British broadcasting. You'll hear about: Layton and Johnstone, Lawrence Brown, Paul Robeson, Marion Anderson, Evelyn Dove, The Kentucky Minstrels, Scott and Whaley (aka Pussyfoot and Cuthbert), Elisabeth Welch, Una Marson, Ken Snakehips Johnson, Adelaide Hall... and more. Separately, you’ll also hear a song from singer Kathie Touin – a new exclusive version of one of the earliest songs about wireless: ‘There’s a Wireless Station Down in My Heart’. Thanks Graham Brown and Kathie Touin for arranging, performing and sending! Details of her album below... SHOWNOTES: Stephen Bourne’s books are available at stephenbourne.co.uk/books/ and include ‘Deep are the Roots: Trailblazers who Changed Black British Theatre’, ‘Evelyn Dove: Britain’s Black Cabaret Queen’, ‘Black in the British Frame: The Black Experience in British Film and Television’ and ‘Under Fire: Black Britain in Wartime 1939-45’. Do grab a book and read more on this – plenty more stories to discover. Kathie Touin’s website has more on her albums and singles: www.kathietouin.com. Kathie's lockdown single was ‘This Time (Save the World?): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kToCUypZWic Thanks Kathie! See/hear a clip of Una Marson from West Indies Calling – well worth a watch: https://youtu.be/ViGwxJloI70 I told a tale of broadcasting history on the proper BBC this week: a Pause for Thought for Zoe Ball’s Radio 2 Breakfast Show on 100 years since the first religious broadcast. Have a listen: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0cr3ghj If you like the episode, share it! It all helps get this project out there. If you like the podcast enough to want to support it, help it continue, £5/mth on www.patreon.com/paulkerensa gets you extra behind-the-scenes videos, written updates, filmed walking tours of broadcasting heritage sites, readings from the first ever book on broadcasting... and anything else you'd like. You request, I'll see what I can do! Thanks for £supporting - it keeps me in books and web hosting. We're on www.facebook.com/bbcentury  and www.twitter.com/bbcentury We're nothing to do with the BBC - just talking about how they used to be. One more author special next time: The BBC in WW2: Auntie’s War with Edward Stourton. Then the timeline continues - Feb 1923 at the early Beeb...  

Summer special time! The first of three episodes outside of our era, our regular timeline we're telling of the early BBC. Instead we leap from 1923 to 1926 and then some, to meet: HILDA MATHESON AND THE RADIO GIRLS OF SAVOY HILL ...Your guide is Sarah-Jane Stratford - novelist behind Radio Girls. It's a wonderfully evocative book, and a great summer read. Get your copy now! We talk about Hilda Matheson's legacy, from first Director of Talks, to her relationship with Vita Sackville-West, to Hilda's positive influence on the BBC in dark times during the build-up to World War Two. If you like the episode, share it! It all helps get this project out there. I mention a walking video I did for the Patreon connoisseurs - matrons and patrons can see it here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/68777192 - and do consider joining up, as your few quid will help keep the podcast going.  We're on www.facebook.com/bbcentury  and www.twitter.com/bbcentury We're nothing to do with the BBC - just talking about how they used to be. Next time: The earliest black British broadcasters, with Stephen Bourne.  

Episode 49 and that old favourite Peter Eckersley returns - he's started regular British broadcasting, helped spark a boom in radio sets, mocked the BBC, been inspired by the first OB to join Auntie Beeb... and now this episode, he's hired. In this bumper episode, we hear from Eckersley expert Tim Wander, and PPE himself, as well as Noel Ashbridge and Rolls Wynn. Plus our special guest: Professor David Hendy, author of The BBC: A People's History, on the pioneer years. This is the last of our regular timeline type shows for the summer - but next time, author interviews, with Sarah-Jane Stratford, then Stephen Bourne and Edward Stourton. Stay subscribed, and please rate/review us if you can. It all helps spread word. David Hendy's book The BBC: A People's History is here and in all good bookshops: https://amzn.to/3ap1l1y Patreon supporters can see the full 55min video interview with David Hendy here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/65412562 We mention the documentary in 2BP, Ireland's first radio station. Nothing to do with us, but it's here and it fills in a few gaps: https://www.mixcloud.com/TheIrishPirateRadioExhibition/the-history-of-2bp-irelands-first-radio-station-in-1923/?fbclid=IwAR0dVFIPWwlCcQhyQ4OOYd2UvSwGkKqoqORmvsiN2QA8LI3fscW79Mvlwc8 We mention Peter Eckersley's book The Power Behind the Microphone. You can read it online as a PDF here: https://worldradiohistory.com/BOOKSHELF-ARH/History/The-Power-Behind-The-Microphone-Eckersley-1941.pdf Join us on social media: www.twitter.com/bbcentury, www.facebook.com/bbcentury Thanks to Will Farmer for the original music. We're nothing to do with the present-day BBC - it's entirely a solo-run operation. Archive clips are either public domain due to age, or some rights may belong to owners we know not whom. BBC content is used with kind permission, BBC copyright content reproduced courtesy of the British Broadcasting Corporation. All rights reserved. Subscribe, share, rate, review us - it all helps! Next time: Summer specials! linktr.ee/paulkerensa

"There's not a lot written about 2BP," says our guest Tony Currie, radio historian, author and presenter. And yet for episode 48, we've wrung a whole 40mins out of it! In January 1923, the BBC had sole right to broadcast in Britain, and yet a couple of experimental radio stations existed in Glasgow. 5MG had been on the air since October, operated by shop-owners Frank Milligan and George Garscadden, just to sell some wireless sets. And Daimler wanted to sell something too - in-car radios. So they set up a temporary station, 2BP, at the Glasgow Motor Show. Pull over and hear all about it. Plus from Scotland to Somerset: hear Neil Wilson's tour of his wonderful Radio Museum in Watchet. See the full 20mins Radio Museum tour here: https://youtu.be/ZjDXKQ63RaI Visit the Radio Museum in Watchet - details here: https://www.radiomuseum.uk Come and see my show The First Broadcast, in Watchet, in conjunction with the Radio Museum - or in Ludlow, Bedford, Tunbridge Walls, Guildford, Salford, Chelmsford, London, Isle of Wight... paulkerensa.com/tour Thanks Tony Currie for the expert knowledge and loan of his documentary on Scotland's Radio. Tony's books include The Radio Times Story - and his radio station is Radio Six: https://www.radiosix.com Find us on Twitter: twitter.com/bbcentury Or Facebook: Facebook.com/bbcentury Help us on Patreon - thanks if you do! patreon.com/paulkerensa  Thanks to Will Farmer for the original music. We're nothing to do with the present-day BBC - it's entirely a solo-run operation. Archive clips are either public domain due to age, or some rights may belong to owners we know not whom. BBC content is used with kind permission, BBC copyright content reproduced courtesy of the British Broadcasting Corporation. All rights reserved. Subscribe, share, rate, review us - it all helps! Next time: Peter Eckersley joins the BBC as its first Chief Engineer... and Professor David Hendy joins us for a chat. paulkerensa.com

January 17th 1923: 2MT Writtle, Britain's first regular broadcasting station, closes down for the last time. Its chief voice, director of programmes, Lord of Misrule Peter Pendleton Eckersley toasts its listeners with a glass of water, upgraded to champagne via the use of a pop gun - innovating to the last with one of radio's first ever sound effects. Then Eckersley, the first BBC-basher, switched sides and promptly joined the BBC, as its first Chief Engineer. On episode 47, we've reached the moment where the BBC's peculiar airwaves rival finally shuffles off the ether, having somehow given birth to Auntie Beeb, but outserved its purpose. We tell the full story of how, why, whereupon and whomsoever led to the 2MT closedown, plus we review nearly a year of Writtle broadcasts, including the first radio quiz, first radio play and first radio mockery of a different radio station's chimes. You'll hear the voices of (and we're indebted to) original radio pioneers Peter Eckersley, Noel Ashbridge and Rolls Wynn, and present-day experts and fans Tim Wander, Jim Salmon, CRH News, and granddaughters of PPE, Caroline and Alison Eckersley - they chatted to CRH News, who've kindly loaned us their audio.   FURTHER READING/LISTENING/VIEWING: Tim Wander's new book is 2MT Writtle 1922-2022: The Centenary of British Radio Broadcasting, and is available at https://2mtwrittle100.co.uk Tim's other books are at https://marconibooks.co.uk Thanks to CRH News for the loan of their audio of their video interview with Caroline and Alison Eckersley. Watch the full video at https://youtu.be/AMFKrsRVd5c - and see the rest of the CRH News Youtube channel for more videos, inc of Tim Wander's book launch. The video of the walk I did with Jim Salmon, from Writtle hut to Writtle pub, is a free post for all on https://www.patreon.com/posts/66447373 The video of the Radio Museum tour (in Watchet, Somerset) is also a free post for all on https://www.patreon.com/posts/65666411 ...Most videos I keep for Patreon supporters only - so, become one? It all supports the podcast, which otherwise, I'm doing for £nowt. Chip in at patreon.com/paulkerensa - starting at £5/mth. It helps keep the podcast going, AND you get behind-the-scenes vids etc in return. The tour? The First Broadcast: The Battle for the Beeb in 1922 heads to Kettering, Worthing, Ludlow, Watchet (pop into the Radio Museum while there?), Tunbridge Wells, St Albans, Salford, Guildford, Isle of Wight, Cheltenham (pop to Writtle while there?) - details of all paulkerensa.com/tour - say 'Hullo, hullo" if you come! Thanks to Andrew Barker our Newspaper Detective, Will Farmer our composer of original music, the BBC Written Archives Centre in Caversham, and the team effort of above names who've made this episode possible. Archive clips are either public domain due to age, or some rights may belong to owners we know not whom. BBC content is used with kind permission, BBC copyright content reproduced courtesy of the British Broadcasting Corporation. All rights reserved. We're nothing to do with the present-day BBC whatsoever - just a solo operation. Find us on Twitter, follow our Facebook page, and join our Facebook group. Please share what we do online - it all helps find us new listeners and grow this lil' project into something bigger. Linktree.com/paulkerensa has Paul's mailing list and details of his books, including Hark! The Biography of Christmas, on the history of Christmas. Coming soon: Auntie and Uncles, the novel on this here broadcasting origin story...   NEXT TIME: The only other legal rival to the BBC on the air in 1923: The Daimler in-car radio broadcasts... Thanks for listening! paulkerensa.com  

For episode 46 we're joined by one of today's (and Today's) top broadcasters: Justin Webb. Justin's new book 'The Gift of a Radio: My Childhood and Other Train Wrecks' chronicles his lifelong partnership with radio, from an unusual childhood improved by the arrival of an ITT Tiny Super radio, to anchoring the Radio 4's Today programme. But he's just the latest of 3 generations of broadcaster in his family. Justin's grandfather Leonard Crocombe was not only the first Radio Times editor, but also briefly a broadcaster in 1923 - something which even Justin didn't know. Hear Leonard Crocombe tell a tale or two... Plus we continue to tell our own tale, of the broadcasting in January 1923 - from reactions to the first OBs to the Veterans of Variety, via Burns Night, Dame Nellie Melba reading to the children on Australia Day, and the BBC finally getting its licence.   NOTES: Justin's book is available in all places that sell books, eg here. Hear more of Leonard Crocombe on this marvellous gramophone record, courtesy of AusRadioHistorian on Youtube: https://youtu.be/6N1-hGjP_2M In the podcast I talk about my visit to The Radio Museum in Watchet, Somerset. Here's a video tour given to me by owner Neil Wilson. Watchet! I mean, watch it. Then visit it. In Watchet. I also mention George Robey and Alma Adair's comedy broadcast (thanks Alan Stafford!) - a pic of that moment is here. Thanks too to Andrew Barker, our Newspaper Detective, for details of the newspaper articles. The Pause for Thought slot I mention is now on the BBC Sounds app here and there's more on the history of Pause for Thought on Andy Walmsley's great blog: https://andywalmsley.blogspot.com/2020/04/pause-for-thought.html My tour of The First Broadcast: The Battle for the Beeb in 1922 continues! See paulkerensa.com/tour for details Find us on Facebook and Twitter - @bbcentury Thanks to Will Farmer for the original music My mailing list is at linktree.com/paulkerensa  Support the show at patreon.com/paulkerensa - inc behind-the-scenes video tours etc! All tiers get all videos from now on (but not historic videos - they're for £10/mth-ers - but going forward, everyone gets everything new I post - levelling the playing field! Do join.) We're nothing to do with the BBC, y'hear!  Thanks for listening. Next time: The end of 2MT, and Peter Eckersley joins the BBC... paulkerensa.com 

Episode 45 sees us still in January 1923, but on the move... First BBC Director of Programmes Arthur Burrows visits 5IT Birmingham and 2ZY Manchester to see the 2nd and 3rd BBC stations in action - so here's a podcast snapshot of what broadcasting was like in their makeshift studios in British broadcasting's earliest days. Our guest is Jude Montague, whose grandfather Sydney Wright was an early on-air musician in the 2ZY Wireless Trio. And you'll hear the voices of those who were there: Kenneth Wright, Victor Smythe, Percy Edgar, A.E. Thompson... Hear of singers toppling off platforms made of books, as they step back for the big final note. Hear of Manchester beating London to be first station to broadcast Big Ben. And hear of the Grenadier Guards Band, cramming 22 performers into a studio space fit for 3. Jude Montague's website - which will include details of her graphic novel about her grandfather Sydney Wright - is at www.judecowanmontague.com We mention Tim Wander's talk in Writtle on May 17th and the curry dinner he's hosting on May 23rd: https://cses.org.uk/events?task=civicrm/event/info&reset=1&id=368 My play 'The First Broadcast: The Battle for the Beeb in 1922' is on tour all this year, to London, Salford, Devon, Chelmsford and beyond - and bookable for your place. www.paulkerensa.com/tour for dates and tickets. Email me at https://paulkerensa.com/contact.php for more info on booking the live show, or for anything for the podcast. For details of Paul's new novel Auntie and Uncles, on the BBC origin story, join the mailing list here: eepurl.com/M6Wbr  Support the show at www.patreon.com/paulkerensa - and as mentioned in the episode, Patreon superheroes can see my video interview with R4 Today's Justin Webb here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/63833186 ...The audio will be on the next episode. You can also support the show at www.ko-fi.com/paulkerensa (effectively buying me a coffee) - thanks! We're on social media at www.Twitter.com/bbcentury and www.facebook.com/bbcentury and www.facebook.com/groups/bbcentury - do share what we do, it all helps.  We are nothing to do with the BBC. Just talking about them. Original music is by Will Farmer. More on Paul's books, mailing list etc at www.linktr.ee/paulkerensa Next time: another grandchild of an early radio wonder: Justin Webb on his grandfather Leonard Crocombe, first editor of the Radio Times. Thanks for listening!

For episode 44, we go to Holland and go back a few years, to hear of radio pioneer Hanso Idzerda and his Dutch concerts. It's not British broadcasting, but it's British listening - our ancestors could hear his regular broadcasts from 1919 to 1924 - at least if they had a radio set of quality. Gordon Bathgate is a radio history fan and author of Radio Broadcasting: A History of the Airwaves - he guides us through Idzerda's doomed story, in an episode that's less of me, more of him... plus the return of your FMs and AMs - Firsthand Memories of broadcasting in action and an Airwave Memory from Paula Goddard. Gordon's book is at https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Radio-Broadcasting-Paperback/p/17990 or in all good book places. My play The First Broadcast is on tour all this year (and bookable for your place): www.paulkerensa.com/tour for dates, places and tickets. Our 'Firsthand Memory' came from Paula Goddard, whose wine-/tea-tasting blog is at www.paulagoddard.com Email me at https://paulkerensa.com/contact.php for more info on booking the live show, or to send me a Firsthand Memory (via text in an email) or an Airwave Memory (record as a voice memo), or with any questions, comments or feedback. Support the show at www.patreon.com/paulkerensa - and as mentioned in the episode, you can see my video interview with R4 Today's Justin Webb here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/63833186 ...The audio will be part of a future episode, on Justin's career and his grandfather Leonard Crocombe, first editor of the Radio Times. You can also support the show at www.ko-fi.com/paulkerensa (effectively buying me a coffee) - or by simply sharing these episodes on Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, fax, carrier pigeon, down the pub, on the phone, tell your friends, snare us future listeners, help build our little community... ...which includes www.Twitter.com/bbcentury and www.facebook.com/bbcentury and www.facebook.com/groups/bbcentury... ...because we are a one-man band, and NOTHING to do with the BBC. They do not endorse nor sponsor nor have anything to do with this podcast. Y'hear? (...That said, I do work for the BBC now and then - including co-writing the new series of Not Going Out which you can see on TV soon (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0015qdg), and guest-hosting Sunday Breakfast on BBC Radio Sussex and BBC Radio Surrey, which you can hear soon too, eg. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0brm15x)  Original music is by Will Farmer. Thanks Will! More on Paul's books, mailing list etc at www.linktr.ee/paulkerensa Next time: the Birmingham and Manchester stations, inc. an interview with Jude Montague, granddaughter of one of their first broadcasters Sydney Wright. Thanks for listening!

On January 8th 1923, British broadcasting left the studio for the first time. William Crampton had the idea, Arthur Burrows seized on it, John Reith approved it, Cecil Lewis kept interrupting it with stage directions and synopses... Hear all about it here on episode 43, with the voices of Peter Eckersley, Harold Bishop, Arthur Burrows, A.E. Thompson and Percy Edgar. Plus Dr Kate Murphy tells us about the first radio 'aunt', Aunt Sophie/Cecil Dixon. And what John Reith did for the first time on January 6th. You won't believe it... This episode is drawn from over a dozen books and the like, including research at the marvellous BBC Written Archives Centre in Caversham. What a place! What a team. Cecil Lewis' book Broadcasting from Within is quoted from extensively, and I'm reading it IN ITS ENTIRETY for our matrons and patrons on Patreon.com/paulkerensa at the 'superhero' level. If you sign up, even for one month and cancel, you're helping keep this podcast afloat, so thank you. BUT I'm making part 5 of my reading of it available to EVERYONE. This is the except that's all about this first outside broadcast, so if you'd like to hear me read it and talk about it, it's all here for you, whether you're a Patreon subscriber or not: https://www.patreon.com/posts/63268433 - Enjoy! My play The First Broadcast is touring the land - details at https://www.paulkerensa.com/tour - or get in touch to book it in for your venue.  Find us on social media at www.twitter.com/bbcentury or www.facebook.com/bbcentury or www.facebook.com/groups/bbcentury And do subscribe, share, rate and review us. It all helps spread this little project, which is NOTHING to do with the BBC - it's just a one-man band. OTHER THINGS: Original music is by Will Farmer. Many of our archive clips are old enough to be public domain. BBC content is used with kind permission, BBC copyright content reproduced courtesy of the British Broadcasting Corporation. All rights reserved. This podcast is 100% unofficial and NOTHING to do with the present-day BBC - it's entirely run, researched, presented and dogsbodied by Paul Kerensa. Be on the show! Email me a written ‘Firsthand Memory’ (FM) about a time you’ve seen radio or TV in action. Or record a voice memo of your ‘Airwave Memories’ (AM), 1-2mins of your earliest memories of radio/TV. Get in touch! Next time: The Birmingham and Holland stations. Yes, Holland... Happy listening!

Episode 42 is the answer to life, the universe and everything, which in this case is: microphones. Or more specifically, the new microphones the BBC brought in, of Captain Round's design, in January 1923. In this episode, new mics, old callsigns, ambitious plans, the lack of an on-air interval: it all adds up to the start of professional broadcasting, as the two-month-old BBC moves away from its radio ham roots...  ...Not that there's anything wrong with being a radio ham! As will be revealed by our guest Jim Salmon, aka 2E0RMI. He's got plans for a celebration of the centenary of 2MT Writtle, on February 14th 2022. Full details of 2MT's 100th birthday online do at https://www.emmatoc.org/2mtcelebration. You can watch Jim's livestream (on the day only) at https://www.mixcloud.com/live/RadioEmmaToc/ - bring your own G&T and fish and chip supper to your screens! Or if you can get to Writtle in Essex itself, they've got celebrations on Feb 11th, Feb 14th and May 17th-22nd - https://writtle-pc.gov.uk/latest-news/writtle-celebrates-marconi-in-2022/ - maybe see you there on that weekend in May! All year, my play The First Broadcast is touring the land - details at https://www.paulkerensa.com/tour - or get in touch to book it in for your venue. It travels light! It's only me, playing Arthur Burrows and Peter Eckersley. Support the show at www.patreon.com/paulkerensa - thanks if you do! Find us on social media at www.twitter.com/bbcentury or www.facebook.com/bbcentury or www.facebook.com/groups/bbcentury And do subscribe, share, rate and review us. It all helps spread this little project, which is NOTHING to do with the BBC - it's just a one-man band. Next time: The first outside broadcast! A night at the opera... Happy listening!

Episode 41 (aka Season 3 episode 2): On January 2nd 1923, John Reith interviewed Miss Frances Isobel Shields for a job at the BBC, to be his secretary. At the time the BBC had four or five male staff members. Miss Shields started work on January 8th, instantly making the BBC a 20% female organisation. It's been greater than that ever since. This episode's fab guest is Dr Kate Murphy: academic, former producer of BBC's Woman's Hour and author of Behind the Wireless: A History of Early Women at the BBC. Her book is brilliant and highly recommended for a deep dive into the subject. Hear Isobel Shields' tale, plus the women who broadcast before her: Britain's first DJ Gertrude Donisthorpe, 2LO's first children's presenter Vivienne Chatterton, and one of our first broadcast comedians Helena Millais. (You can hear their fuller tales if you go back to the earlier episodes on this podcast.) And hear about some of the women who joined the BBC soon after Miss Shields, like telephonist Olive May and women's staff supervisor Caroline Banks. Plus hear about some of John Reith's unusual management practices, from taking his secretaries to the cinema to his brutal firing criteria. But we dwell on his hiring not firing, as well tell the origin story of British broadcasting.  And Dr Murphy will return on future episodes! With tales of the first Women's Hour (not Woman's Hour) in May 1923, and the early female managers, like Mary Somerville and Hilda Matheson. To catch those episodes, you'll have to stay subscribed to this podcast.  While you're there, would you give us a review where you found this podcast? It all helps bring new listeners on board. And that helps grow the project. If you'd consider sharing what we do too, please do tell anyone who might like this - either on social media or in a real-world conversation! Just drop us in. You never know, next time you meet, you could be discussing the inner workings of Marconi House. If you REALLY like what we do, please consider supporting us on patreon.com/paulkerensa or ko-fi.com/paulkerensa. It all helps equip us with books and web hosting and trips to the amazing BBC Written Archives Centre. In this podcast I mention my latest Patreon video, going behind-the-scenes of my broadcasting history trawl, inc. a glimpse at my new (old) crystal set radio, 'on this day' on the 1923 BBC (with a nice surprise), and a reading about Reith. This video's available to all Patreon folks whatever their 'level' - www.patreon.com/posts/60853999 - so if you like, join, watch, then cancel. Or stick around for more videos and writings each month. You can follow us on Twitter or our Facebook page or join our Facebook group, and say hi, or share anything of broadcasting history. Paul's one-man play The First Broadcast tours the UK in 2022. There's now an official trailer you can watch here. The first date's in Surbiton on Feb 2nd, then Leicester Comedy Festival on Feb 3rd, Banbury on March 3rd, Barnes on March 25th, London's Museum of Comedy on April 21st AND Nov 14th, plus Bristol, Bath, Blandford Forum, Kettering, Guildford... and your place? Got a venue? Get in touch. We also mention the BBC 100 website - inc. the 100 Objects, Faces and Voices. Who's missing? Let us know!   OTHER THINGS: Original music is by Will Farmer. Many of our archive clips are old enough to be public domain. BBC content is used with kind permission, BBC copyright content reproduced courtesy of the British Broadcasting Corporation. All rights reserved. This podcast is 100% unofficial and NOTHING to do with the present-day BBC - it's entirely run, researched, presented and dogsbodied by Paul Kerensa. Be on the show! Email me a written ‘Firsthand Memory’ (FM) about a time you’ve seen radio or TV in action. Or record a voice memo of your ‘Airwave Memories’ (AM), 1-2mins of your earliest memories of radio/TV. Get in touch! Next time: All change! Mics, Callsigns and Phone-in Requests - we race through week 1 of 1923 as the BBC prep

Happy New Year, 1923! And Happy New Season: 3, that is, as we tell the story of the BBC's 3rd-6th months. Formative times at Auntie Beeb, as the staff grows from 4 in one room to a new premises at Savoy Hill. Season 3 begins with this, episode 40 overall, on New Year's Day 1923. John Reith, Arthur Burrows, Cecil Lewis and Major Anderson begin work in the one-room BBC, like an Amish schoolhouse. Each day, the number of staff and visitors grow - and helpfully Reith, Burrows and Lewis all wrote vividly about the manic days of Magnet House - home to the BBC for the first four months of 1923. We're grateful to the books: Broadcasting from Within by C.A. Lewis The Story of Broadcasting by A.R. Burrows The Reith Diaries, edited by Charles Stuart Broadcasting over Britain by J.C.W. Reith Into the Wind by J.C.W. Reith Plus you'll hear from the 5th (or 6th) BBC employee, Rex Palmer in a rare clip of 1920s broadcasting. More up to date, 'Diddy' David Hamilton is our guest - the man with the greatest listening figures in the history of British radio. David's books, The Golden Days of Radio 1, and Commercial Radio Daze, are available at ashwaterpress.co.uk.  Part 1 of our interview with David was on episode 30, and part 3 will be on a future episode. Want to watch, in-vision, the full interview? Join our band of matrons and patrons on Patreon - the full video is here. And THANK YOU to all who support us there, and keep us afloat as a one-man-band of a podcast. You'll also find on Patreon, my readings-with-interruptions of Cecil Lewis' book Broadcasting from Within - the first book on broadcasting. Part 1 and Part 2 will be followed, of course, by Part 3 - and if you want it sooner, dear Patreon subscriber, just ask and I'll read/record/upload pronto. We also mention in this episode: Paul Kerensa's interview with BBC Radio Norfolk's Paul Hayes on Treasure Quest: Extra Time, about the making of this podcast. Available for a limited time on BBC Sounds: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0b8qc1d The first regular listings of London 2LO in The Pall Mall Gazette. See the full listing on our Twitter profile or in our Facebook group - and thanks to Newspaper Detective Andrew Barker for sending them our way. Paul's one-man play The First Broadcast, touring the UK in 2022. The first date's in Surbiton on Feb 2nd, then Leicester Comedy Festival on Feb 3rd, Banbury on March 3rd, Barnes on March 25th, London's Museum of Comedy on April 21st AND Nov 14th, plus Bristol, Blandford Forum, Kettering, Guildford... and your place? Got a venue? Get in touch.   OTHER THINGS: Be on the show! Email me a written ‘Firsthand Memory’ (FM) about a time you’ve seen radio or TV in action. Or record a voice memo of your ‘Airwave Memories’ (AM), 1-2mins of your earliest memories of radio/TV. Get in touch! Please do rate/review us where you get your podcasts - it helps others find us. We are a one-man operation! We need your help. Archive clips are old enough to be public domain in this episode. This podcast is NOTHING to do with the present-day BBC - it's entirely run, researched, presented and dogsbodied by Paul Kerensa. Original music is by Will Farmer. Next time: The story continues with the first female employee of the BBC, Isobel Shields...   www.paulkerensa.com

Hullo hullo-ho-ho! Welcome to 2021's Christmas special, unwrapping a dozen Christmas broadcasting presents, from the past, to see what makes a classic BBC Christmas schedule. Our guest Ben Baker is a podcaster and author of festive books including the new Ben Baker's Christmas Box: 40 Years of the Best, Worst and Weirdest Christmas TV Ever (available on Amazon or Linktree). Like the Ghost of Broadcasting Past, he guides us through the Queen's Speech, Top of the Pops, Noel Edmonds, Christmas films, bizarre hospital visits, and ample more. Your host Paul Kerensa is a Christmas cultural fanatic - and quotes amply from his book Hark! The Biography of Christmas, especially the bits on royal Christmas speeches and Morecambe and Wise viewing figures. Paul's book is available in paperback, ebook or audiobook. Or get a signed copy direct from Paul (£10 inc p&p). Buy both books! Ideal Christmas present - any time of the year... Plus do you hear what I hear? Two monarchs with their landmark Christmas messages - the first on radio and the first on TV. And back by popular demand, some genuine 1923 ads from Popular Wireless magazine brought to vocal life, by broadcaster Paul Hayes and my kids. Paul Hayes also has a blog we mention - he's watching every version of A Christmas Carol that he can find, and reports the results on watchingthecarol.blogspot.com. That's a lot of humbug. Speaking blogs, host Paul Kerensa has a 'Yule blog', on festive history, going back far beyond the birth of broadcasting. This is our last special before we embark on season 3, and 1923. So next episode, it's full steam ahead into Magnet House as the six-week-old BBC gets a staff and one office. Aw. Join us!   OTHER WAYS TO BE PART OF THIS BROADCASTING HISTORY MEGA-PROJECT: Be on the show! Email me a written ‘Firsthand Memory’ (FM) about a time you’ve seen radio or TV up close, a recording, a live broadcast, a studio, an OB. What surprised you about it? Or record a voice memo of your ‘Airwave Memories’ (AM), 1-2mins of your earliest memories hearing/seeing radio/TV. Get in touch! Paul's new one-man play The First Broadcast is now booking for dates in 2022. Got a venue? Book me for your place. Here's one - The Museum of Comedy. Join me there on November 14th 2022, the exact date of the BBC's 100th birthday! Please do rate/review us where you get your podcasts - it helps others find us. We are a one-man operation! We need your help. Some of you actually like the podcast enough to financially support it! Just a few quid a month all adds up and keeps us on books, research and web-hosting. I'll soon be visiting the BBC Written Archives Centre at Caversham - but it all costs! Fancy chipping in? Patreon.com/paulkerensa means I give you extra video, audio, advance writings etc in return for a few pounds... ...or Ko-fi.com/paulkerensa tips me the price of a coffee as a one-off. Thanks! It all helps make more podcasts. Join our Facebook group! Follow us on Twitter! Join Paul's mailing list! inc info on his writing, writing courses (one starts in January), stand-up, radio etc. Archive clips are old enough to be public domain in this episode. This podcast is NOTHING to do with the present-day BBC - it's entirely run, researched, presented and dogsbodied by Paul Kerensa. Original music is by Will Farmer. Next time: Season 3 begins with New Year 1923 at Magnet House. Join us...    www.paulkerensa.com  

Marconi may have invented wireless, and the wireless, but he didn't see broadcasting coming. A special for episode 38, as we bring to life an interview with Guglielmo Marconi on what he made of broadcasting, two months into the BBC's existence. Our source is Popular Wireless magazine, January 27th 1923 issue. Read along if you like (plus bits from December 1922) - thank you to WorldRadioHistory.com for housing this long lost magazine. Needless to say, we don't claim any rights to the wonderful old magazine, and while we THINK it's either public domain or its rights owners are untraceable, we humbly defer to whoever DOES own the rights - and are ever grateful to the original journalists, editors, owners... and of course to Marconi himself. Given that Popular Wireless magazine was full of ads for radios and parts - and given the BBC then and now is ad-free - we thought it might be fun to bring some of those ads to life too, thanks to listeners who've sent in recordings. Applause for Gordon Bathgate, Alan Stafford, Andrew Barker, Paul Hayes, Lovejit Dhaliwal, Neil Jackson, Philip Rowe, Richard Kenny, Wayne Clarke, and my kids. There's a grateful thanks to Radio Times for making us their Podcast of the Week - and a little more about the pictures they featured of radio's female pioneers (see below for links to episodes about them). We wrap up with a summary of what the BBC has planned for its BBC100 season, now that its centenary programming has been announced - everything from Dimbleby to Horrible Histories.   OTHER THINGS WE MENTION: CRH News - Andy Stephens has some lovely Marconi history videos and features on his Youtube channel. Marconibooks.co.uk is where you'll find Tim Wander's fab books, including the recent From Marconi to Melba. I point you to a few of our previous episodes: on the first BBC Christmas, on Britain's first DJ Gertrude Donisthorpe, on radio's first professional singer Winifred Sayer, and on first radio comedian Helena Millais. See our feature in the Radio Times here on our Facebook page - Podcast of the Week! Buy my festive history book Hark! The Biography of Christmas from an indie bookshop like St Andrews (£6.99), from Amazon (inc audiobook), or a signed copy direct from me (£10 inc p&p). You can email me to add to the show. eg. Your ‘Firsthand Memories’ - in text form, a time you’ve seen radio or TV being broadcast before your eyes: a studio, an outside broadcast - what were your behind-the-scenes insights? Or record your ‘Airwave Memories’ (AM) - a voice memo of 1-2mins of your earliest memories hearing/seeing radio/TV. Be on the podcast! My new one-man play The First Broadcast is now booking for dates in 2022. Got a venue? Book me for your place. Here's one - The Museum of Comedy. Join me, in April or in November on the very date of the BBC's 100th birthday! Thanks for joining us on Patreon if you do - or if you might! It supports the show and keeps us in books, which I then devour to add the podcast melting pot. In return, I give you video, audio, advance writings etc. Buy me a coffee ko-fi.com/paulkerensa? Thanks! It all helps make more podcasts. Join our Facebook group... Follow us on Twitter... Rate and review this podcast where you found it... It all helps others find us.  My mailing list is here - sign up for updates on all I do, writing, teaching writing, stand-up, radio etc. Archive clips are either public domain or used with kind permission from the BBC, copyright content reproduced courtesy of the British Broadcasting Corporation. All rights reserved. Oh yes they are. This podcast is NOTHING to do with the present-day BBC - it's entirely run, researched, presented and dogsbodied by Paul Kerensa. Original music is by Will Farmer. Next time: The Twelve Shows of Christmas: Your Fantasy Schedule, from Noel Edmonds to the Queen's Speech via Mrs Brown's Boys. Alright not 'fantasy'...    www.paulkerensa.com