@bbcentury
Informing, educating + entertaining re British broadcasting's origin story: the first firsts of radio, early BBC, interwar bits & pieces + occasional pictures of Reith looking grumpy. By paulkerensa.bsky.social Podcast/tour/book: paulkerensa.com/oldradio
Just had a nice interview re my forthcoming An Evening of (Very) Old Radio show at Chelmsford Theatre (Thu 16 April), with BBC Essex's Rob Jelly - airing in a couple of weeks, so before it lures along all of Essex, get yer tickets before 'em Chelmsford folks!
chelmsfordtheatre.co.uk/event/an-eve...
The BBC’s job is to “inform, educate, and entertain”? Let’s talk about the middle word.
What follows is the story of what we found in an FOI request (per the Observer) about the Corporation killing off plans to launch an online catalogue and failing to deliver ‘learning for people of all ages’. 🧵
ep72: First radio dramatist Phyllis Twigg: bbcentury.podbean.com/e/the-first-...
ep84: Women's Hour on the early BBC bbcentury.podbean.com/e/084-womens...
ep87: Cellist Beatrice Harrison, duetting with her garden nightingales: bbcentury.podbean.com/e/087-the-ce...
ep23: Britain's first DJ Gertrude Donisthorpe: bbcentury.podbean.com/e/special-ge...
ep41: First female BBC employee Isobel Shields: bbcentury.podbean.com/e/the-bbc-s-...
ep50: First BBC Director of Talks Hilda Matheson: bbcentury.podbean.com/e/special-hi...
For International Women's Day, here are m'podcasts on...
ep3: First professional performer on British radio Winifred Sayer: bbcentury.podbean.com/e/earlier-wi...
ep4: First international star to broadcast Dame Nellie Melba: bbcentury.podbean.com/e/happy-100t...
The RMS Victorian, 'pon which Arthur Burrows:
- received music in its lounge, from Chelmsford 1,500 miles away; dancing ensued
- received news from mainland, sold onboard as The North Atlantic Times
- played request records for other mid-Atlantic ships. Most popular? Harry Lauder's I Love A Lassie
Latest Patreon video for our beloved patreons and matreons - it's part 20 of our readthrough-with-mansplained-interruptions of Cecil Lewis' Broadcasting from Within, the first book on broadcasting...
www.patreon.com/posts/vid-br...
I had need to look at this again today - Philips' Wireless Map of Great Britain. Estimated summer 1923. Isn't she a beaut?
(Random bits zoomed in on in t'other pics)
Decades before Brass Eye, one of the funniest, most convincing and most pointed - and most successful - broadcast hoaxes ever took place in the unlikely surroundings of the BBC's extremely straight-faced Third Programme. Read all about it here!
timworthington.org/2019/11/27/r...
...Prof Rachel Cowgill guides us through early BBC Armistices, from 'The Great Silence' to Reith trying to get Jerusalem on the playlist, via some of the earliest recordings of a broadcast.
+ Trayce Arssow has found the earliest electrical recording: 1920's Funeral of the Unknown Warrior.
Do listen.
OVERDUE PODCAST KLAXON!
(I know, it should have been November...)
Episode 114 of The British Broadcasting Century Podcast is on BBC Armistice Broadcasts in the 1920s - simply as that's where our moment-by-moment timeline has reached, 11 November 1923...
bbcentury.podbean.com/e/114-bbc-ar...
...Whoops the above one is from 1928.
THIS recording is what was broadcast in 1927...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPsT...
Just found a 1927 recording of a BBC broadcast. Sort of. The first Festival of Remembrance at the Albert Hall. Broadcast, and released on gramophone. One of maybe five 1920s recordings of anything on British radio.
More about it on tomorrow’s podcast. Here’s the recording:
youtu.be/-yQuqRBREKo?...
Your next British Broadcasting Century Podcast will be out this weekend.
We're back in Nov 1923. Our previous eps on the BBC in Autumn 1923:
105: Aberdeen
106: Bournemouth
107: Critics on air
109: Will the King/PM broadcast?
110: GK Chesterton + the first radio novel
All at podfollow.com/bbcentury
I know religious broadcasts aren't everyone's cup of tea (or grail of red wine), but fans of radio history might like to know I smuggled Ronald Knox's century-old radio hoax onto Radio 4's Prayer for the Day this morn. It's too good a tale not to be evangelistic about!
www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...
I've been a bit quieter than usual here. But fear not. It's only because plans are afoot. And feet are aplans. Bring it all on.
...Speaking of which, here's the chap who got me along in the first place - Radio 4 announcer, newsreader, radio ham and all-round top chap, Jim Lee.
Last week I was at Cray Valley Radio Society for a show/talk/presentation/thing... but the real show was the mighty collection of early radios brought along by @bakeliteguy.bsky.social (and I think one other member). Look at these beauts...
Brilliant night last night with Paul Kerensa on the early years of broadcasting.
I did a display of vintage radios with my mate Dave and we had suitably vintage music playing on the Ethophone iv from 1926.
Tonight I'm bringing 'An Evening of (Very) Old Radio: The First Firsts of Broadcasting' to an audience who know their stuff - Eltham's Cray Valley Radio Society.
I expect heckles that are informed (...educated and entertaining).
cvrs.uk/event/club-m...
The next British Broadcasting Century podcast episode (on the first BBC Armistice broadcast - I know, not topical...) might appear this week - or might be next week. A couple of hospital dashes (all fine now) have delayed me. Plus with my comedy writing hat, it's deadline o'clock. But with you soon!
104 years yesterday since this gang got regular British broadcasting going.
2MT Writtle, every Tuesday evening for just under a year, under the stewardship of unpredictable raconteur extraordinaire Peter Eckersley.
Hear all about it on this old podcast: bbcentury.podbean.com/e/2mt-writtl...
Kenneth Horne died on this day in 1969. My February 2019 blog post on one of Britain's best-loved entertainers who also maintained a totally separate career as a successful businessman bit.ly/4jZJUnm
...I ran out of word count, but kudos to Prof Marcus Collins for finding the notes behind this story in the BBC archives, and the cast and crew for bringing it to life.
I think it's sold out for its current tour, but keep an eye out.
I hope to have Marcus and Stephen on the podcast some time soon.
This week I saw the excellent play The BBC's First Homosexual - superbly written by Stephen Hornby, based on notes found in the BBC archives of a 1954 BBC prog on homosexuality.
So many tales to be told that are sitting on those shelves - this was a great one.
www.theguardian.com/stage/2026/j...
Happy #WorldRadioDay!
I've loved bringing its origin story to:
...stages. Next: 19 Feb Eltham, 16 Apr Chelmsford, 4 Jun Weston-super-Mare - paulkerensa.com/tour
...podcasts. 113 eps of The British Broadcasting Century so far.
...the BBC. The Truth about Phyllis Twigg is still online.
Keep radioing!
A Criminal Practice, a comic play by Terrance Dicks first broadcast on 5 July 1967, is being repeated on Radio 4 Extra today at 3pm and 9pm; afterwards, it’ll be available on BBC Sounds - www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...
bsky.app/profile/bbce...
When is a picture of Broadcasting House not Broadcasting House? When it's 'Architect's sketch of the proposed new headquarters for the BBC in Portland Place, a stone's throw from Queen's Hall'...
Here's the show - Four Monarchs and a Mic: The BBC's Royal Engineer... here on Patreon: www.patreon.com/posts/vid-fo...
