The British Broadcasting Century with Paul Kerensa #019 Day 2 of the BBC: Our Friends in the North
...and the Midlands, as Birmingham and Manchester join the party. We revisit the second day of the BBC: November 15th 1922.
Also, how Manchester launched the first BBC children's programmes, how Birmingham had the BBC's first live music, and how London needed to tweak their microphone. All on election day, so just before the first Election Night Special.
You'll also hear of the bizarre Birmingham fog that delayed launch - and bizarrer still, how ANOTHER Birmingham fog delayed The Settlers from reaching a studio, 40 years later. From that band, Cindy Kent is our guest, recalling being at the BBC as the Light Programme became Radio 1 in 1967.
You'll also hear playwright David Edgar reading from the memoirs of his grandfather Percy Edgar, the founding manager of Birmingham 5IT. (For the full reading of that, just wait 3 episodes...)
From the archives, we've also got the voices of Kenneth Wright and Hugh Bell of 2ZY Manchester, both there on that launch day in 1922.
Plus Newspaper Detective Andrew Barker returns with what the printed press thought about this two-day-old upstart... broadcasting.
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Paul's festive history book Hark! The Biography of Christmas is in audiobook (Listen free via an Audible free trial here if you've not had one before). If you'd like to order a signed paperback copy, email Paul. You can also use that to send us a 2min audio clip of an Airwave Memory to include on the show.
Clips are either public domain or the BBC's, to whom we doff our caps, and thank them.
We're unaffiliated with the BBC - we're just here to inform, educate and entertain about its wondrous origins.
Happy listening!