The British Broadcasting Century with Paul Kerensa

As the BBC turns 100, enjoy 100 Years in 100 Minutes! This is just part 1, 1922-54 - from the company years of Magnet House then Savoy Hill, to the corporation years up to the eve of commercial competition, the last time the BBC was the sole official broadcaster. For the early years, enjoy the archive clips, some very rare - from the first presenters, John Reith and early performers. As time goes on, extracts give way to insights: from experts, podcast listeners and those who were there...   YOU HAVE BEEN LISTENING TO: 1920s: John Reith, Arthur Burrows, Kreisler's Liebesleid (first music on the BBC), A.E. Thompson, Leonard Hawke (Drake Goes West - first music from London), Charles Penrose (The Laughing Policeman), Helena Millais as Our Lizzie, Rev John Mayo, Rev Archibald Fleming, Harold Bishop, Cecil Lewis?, Peter Eckersley, Kathleen Garscadden, Lord Gainford, Dr Kate Murphy, Dr Andrea Smith, Archibald Haddon, Marion Cran, Percy Scholes?, Justin Webb, Nightingale and Cello, Rev Dick Sheppard (first broadcast service), Richard Hughes’ Danger (first play), A.J. Alan, King George V, Alan Stafford, Tommy Handley, John Henry and Blossom, Dr Martin Cooper, Harry Graham, Arthur Phillips, Filson Young, H.L. Fletcher, Flotsam and Jetsam, Christopher Stone, Henry Wood, Prof David Hendy, Vita Sackville-West, Clapham and Dwyer, Mabel Constanduros, Toytown   1930s: Norman Long and Stanelli, Harold Nicolson, Simon Rooks, Val Gielgud, Gillie Potter, Henry Hall and the BBC Dance Orchestra, King George VI, Gerald Cock, Elisabeth Welch, Caroll Gibbons and the Savoy Orpheans, Lew Stone, Murgatroyd and Winterbottom, Nelson Keys, Sandy Powell, The Western Brothers, Stuart Hibberd, Charles Siepmann, King Edward VIII, Elizabeth Cowell, Tommy Woodroffe, Bandwaggon, ITMA (Mrs Mopp), Neville Chamberlain, John Snagge   1940s: J.B. Priestley, Winston Churchill, Music While You Work, Edward Stourton, Charles Gardner, Bruce Belfrage, Princess Elizabeth, C.S. Lewis, Stephen Bourne, Una Marson, Nightingale and the Bomber, Charles Huff, Lilliburlero, Romany, Richard Dimbleby, Edward R Murrow, Frank Gillard, Guy Byam, Johnny Beerling, George Elrick, Norman Shelley, Michael Standing, Paul Hayes   1950s: Jeffrey Holland, Julia Lang, Roger Bolton.   (...+ various unknown announcers)   FURTHER LINKS:  Like what we do? Share it! We're on facebook.com/bbcentury, with a separate group on facebook.com/groups/bbcentury, and (while it lasts) on twitter.com/bbcentury. Tag us in, let people know you listen. Love what we do? Support us at patreon.com/paulkerensa The novel based on this podcast is due out in 2024: Auntie and Uncles - latest on its publication at paulkerensa.com/oldradio   We look forward to continuing to unpack this century of broadcasting in our usual slower way on the podcast. But next time, join us for part 2 (1955-87) and part 3 (1988-2022). paulkerensa.com/oldradio

Episode 56 has BBC100 recommendations (on iPlayer and BBC Sounds for a limited time), 3 poems about the early BBC/radio, and from the Beeb Watch podcast, ex-Radio 4 presenter Roger Bolton. Past, present and future, all mixed in here as Auntie Beeb turns 100 around us. But our celebrations are a little muted due to some of the changes at Beeb towers - like the cuts to local radio, BBC News and the World Service... But our guest is keeping a watchful eye from afar. Roger Bolton has just left the BBC, but moved from Radio 4's Feedback to his own independent podcast Beeb Watch. Hear what he thinks the BBC gets right, wrong and what we need to keep a close eye on. Listen to him on this episode, then find his podcast...   SHOWNOTES: - Roger Bolton's Beeb Watch is available from all good podcast outlets, eg: https://shows.acast.com/rogerboltonsbeebwatch - The 3 poems you hear are: - 'I am radio' by Eric H. Palmer (publisher in the Sydney Daily Telegraph, 30/09/27) - A Radio Times letter by Lilian L. Cornelius (August 1928) - 'In the early days of '23' by Olive Bottle (who signs it as the widow of C. Bottle, Assistant Engineer-in-Charge, London Control Room, Broadcasting House) - Like us? Considering supporting on Patreon.com/paulkerensa and gain access to videos, readings from old books and monthly behind-the-scenesy updates. - Or share what we do on Facebook or Twitter. Search for 'bbcentury' and you'll find us on both. - Paul's new novel will be out in 2024: paulkerensa.com/oldradio should give you updates - Last tour dates of The First Broadcast are at paulkerensa.com/tour Next time, 100 Years in 100 Minutes (part 1: 1922-54)

Landing on centenary day (well, 100 years aince the BBCompany was formed), episode 55 is the tale of the first Bard on the Beeb. Dr Andrea Smith joins us to talk us through the first broadcast Shakespeare - but it's only part 1, as on Feb 16th 1923, it's just excerpts: scenes from Julius Caesar and Othello. Andrea will return for the first full-length play, when we reach May 1923 in our podcast timeline. Plus as the BBC finally turns 100, we consider some BBC100 celebration programming, including the redicovered Hancock's Half Hour episode - so Steve Arnold of the Radio Circle tells us the how and the why when it comes to finding and preserving such lost episodes.   SHOWNOTES: - More info on the Radio Circle, of which Steve Arnold is part, who rescue 'lost' programmes: http://www.radiocircle.org.uk - Hear Dr Andrea Smith on BBC Radio 3's The Essay - The Bard and the Beeb, in late October 2022: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001d68d - The last dates of my tour of The First Broadcast live show are at www.paulkerensa.com/tour - My novel Auntie and Uncles will be out in 2024. More details on its availability/readiness at paulkerensa.com/oldradio - Support us on www.patreon.com/paulkerensa to keep us afloat and in return get extra writings, videos and ample more! Thanks to all who support us there.  - We're on www.facebook.com/groups/bbcentury, where our Newspaper Detective Andrew Barker is chronicling newspapers on this day 100 years ago. - Follow us on www.twitter.com/bbcentury, where I'll keep you updated with some TV/radio spots I'm doing to talk about the Beeb's birth tales - inc. BBC's Songs of Praise, BBC Breakfast and Radio 4's The Media Show. Next time: the centenary specials! 100 Years in 100 Minutes... Stay subscribed, and if you haven't rated/reviewed us, go on - it helps bring new ears to this pod-project. Happy Birthday, Auntie!

Let Season 4 begin! We pick up our timeline of the BBC origin story in February 1923 - and the launch of Cardiff 5WA, the first Welsh broadcast station. Plus back in 2022: places you can go, museums, exhibitions and the like - from Bradford's National Science and Media Museum (and their Switched On exhibition) to St Bride's in London (and their A Kingdom of Cardboard exhibition). We chat to Lewis Pollard, curator of broadcasting at the first, and Bob Richardson, ex of BBC Presentation and Exhibitions departments, who's put together the latter. They're great chats - and great exhibitions. Details on the links below. Back in Wales, in the past, you'll hear some of the speeches delivered on launch night, from John Reith, Lord Gainford, Sir William Noble and the Lord Mayor of Cardiff. Fancy! Thanks Andrew Barker for sourcing the text, from newspapers of the day. We'll post the full text of the speeches on our Facebook group - again, link below.   SHOWNOTES: St Bride's, London hosts A Kingdom of Cardboard, on till the end of 2022: https://sbf.org.uk/whats-on/view/a-kingdom-of-cardboard-2/ ...see my pics of St Bride's A Kingdom of Cardboard exhibition here: https://twitter.com/BBCentury/status/1558125347614375936 Bradford's Switched On event is at the National Science and Media Museum, on till the start of 2023: https://www.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/whats-on/switched-on ...see my pics of Bradford's Switched On exhibition here: https://twitter.com/BBCentury/status/1571255160302702597 The BBC Heritage Collection is hosted at the Science Museum: https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/search/collection/bbc-heritage-collection The 100 Objects of the BBC page: https://www.bbc.co.uk/historyofthebbc/bbc-100/100-objects/ Paul's tour of The First Broadcast: The Battle for the Beeb in 1922 has a few more dates left (and if not, you could book it for your place: www.paulkerensa.com/tour Read the full speeches from the launch of Cardiff 5WA, as sourced by Andrew Barker, here on our Facebook page: https://tinyurl.com/ye3kswt9 Find us on the social medias at www.facebook.com/bbcentury and www.facebook.com/groups/bbcentury or on www.twitter.com/bbcentury   Paul's novel Auntie and Uncles will be out soon. More info will be on the mailing list: http://eepurl.com/M6Wbr ...or find Paul's existing books including Hark! The Biography of Christmas (https://amzn.to/3AZCzjf) Like the podcast? Want to see it continue/thrive/grow? £5/mth on www.patreon.com/paulkerensa gets you extra behind-the-scenes videos - next will be another reading from Cecil Lewis' Broadcasting from Within, the first book on broadcasting. Thanks for £supporting! We're nothing to do with the BBC - just talking about ye olde Auntie Beeb. Enjoy! Next time: The First Shakespeare on the BBC - and the BBC turns 100! www.paulkerensa.com  

Tying up our 'summer' specials (now autumn), part 4 of 3 (whoops) is this special on radio as propaganda in World War 2. The non-BBC story. Sefton Delmer sent black propaganda from near Bletchley Park into Germany, as Lord Haw-Haw did the opposite, sending radio propaganda from Germany back into Britain. Meanwhile Hilda Matheson (remember her from two episodes ago?) was sending transmissions from the JBC - the Joint Broadcasting Committee - in Woburn Abbey, also near Bletchley Park. And somehow between here, there and everywhere, bouncing between Germany and Britain and across Europe, somehow involving MI5 and Ian Fleming, there's that man again... Peter Eckersley. It's quite a tale, and here to bring it to you is Tim Wander (author of 2MT Writtle and From Marconi to Melba) and Edward Stourton (author of Auntie's War). Plus with the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, we bring you the first broadcast from the most broadcast person in the world (I think) - aged 14, Princess Elizabeth on The Children's Hour in 1940. Next episodes from here? Well it's the end of our summer specials, but the start of our centenary specials! The regular episodes in our 1923 timeline will return in the New Year. But first, a few episodes commemorating and celebrating 100 years of British broadcasting - including an episode on 100 Years in 100 Minutes... and for that we need you! Record a short voice memo (20-40 seconds) on ANY element, moment, landmark or programme from the last 100 years. Send to me - paul at paulkerensa dot com. Be on our centenary special! SHOWNOTES: That full clip of Princess Elizabeth (before she was Queen) on The Children's Hour: https://youtu.be/VJI9LPFQth4 More of Lord Haw-Haw: https://youtu.be/Oe-THrWu_4I Edward Stourton's book Auntie's War is available from your local independent bookshop, or online inc: https://amzn.to/3dTA6gX Tim Wander's books include 2MT Writtle, available from some bookshops or online inc: https://amzn.to/3eEC8BX My novel Auntie and Uncles will be out at an undisclosed date. To find out when or for latest info, join my mailing list for updates: http://eepurl.com/M6Wbr ...or find my existing books including Hark! The Biography of Christmas (https://amzn.to/3AZCzjf) Want to read more about WW2 radio propaganda? There's an interesting article on other rogue broadcasters here: https://www.history.com/news/6-world-war-ii-propaganda-broadcasters If you like the episode, share it! It all helps get this project out there. This is run by just one person - so EVERYTHING helps. 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 - including a few extra readings from old books on the BBC in World War 2. Thanks for £supporting - it honestly keeps us 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 twas. Next time: Museums, Exhibitions and Events celebrating 100 years of British broadcasting... (know of one? Let us know and we'll feature it!)

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