#040 New Year 1923, Magnet House: ”Pandemonium Reigned!”

The British Broadcasting Century with Paul Kerensa

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