Abstract
Tuesday, 14 November 1922, in the Strand, London. The city has been under a blanket of thick fog for most of the day, making it difficult to see the city workers walking home. The roads are busy with a mixture of horse-drawn carts, cars and trams, and The Times will report the next day that traffic was forced to go dead slow. The sounds of street sellers are muffled in the fog. A drab and inauspicious scene, but this place at this precise time is the birthplace of British broadcasting. Marconi House on the Strand is the home of the studios of 2LO, which for six months has been broadcasting a basic radio service for the few who could receive it. Now, on the top floor, in a studio 20 feet square with a green carpet, the BBC1 will broadcast for the very first time. The most famous cultural institution in the world2 has begun its extraordinary journey.
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Notes
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© 2011 Hugh Chignell
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Chignell, H. (2011). Unintended Consequences — Radio News and Talks in the 1920s and 1930s. In: Public Issue Radio. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230346451_2
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