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    Wartime Broadcasting
    Wartime Broadcasting
    Wartime Broadcasting
    Ebook116 pages43 minutes

    Wartime Broadcasting

    By Mike Brown

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    About this ebook

    On 3 September 1939, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain sat tensely at a microphone, using radio to declare that 'this country is at war with Germany'. During the ensuing wartime years, the BBC was the sole radio broadcaster in Britain, boosting morale through programmes such as 'ITMA' and 'Worker's Playtime'; helping the Home Front with useful hints and advice; transmitting government messages; and providing news. Personalities and stars became household names – Tommy Handley, Arthur Askey, Ethel and Doris Walters, Mr Middleton – and their catchphrases could be heard everywhere. And yet, as this fascinating book explains, the BBC chose to avoid propaganda, and had to tread a fine line between what the people wanted to hear and what it was felt they should hear.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBloomsbury Publishing
    Release dateFeb 22, 2018
    ISBN9781784422622
    Wartime Broadcasting

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      Book preview

      Wartime Broadcasting - Mike Brown

      EARLY DAYS

      It seems strange to think that in 1939 the BBC was relatively new, having been formed as a private company in 1922, and only becoming the national corporation in 1927. It had grown quickly: in 1938 nearly nine million wireless licences were issued.

      After the Munich crisis that September, when Britain and France were very nearly plunged into war with Germany, the BBC began preparing for what many saw as an inevitable war.

      In 1938 Neville Chamberlain was celebrated for avoiding war at Munich. He could not repeat the act in September 1939, announcing, ‘this country is at war with Germany’.

      There were those in government, Chamberlain among them, who believed that wireless broadcasting – or at least the entertainment side – should cease in the event of war, leaving it a vehicle for government advice, instructions, and news. These functions were vital to the conduct of war, meaning the BBC also would be vital. It was therefore crucial that bombing should not disrupt its output through knocked-out broadcasting studios or masts. This would not only break a vital link between the government and the people, but also create confusion and panic. Another challenge was to avoid enemy aircraft being able to use radio transmissions as a homing beam.

      It was decided that the solution to both these problems was, in the event of war, to merge the BBC National and Regional Programmes into a single channel – the Home Service – broadcast throughout the country. Programmes would be produced at several locations, limiting the damage to the system that would occur if one were knocked out. In the event, Broadcasting House was hit twice, but the BBC was never forced off the air.

      With that possibility in mind, however, in 1938 the BBC made plans in case London had to be evacuated. Wood Norton Hall, a Victorian stately home near Evesham, was secretly bought and equipped in the months before war broke out. Although never used in its emergency role, by 1940 Wood Norton was one of the largest broadcasting centres in Europe with an average output of 1,300 programmes a week. It also became the BBC’s monitoring service centre until early 1943, when monitoring moved to Reading, so that Wood Norton could become the main broadcasting centre if London had to be evacuated due to the V-weapon assault.

      Comedian and singer Arthur Askey, along with ‘Dicky’ Murdoch, had been a great hit before the war with their show ‘Band Waggon’, returning to the airwaves in mid-September 1939.

      Further provision was made at Bristol, where the BBC prepared an underground fortress beneath fifty feet of solid sandstone in a disused funicular railway tunnel driven through the Clifton gorge in the 1890s. The BBC took it over to convert it to an air raid shelter for Sir Adrian Boult’s BBC Symphony Orchestra, which had been evacuated nearby with the Music Department. However, in 1941 in the face of bombing raids, the Music Department moved to Bedford, and the tunnel became the nerve centre of the BBC in the West of England. The roof of the tunnel was waterproofed, and electric lighting installed. In three months four large chambers were built and outfitted, sending programmes in about forty different languages all over the world.

      On 24 August 1939, during the last uneasy days of peace, the BBC demonstrated its value in a crisis, when it was used to summon teachers back from their summer holidays to prepare for evacuation.

      Just before dawn on 1 September, German forces invaded Poland – an act that would propel Britain into war. The BBC was immediately placed on a war footing, the first act of

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