Merry listening! Now, do you hear what I hear?
Join our sleigh ride back to Christmas 1922, and delve deep into our pod-sack to discover what the BBC was broadcasting in its first Christmas.
Includes: the first religious broadcast from Rev John Mayo, the first play written for radio in The Truth About Father Christmas, the BBC's first celebrity guest, the first radio talk ('Christmas among the Blind'), carols, Peter Pan, comedy from Fred Gibson and Helena Millais... and that's just from the London 2LO station.
Birmingham 5IT gives us Dickens, the Birmingham City Police Band and no-shows, so listeners rush to the studio to help out.
Manchester 2ZY brings ghost stories and Handel's Messiah.
And Newcastle 5NO launches; hear the first station boss on how he funded it from his own pocket.
Plus other radio Christmases: Carols from King's, the first royal Christmas broadcast, a Cornish play called Bethlehem, a wax cylinder recording from 1898...
Our guest is Xmas Xpert James Cooper from whychristmas.com - head there for all your online Christmas needs.
Paul reads from his festive history book Hark! The Biography of Christmas. Signed copies available from Paul; unsigned copies available from your friendly local bookshop.
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Thanks for supporting the podcast. Your kind donations at ko-fi.com/paulkerensa or patreon.com/paulkerensa have helped fund books, that fuel these episodes, or hosting, that keeps us online.
Your ratings/reviewings/sharings are equally welcome. Thanks!
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Paul's mailing list has more on his upcomings, inc. the next series of Not Going Out.
Be on the podcast next year: email us a 2min audio clip of an Airwave Memory, recorded as a Voice Memo - your earliest memories of radio or TV.
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, entertain and wish you a Merry Christmas.
www.paulkerensa.com
#068 Major Arthur Corbett-Smith: Reith’s Rival
#067 SPECIAL: A Brief History of Coronation Broadcasts
#066 The BBC’s News, Weather and SOS Broadcasts of March 1923
#065 A Brief History of the BBC’s Archives
#064 Farewell Magnet House, Hello... Laundry Baskets? + Jeffrey Holland
#063 Glasgow 5SC: The BBC Launches in Scotland
#062 Radio’s First Political Debate... and Reeta Chakrabarti
#061 The BBC’s Listings Ban... and Gareth Gwynn’s Ministry of Happiness
#060 A History of Religious Broadcasting: 100 Years of God on the Beeb
#059 100 Years in 100 Minutes, part 3 (1988-2022)
#058 100 Years in 100 Minutes, part 2 (1955-87)
#057 100 Years in 100 Minutes, part 1 (1922-54)
#056 BBC100, Poetry Please?... and Roger Bolton
#055 The First Shakespeare on the BBC (pt 1) + Happy BBCentenary! (also pt1)
#054 The First Welsh Broadcast... and The Exhibitionists!
#053 SPECIAL: Radio as Propaganda in WW2... plus Peter Eckersley & Hilda Matheson
#052 SPECIAL: Auntie’s War - with Edward Stourton
#051 SPECIAL: Early Black British Broadcasters - with Stephen Bourne
#050 Hilda Matheson and the Radio Girls of Savoy Hill - with Sarah-Jane Stratford
#049 It’s That Man Again! Peter Eckersley - 1st BBC Chief Engineer
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