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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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
#048 Daimler, 5MG and 2BP: The In-Car Radios of 1923
#047 ”Hark, The Engine’s Failing”: The Closedown of 2MT Writtle
#046 Justin Webb on Leonard Crocombe... and January 1923
#045 2ZY Manchester and 5IT Birmingham Calling... with Jude Montague
#044 Hanso Idzerda and The Dutch Concerts - with Gordon Bathgate
#043 The First Outside Broadcast: A Night at the Opera!
#042 Drops Mic, Drops Callsign
#041 The BBC’s First Female Employee: Isobel Shields
#040 New Year 1923, Magnet House: ”Pandemonium Reigned!”
#039 SPECIAL: The Twelve Airplays of Christmas (with Ben Baker)
#038 SPECIAL: What Marconi Thought of Broadcasting... + 1920s ads
#037 SPECIAL: The Prehistory of the BBC (extended cut)
#036 Out with the Old: The First BBC New Year’s Eve
#035 Reith Begins!
#034 Newcastle‘s Christmas Launch: Let It 5NO, Let It 5NO, Let It 5NO!
#033 The First Couple of Marconi House: December 1922
#032 The Licence Fee Problem... of 1922
#031 The Hunt for BBC Premises, Burrows vs Marconi + Prof Gabriele Balbi
#030 The First BBC Staff: Reith, Burrows, Lewis, Anderson, White (+ David Hamilton)
#029 The First Listings: from Norman Long to Neville Chamberlain
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