John Wyver writes: On Saturday 18 May 1935, The Evening Star published a detailed and fascinating story headlined ‘King’s Interest in Television: Tests Made at Windsor Castle’ which as far as I’m aware has not to date been noticed in any history of television, including (currently at least) my own forthcoming Magic Rays of Light. The story in the ‘On all wavelengths’ column, bylined simply ‘Henry’ (as above) began as follows:
The BBC’s young and enthusiastic television director, Eustace Robb, is a personal friend of the Prince of Wales. Probably that accounts for the Royal Family’s interest in the latest craze, television.
Historical footnote: in May 1935 the reigning monarch was George V, who had been king since 1910 and who died in January 1936; the Prince of Wales was Edward, destined to be Edward VIII for just January-December 1936.
John Wyver writes: Today’s post is an extract from chapter 7 of Magic Rays of Light: The Early Years of Television in Britain, to be published in January 2026.
On or about 12 May 1937 British television changed. That was certainly the view of those producing the service from AP, and the assessment was shared by many of the estimated 60,000 who, from Ipswich to Brighton, were watching.
From 15.04 to 15.59 on that Wednesday afternoon a live outside broadcast from Hyde Park Corner featured scenes of the waiting crowds and then of the passing Coronation procession on its return journey to Buckingham Palace.
Although it does not enjoy the centrality in popular memory of Elizabeth II’s Coronation 16 years later, the pomp and ceremony that marked George VI’s accession was profoundly significant at the time. And the new medium made its modest contribution as, for the first time (leaving aside earlier test transmissions), viewers could see live pictures from a remote location of a defining occasion of international significance.
John Wyver writes: Monday 2 May 1938 (I know, I know) saw pianist Harriet Cohen together with the a modestly enhanced BBC Television Orchestra give a studio concert at Alexandra Palace of music by Thomas Arne and Bach. The image above is of her on this occasion.
The producer of this half-hour presentation was Dallas Bower, but it’s less the broadcast that I want to focus on and more a fascinating Listener column that it prompted – and that was published on Wednesday 11 May. The writer of ‘Music to look at’, which was a careful close-reading of the broadcast, was the ever-so-slightly mysterious ‘G.G.W.’, who was still contributing reviews alongside regular filings by Grace Wyndham Goldie.
John Wyver writes: The evening of Wednesday 10 May 1939, just before a programme of Spanish music by Albeniz and Granados, offered the first programme in a series called Sunday in the Country. This was ‘a walk in the country described by Russell Muirhead, with the aid of photographs, maps and diagrams’. Plus a squirrel, of which a little more a little later.
By early 1939 the television service was looking beyond London and beginning to take an interest in country matters. The monthly outside broadcast Down on the Farm was a substantial rural offering, but otherwise the service was restricted, thanks to opposition from the unions, in not making film programmes.
John Wyver writes: The evening of Tuesday 9 May was marked by an unfortunate incident in the studio at Alexandra Palace. During a 10-minute edition of Speaking Personally, in which R. B. Bennett, former Prime Minister of Canada, was talking about his country and the state visit of the King and Queen, a studio lamp burst somewhat spectacularly.
None of the splinters of glass reached his face, and as the Daily Telegraph detailed he showed remarkable composure:
This was Mr. Bennett’s first experience of being televised and he had been speaking for hardly a minute when the accident ocurred. He was congratulating the B.B.C. on their pioneering work in television at the moment.
The lamp exploded with a violent report, and as it near the microphone it sounded like a thunderclap to viewers. Viewers saw Mr. Bennett start and falter. Looking towards the camera man he said interrogatively, ‘Stop?’
Told to proceed he did so and had soon fully recovered confidence. He continued for some minutes giving a history of Canada, with special reference to the King’s visit. Afterwards, Miss Jasmine Bligh. the announcer came before the microphone and explained the cause of the interruption, with an apology to Mr. Bennett.
John Wyver writes: Thirty months into the high definition service Mary Adams’ Talks programmes were becoming increasingly ambitious, with an increasing number of broadcasts featuring multiple guests. Perhaps the most ambitious was the 50-minute Salute to America on the evening of Monday 8 May, mounted to acknowledge the state visit by the King and Queen to Canada and USA.
Billed as ‘a programme of the contemporary American scene, described in speech and picture’, this assembled an impressive line-up including J.B. Priestley, Stephen Spender and Anglo-American novelist Susan Ertz (above, a youthful Spender, Ertz and travel journalist S.P.B. Mais), along with readings of verse by Walt Whitman and extracts from Abraham Lincoln’s speeches.
Sir Frederick Whyte, director-general of the English-Speaking Union, contributed a spoken portrait of President Roosevelt. And there were film extracts too, with a flight over Grand Canyon and Boulder Dam, and shots of liners in the docks of New York.
John Wyver writes: On Sunday 7 May 1939 the critic ‘E.H.R.’ contributed his usual television review column to The Observer. It was a fairly run-of-the-mill filing, but it gives us occasion to take a brief look at the state of television criticism 30 months on from the start of the high definition service from Alexandra Palace.
Not that the fledgling medium and emerging artform was being treated with consistency and seriousness. Apart, that is, by the peerless Grace Wyndham Goldie in her weekly columns for The Listener, and the somewhat less sophisticated Sunday musings of ‘E.H.R.’.
I have enthused sufficiently in these posts to have given regular readers a sense of my admiration for the rigour and thoughtfulness of Wyndham Goldie. I will not return to her writing here, although I will doubtless do so in future contributions. And I might note that I am hoping to edit a collection of her columns as my next book project.
John Wyver writes: Saturday 6 May 1939 saw an exceptional morning broadcast from midday covering the departure from Waterloo of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, along with the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret (both only going as far as Portsmouth), on the state visit to Canada, the United States and Newfoundland. One of the BBC’s mobile control units was at Buckingham Palace for shots from 12.03 to 12.20 of the crowds gathered for the procession setting off. Broadcaster and painter Edward Halliday provided the commentary here.
The second unit was at Waterloo, where at 12.27 coverage of scenes on the platform picked up for another 20 minutes, with Freddie Grisewood commentating. In addition to the royal party, as can be seen above, dignitaries gathered to wave them off included Neville Chamberlain, Viscount Halifax, Sir Samuel Hoare and US ambassador Joseph Kennedy.
And while the group was on the way to the station, television cut back to the studio at Alexandra Palace for 7 minutes, where News Maps host (and radical socialist writer) J.F. Horrabin traced the route with the help of a map and photographs.
Daily Telegraph, 6 May 1938, with a picture (and apologies for the quality of the reproduction) taken in the studio during the previous evening’s Picture Page.
John Wyver writes: Yet more dance from Alexandra Palace, this time on the evening of Thursday 4 May 1939. Which only speaks to how rich and varied was early television’s presentation of the artform. Alongside actors Janine Darcey and Jim Gerald, and Norwegian newspaperman Haakon Overland, the 240th edition of Picture Page featured ‘famous tap dancer’ Paul Draper (above, in a detail from a Carl van Vetchen portrait), who was appearing at the Café de Paris.
Draper was celebrated for combining tap dancing with classical music, and here he performed to a Toccata by Paradisi and Gavotte from the opera Mignon by Ambroise Thomas, alongside more familiar tunes like ‘Merrily We Roll Along’ and ‘Yankee Doodle’.
