John Wyver writes: 'Hurrah for Big Bill Campbell!', wrote Listener critic Grace Wyndham Goldie after seeing the singer host the third edition of Western Cabaret on the afternoon of Saturday 17 June 1939. 'What speed! What verve! What vivacityI What more
John Wyver writes: On 16 June 1939 the Daily Telegraph ran the following news story, which I reproduce here in its entirety. This is the first reference I have found to television being used in schools, 18 years before both more
John Wyver writes: There are notes about pre-war television broadcasts when a historian looking back can only respond with an exclamation of something like 'WTF'. One of those has to be a 12-minute studio talk on the evening of Tuesday more
John Wyver writes: Monday 14 June saw two studio performances of the second part of James Elroy Flecker’s Hassan, following on from the previous Tuesday's opener. The staging was the next recognised television drama landmark after the December 1936 more
John Wyver writes: For the best part of an hour on the afternoon of Monday 13 June 1938, Alexandra Palace offered an OB from Northolt, just over a dozen miles away. The occasion was the running of the Northolt Pony more
John Wyver writes: As the 30-line service under producer Eustace Robb moved towards its final broadcasts in early September 1935, the offerings became increasingly eclectic and distinctive. On the evening of Wednesday 12 June 1935, a 55-minute transmission was billed more
John Wyver writes: Friday 11 June 1937 saw the nation's broadsheets carry news of the opening the previous day of an exhibition of television at London's Science Museum in South Kensington. Television in the summer of 1937 was still a more
John Wyver writes: On the evening of Friday 10 June 1938, studio A at Alexandra Palace hosted artist couple John Piper and Myfanwy Evans presenting A Trip to the Seaside, a short talk about 'things seen during a more
John Wyver writes: Under the bare title of A.R.P., a 14-minute studio programme on the evening of Wednesday 8 June was 'a demonstration of the use of gas masks'. Sandwiched between a newsreel and the cartoon film Mother Goose Melodies, more
John Wyver writes: Seven months after the start of the schedule from Alexandra Palace, on Monday 7 June television's offerings were a typical mix of, in the afternoon between 3pm and 4pm, a local OB, a newsreel and an upscale more