It’s the little bits that serve to make a history ……

If you are of certain age, born in the second half of the last century who grew up during the early years of television then the chances are that the wireless played a big part in your life.

1950s elegance

Along with newspapers the BBC remained the primary source for news and entertainment.  It was there in school with a variety of educational programmes, at your place of work with Music While You Work and offered up a heap of comedy and drama broadcasts which stand the test of time.  They were innovative, and funny and set many comedians on a path to fame and success.

Advert for radios, 1949

The list of radio shows from my youth tumble over each other but in a way culminate with Two Way Family Favourites that request programme designed to link families at home in the UK with British Forces serving in West Germany and other places overseas.*

It was just part of Sunday, sandwiched either side of Sunday dinner, beginning with that signature tune “With a Song in My Heart” followed by “In Britain and in Germany it is 12 noon so at home and away it is time for Two Way Family Favourites”.

It is perhaps easy to forget that there was a time within living memory that communicating with a loved one was pretty much limited to letters and post cards.

Our first phone arrived only in the 1950s, and the line was shared with another family, but we were lucky because for most people making a telephone call meant a trip to the nearest public phone box while phoning from abroad might involve booking a call-in advance.

All of which meant that keeping in touch was down to writing either letters or the short picture postcard.

And with such limited access to communication often hearing of a relative’s illness was hit and miss.

But here the BBC stepped in with its SOS messages which were designed to alert families to an urgent emergency, like "Will Mr and Mrs Little, last heard of eight months ago in the Birmingham area, head to Leeds General Infirmary where Mrs Little's mother is dangerously ill."

They weren’t frequent but even as a child when I heard one I was transfixed.  And in the same way when the BBC broadcast an appeal for information on a missing person.  

The radio audience, 1944

What strikes me now is that idea that someone could  have been “last heard of eight months ago in the Birmingham area” which with today’s level of knowledge and potential surveillance seems so remote.

I occasionally remember these messages and yesterday went looking for them, a search which led me to a BBC story, “The personal SOS messages the BBC used to send”, Kathleen Hawkins.**

Now I wont steal Ms. Hawkins story, all you have to do is follow the link, but as the story shows we still know so little about the service, even down to when it ended.

According the BBC piece, “It is not known when the messages ended, but it was at some point during the 90s, although BBC World Service continued the practice into the 21st Century. Mobile phones made them redundant, but for those who were directly affected by the SOS messages, my family included, they had a huge impact that lives on today".

I do remember that having grown up with them I caught myself thinking that I hadn’t heard an appeal for ages.

So there you are.  The SOS message, it may only be a tiny footnote in the history of British broadcasting but it’s a bit that serves to make a history and, in the process, offers up a very small window on how we were.

Location; my past and yours

Pictures; 1950s elegance, News of the World's Household Guide and Almanac, courtesy of Debbie Cameron, advert for radios, 1949, from the collection of Graham Gill, radio listings from Saturday July 3rd, 1943, The Derby Evening Telegraph,  from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and group of young women, signing on for the industrial registration at the Derby Employment Exchange, August 9th, 1943, reproduced courtesy of the Derby Telegraph, January 2, 2013 

* “In Britain and in Germany it is 12 noon" .... One song ….. Two Way Family Favourites ….. and a different way of saying hello, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2025/10/in-britain-and-in-germany-it-is-12-noon.html

**“The personal SOS messages the BBC used to send”, Kathleen Hawkins, BBC News, May 15th, 2016, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35815747

Travels with my wireless …………… “its being so cheerful as keeps me going”

It is easy to become nostalgic at the word wireless, which for my generation has nothing to do with the internet, but rather goes back to those big wooden or bakelite radios, which offered up the Home Service and the Light Programme.

Wireless fun, 1949

And while I also grew up with the television, the first of which must have arrived in our house in the early 1950s, the TV proved a false attraction.

Which was partly because transmission times were limited, there was only the one channel which broadcast in black and white, and both the TV and the service were apt to break down.

That unreliability brought forth the "Potter’s Wheel", which was a filler, while the technical team restored the published programme.  It consisted of a few minutes of a clay pot rising from the potter’s wheel, and was sometimes substituted for the equally tedious “London to Brighton in 5 minutes”, which consisted of a speeded up train journey, which was novel the first few times you saw it but paled into boredom after a while.

So, the wireless dominated my early childhood.

My grandparents had one of those rather impressive pre-war sets, shaped a bit like a cathedral with a large speaker in the centre, and a dial underneath, which lit up to display the radio stations, from across Europe and perhaps beyond.

On the rare occasion it broke down granddad would take the back off to reveal a mix of wires and valves, and for a few fleeting moments the smell of warm dust and those valves hung in the air.

Today, tomorrow on the Home Service, 1943

Dad and mum had gone for more utilitarian models, which were simply a wooden box, containing a speaker and the on off button.

But what made it special was that Dad had networked the radios across the house, and pretty much all the rooms had a small brown box, with a switch that allowed you to move between the Home Service the Light Programme and the Third Programme.

During the day, the wireless would be in the background most of the time, offering up a mix of music and spoken word, and it was the spoken word which captivated me, particularly the short stories and the plays.

Even now the wireless has that advantage over the TV that it  can set your own imagination running, with the characters, and landscapes, be it  Dennis the Dachshund, and Mr. Mayor from Toytown, that early science fiction series Journey into Space, or descriptions of faraway places.

But above all it was the comedy programmes, which then and now bring a smile to my face, and which more importantly were shared by the whole family.

Like the early television variety shows, the radio comedies commanded large audience while some of the more racy and suggestive jokes were lost on me, there was still much to enjoy.

And like today, the one liners became a  popular part of our culture.

At which point I won’t go down the path of listing the long catalogue of comic radio stars, and their shows.  Those of us who listened, will remember them and for anyone born later than the 1970s your challenge is to go looking for these long gone bits of fun, with help from The Glums, Take it From Here, The Goons, the Navy Lark, The Men from the Ministry and perhaps the most bizarre, the one featuring a puppet.

The wireless audience, 1943

And in the course of reliving those shows, or discovering them for the first time, out of the past will surface the catch phrases, which were repeated on the bus, in the playground, and in factories and offices. I still smile at  “don’t forget the diver”, “Oh Ron” and “can I do you now Sir?”.

Leaving me just to reflect, that frequently used observation, that in an age when we all go off and stream our own preferred programmes, there was a time when families congregated around the wireless sharing the music of Two Way Family Favourites, and repeating with gusto, “Its being so cheerful as keeps me going” and along with “Don’t mind if I do”.

Do I miss it, when confronted with  a TV which offers channels one to a million and instant replays of something I missed?  Well yes, I do a bit ……. But then there is always the danger of falling into the nostalgic trap, which fools you into making light of cold draughty houses, plates of liver, and black pudding with endless piles of over boiled cabbage, and listening to Sing Something Simple.

Pictures; advert for radios, 1949, from the collection of Graham Gill, radio listings from Saturday July 3rd, 1943, The Derby Evening Telegraph,  from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and group of young women, signing on for the industrial registration at the Derby Employment Exchange, August 9th, 1943, reproduced courtesy of the Derby Telegraph, January 2, 2013