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Advent Calendar Day 18: An Experiment with Time and Christmas

2016-12-18T19:00:00+00:00

A map illustrating the tour was featured on page 967.

Today's window is a real treat for those fans of the wireless.

Listeners on Christmas Day evening, 1931, were first treated to the traditional staple of a Christmas service from studio, panto and an appeal on behalf of the British Wireless for the Blind.

At 9:35pm, though, an "experiment with Time and Christmas" was announced and Half the World Away, a "one of those fascinating, highly technical programmes which someone devises every now and then to remind us that broadcasting and wireless telephony really are modern miracles' began.

The listeners would have started their journey "comfortably seated in one part or another of the British Isles having celebrated Christmas in as near the good old-fashioned way as finances have allowed." They would then be transported to Tower Hill, London, for a chat with Mr Smoker, the Yeoman Porter. From there they would "fly on telephonic wings to the wild coasts of the North" to listen to a light-keeper, next to Gibraltar, and on to Cape Town. The radiophonic waves would finally take them to Sydney (where there is now Boxing Day, the listing warned), Vancouver, Edmonton and the Niagara Falls:

"If luck is with us and the Falls are not frozen solid (fantastic thought), we shall hear, for the first time in this country, the voice of those titanic waters."

Finally, "In Montreal we shall find them finishing tea, and when, on our homeward flight across the Atlantic, we stop to talk to the liner Majestic, we shall interrupt someone at dinner. From the Majestic we pass to Dublin and, as Big Ben's hands are creeping towards 10.30, back to London."

Advent Calendar Day 12: The Hard Times

2016-12-12T08:00:00+00:00

John Hilton, a Professor of Industrial Relations, helped create clubs for the unemployed in the 1930s and broadcast a weekly talk for them.

On today's Advent Calendar window, a poignant look at the 1930s Great Depression.

Today John Hilton is going to talk about the little gadgets and fitments an unemployed man can make out of cheap materials with simple tools (in the craft room at the Club if he has no tools of his own) to make the house more cosy and to make things easier for the wife. If he starts at once he can have something ready and the paint nicely dry for Christmas; and what's nicer, Hilton asks, than to give your wife a Christmas present made with your own hands?

This was the Christmas edition of This and That, a programme set up in October 1934 by John Hilton, a professor of Industrial Relations, to be broadcast to listeners in Unemployed Clubs. Listeners said they looked forward to the 20-minutes-long talk "because it distracts as well as instructs. Minds are occupied and interested, and when life is difficult it is good to be able to forget for a moment one's own concerns."

Advent Calendar Day 8: Festive Frontispiece

2016-12-08T07:00:00+00:00

Radio Times often commissioned decorative borders for Christmas listings pages, and other artwork, including this evocative full-page snow scene from the 1930 festive issue. It’s not the actual front cover, but a sort of visual frontispiece before the main part of the issue, to help listeners (there weren’t very many viewers in 1930) get in the festive mood. We hope it does the same for you!

And if this inside cover has sparked your interest, you can watch this �� Arena clip about the art of the Radio Times magazine, as seen by illustrator Eric Fraser.

Meet Helen Clare, wartime �� star

2016-10-31T11:48:38+00:00

Of all the letters we get from people who have found themselves through the �� Genome listings, one of our favourites is the one that brought us to the attention of wartime �� star Helen Clare, who will be 100 in November and was a regular broadcaster with the �� through the 1930s, 40s and 50s.

You might have just seen her at the ��'s The One Show, as she was visited by Petula Clark.

Helen Clare on Calling Gibraltar

Her friend Simon Robinson wrote to tell us about her past, and she subsequently featured in a Radio Times article and was interviewed by the ��. We were also able to play her some of her old recordings we found in the �� archive.

She thinks efforts like �� Genome are vital to the history of broadcasting.

"We didn't think of a programme's significance at the time of making it, or that people would ask about it years after. Now there is a permanent and accessible online resource to benefit not only historians but the public in general. In my time with the �� from 1936-1960 the world changed a great deal and the �� programmes were part of that change and history."

"Now it is possible to see not only what was popular in a specific year but what was actually broadcast on a particular day. I could look and find out for instance what I was broadcasting on this day in 1938, 1944 or 1954, it's unbelievable", she added.

Helen Clare on the Radio Times cover, third from the right

One look at the �� Genome listings shows you the scope of her career. She is first listed in the 1930s making frequent appearances on radio singing with Jack Jackson and his Band at the Dorchester Hotel. Helen Clare was also one of the pioneers of early television broadcasts appearing in Cabaret Cartoons in 1937. During the Second World War, she made it to the cover of the Radio Times in September 1940 as one of the "three heroines of salvage".

She was a well-known voice on radio shows broadcast to the forces abroad. She sang and compered It's All Yours, a programme featuring children sending messages and songs to their fathers, uncles and brothers serving with the British Forces in remote areas around the world; she sang soldiers' requests on Calling Gibraltar.

Helen Clare was shown the more than 900 �� Genome listings that mentioned her and said it was a surprise to see just how many programmes she had been on.

"It really does bring back memories and recollections of all the people I have worked with in the past. So many wonderful performers and most of them are gone now, but they live on in this. I'm currently contributing to my biography due out in 2017 and it has been wonderful as an aid for checking details of key programmes I was involved in."

You can find out more information about Helen Clare on her website, helenclare.com

The recording of It's All Yours, 1944

Man of mystery

2015-09-30T09:00:00+00:00

Kuda Bux made several appearances on �� television in the 1930s and 40s

What is the gentleman in this photograph doing? And who is he?

This is a moment from the early days of �� television before the outbreak of World War Two. The man was called Kuda Bux, and one of his appearances in 1939 was treated with a meaty write-up the listings - quite rare at the time. In more brief listings, he was always known as The Man With X-Ray Eyes.

"With his eyes completely bound up he is able to see exactly what is going on before him," it enthuses.

Kuda Bux was born in Kashmir in 1906 and became famous for his feat of covering his eyes with wads of dough and swathes of bandages - but was able to copy pieces of text and even light a set of candles, apparently without the power of sight. His repertoire of tricks was extensive.

The entertainer and illusionist - sometimes referred to as a 'mystic' - went on to be feted in the US and lived there for much of his life. By some cruel irony, he lost his sight to glaucoma in old age.

We'll occasionally bring you more from the sometimes weird and wonderful world of early TV entertainment here...