The Broadcasting Museum 1994-2000

After starting buying and selling vintage radios, gramophones and other collectables in a local antique centre, Steve Harris realised a long held ambition to start a unique business; a museum of British Broadcasting that would be open to the public, including a shop selling restored vintage equipment. The museum, which opened in 1994 in the historic Rows in the centre of the City of Chester, covered Radio from the birth of broadcasting in the UK, when it was more of a scientific novelty, through the heyday of 'The Wireless' being the main form of home entertainment, to the advent of Television.

There were interactive exhibits and a carefully re-created 1930s radio shop, and 1970s TV studio set with control gallery.

The concept was highly acclaimed and it attracted visitors from all over the world, but was closed when the lease expired in 2000. The artifacts were bought by the BBC Heritage collection, and Steve moved the sales and hire business to the Vintage Technology Centre.

Visitors could pick up the telephone handset on a 1920s GPO telephone exchange console by the entrance, and listen to an account of Marconi's early experiments as described by an actor playing the man himself. In the first display case were a number of early wireless sets, crystal and valve, plus speakers and ephemera of the 20s. Period music could be switched through different types of loud-speaker to hear the difference between designs as they developed.

Another display let visitors see their own voice modulated onto a radio carrier wave in an explanation of how AM radio works.

A window opened into a room decorated and furnished in 1920s style with a mannequin in period costume displaying a typical early wireless set-up, with batteries, accumulator and horn loudspeaker.

Radios from the 1920s were also on display showing the variety of styles adopted, along with a huge transmitter coil from the Moorside Edge BBC Medium Wave transmitter in Yorkshire.

The 1930s was the high point of radio as the main source of news and entertainment in the home for millions of listeners. The BBC pioneered all the major forms of radio broadcasting used today; News reports, mixing music with talking, live broadcasts from major events and  music concerts. Plays, comedy, variety- all were adapted for the new medium. Manufacturers vied with each other to design attractive sets which were for many, one of  their most expensive purchases.

The museum contained some of the more iconic of these designs, and a reconstruction of a typical 1930s radio shop with a good display of original advertising and shop display signage. The shelves were filled with valve boxes, and old stock components. (The shop front was constructed on an existing wall clad with preformed 'old brick' plastic, painted by the scenic artists who did the original 'Coronation Street' sets. They also made the shop fittings from MDF 'scumbled' to look like old oak.)

When the second world war broke out in 1939 most domestic radio production was stopped as the companies were required to produce radio equipment for tthe armed services. Television, in operation from 1936 in the London area only, was immediately closed down. Firstly because the transmitter at Alexandra Palace would have acted as a beacon for enemy aircraft, and secondly because all of the engineers with experience in television were wanted for secret work on RADAR, which was of vital importance. Later in the war, efforts were made to improve supplies of radios for the public, as plans for directing potential resistance in case of invasion were to be disseminated by the BBC, and also the information and entertainment service was considered of vital national importance for morale.

After the war, Britain began to rebuild both the infrastructure and the economy. The radio and TV industry quickly got back to making sets for the public using new techniques developed during the war on military contracts. The cost of both radio and TV sets came down as production expanded and people began to have more income as industry boomed in the 1950s.

The 1950s gallery contained examples of the latest technology of the time- TV sets for the mass market, affordable portable radios and record players that kicked off the Rock and Roll era. Ingeniously displaying both the 50s and later TV production technology, a 'set' of a 1950s room was built in a 'studio' as if a scene was being filmed. (The 50s mannequin girl was styled by a film and TV make-up and costume designer.)

This video was made to show in a loop on a 'vintage' TV set with a new TV chassis inside. The video opens with an intro from writer and comedian Alexei Sayle, who opened the museum with the Mayor of Chester. It is interesting how much technology has changed since this was done. It was made by some of my ex-ITV colleagues, using a Beta SP news camera, of the same type that we now hire as props for period dramas. From the edited master we dubbed several VHS copies, with about 10 copies of the video recorded end to end. It was played on a repeating VHS player with auto rewind, left running all day. There was no other affordable way to do it. Digital video technology was far too expensive to use, even DVD players were out of the question as no domestic recorders were available yet.