50 YEARS OF BROADCASTING BBC 1922-1972 

2 X VINYLS  LP 1972 MONO (VG)

Collectors Market

Rare Scarce

Fifty years of broadcasting. That's a lot of hours on the air. Nowadays, in one year, on the BBC's four domestic radio networks alone, we put out something like 25.000 hours of programmes and bulletins.

In this album, on the four sides of two L.P. records -about 100 minutes' playing time in all - we are trying to tell the story of those 50 years. We have had to leave out many highlights, but as much as possible has been packed in of the great events and great personalities, as well as of the lighter moments, which the BBC brought to the nation and which helped to make the BBC an essential part of the nation's life.

Alan Burgess gathered together the material and wrote the script. The album is based on the series of documentary programmes which he produced for Radio 4 to mark the anniversary. I was one year and one month old when the first regular service began from 2LO, and the vital early years of broadcasting did not mean all that much to me at the time. But René Cutforth, the narrator of our story, conveys the excitement felt by the pioneer listeners with their home-made crystal sets.

Side One of the album covers the first decade of the BBC's life, and Side Two the threatening years before the outbreak of the Second World War. Side Three covers the war years - a period which deserves a whole library of record albums to itself and which, apart from its other aspects, was a time of great expansion in broadcasting: in volume, in technique and in influence. The fourth side takes us up to the present day and ends, appropriately, with an excerpt from the memorial service for Reith, the man who not only fought to bring a national broadcasting service into being but had the vision and the strength to ensure that it was worthy to meet its huge responsibilities.