A walk from ‘the 2MT Writtle hut’ to ‘the pub’ (both no longer there) - British Broadcasting Century

Описание: Radio history enthusiasts Paul Kerensa and Jim Salmon have a (badly framed) walk in Writtle, Essex - to see the exact route the first British broadcasting pioneers took ever Tuesday in 1922-23.

‘The Writtle hut’ is now a car park, its old field is now a housing estate called Melba Court (even though Nellie Melba never sang here - that was in Chelmsford two miles away).

‘The pub’ was The Cock and Bell, but is now Pakwaan Indian restaurant.

Still, we wanted to get a sense of the geography and the time it took Peter Eckersley and his team, the Experimental Division of the Marconi Research Department, to go from the day work creating air traffic control in the hut, to the pub to the plan the show each Tuesday after work, then back to the hut to give Britain’s first regular licensed broadcast.

For the first few weeks, Peter Eckersley left them to it - they’d plan in the pub, throw away a few gramophone records that Arthur Burrows had sent them from head office - but on week 5, Eckersley joined them for fish and chips and gin, ran from pub to hut before they could, seized the mic, and single-handedly created a boom in demand for radio with his wild antics.

For more on this story, listen to The British Broadcasting Century Podcast, especially episodes 8, 9, and this walking tour features on episode 47, on the closedown of 2MT Writtle.

Thanks for the tour, Jim! Jim’s website emmatoc.org is a tribute to the original 2MT - see his site for all sorts of marvellous radio things, inc his radio ham work.

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