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The Scent That Captures That "1930s Moment"!
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LXIV
By 1931, further experimental programmes were steadily
Emerging from the hissing snowdrifts of gradualist screens,
And, on 22 August 1932, the BBC decided to set up
Its own television studios at the circular art-deco
Broadcasting House at Portland Place and Langham Place
Adorned with striking angular sculpted facings designed
By Arthur Rowton Gill; its steel frame encased in Portland stone,
Constructed in 1928; and once the BBC had bought up
Much of Baird’s equipment, Reith appointed the pioneering
Technical triumvirate of Douglas Birkinshaw, D.R. Campbell
And D.H. Bridgewater to oversee TV’s development –
And from the outset this triad decided that for television
To become commercial, it required a higher definition
Than the limited 30-line system; a period of experimentation
And brinkmanship in the race towards the first public broadcasts
Frantically ensued, the BBC baiting Baird to outcompete
America’s Marconi EMI –a tactic that paid off when
The Scotsman managed to crank up the definition to 100 lines –
Having achieved this, vicariously through Baird’s industry,
The BBC felt in a position to officially recommend a public
Television service, and, by January 1935, they announced
The oncoming revolution in domestic entertainment:
The television set, which debuted at the Radiolympia from
Alexandra Palace, August 1936 (a month after the outbreak
Of the Spanish Civil War), the first receivers and sets retailing
At the princely sum of £100 a piece –and the first official
Transmissions began on 2 November that year (the Spanish
Autumn); initially Baird’s 100-line system was employed,
But some time later, somewhat treacherously, the BBC dropped
The Scotsman’s vintage original and took up Marconi
EMI’s superior 405-line system, of 50 frames per second…
LXV
By 1937, the BBC had purchased its first mobile outside-
Broadcasting (OB) unit, and piloted the equipment on
The state occasion of lisping King George VI’s Coronation
(Following the abrupt abdication of his older brother,
Edward VIII, so he could marry American divorcee
And socialite, Wallace Simpson –King for a year, January
To December 1936), an estimated 10,000 viewers
Picking up the reception on their domestic sets; swiftly
Followed by broadcasts of Wimbledon, the pomp and monochrome
Ruritaniana of the Lord Mayor’s Show and Armistice Day
Service at the Cenotaph; live transmissions of dramas, plays
(Shakespeare in particular), comedies and children’s programmes
Followed for the remainder of the decade –until, by late
1939, and the shadow of another War, television
Was prematurely shut down for the indefinite duration
Of hostilities –the lights of 11,000 television sets
Paling to dim glows, and then blackness, promptly for the blackouts,
Air-raid sirens, droning doodlebugs’ buzz-buzz then ominous
Stoppages and six years’ return to the airwaves of stalwart
Walnut wirelesses, gravelly voiceovers and narratives
On the painfully slow progress of war providing the rationed
Aural landscape of oncoming storm, punctuated by Churchillian
Grunts and chuntering –for by then the radio was a familiar
Piece of household furniture –TV, as yet, just the next terrible
Infant, temporarily confiscated, out of reach for the time
Being (pending victory, or defeat), neither seen nor heard,
After having stamped its feet in a hissy fit, one long
Protracted crackly tantrum that had marked its formative years –
But time would have to wait for peace to break and settle before
Those one-way windows glowed back into luminance to lull
The nation into pacifistic lassitudes, and filter
War-wearied reality for its citizens through the eerie
Alchemy of cathode-ray tubes projecting violet-tinted light
Of magic lanterns into static, smoky, disillusioned rooms…