Paul Kerensa 6 October 2026
From Marconi to Miranda
When we think of broadcasting today, it is easy to take it for granted. News arrives instantly, music streams endlessly, and entire television series can be watched in a single weekend. Yet little more than a century ago, the idea of voices and music travelling invisibly through the air seemed closer to magic than technology.
That was the fascinating story told at Hartley Wintney u3a’s October meeting by comedian, broadcaster, historian and award-winning comedy writer Paul Kerensa. With humour, enthusiasm and a cast of colourful characters, he traced the extraordinary journey from experimental wireless signals to the creation of the BBC and the media landscape we know today.
The Spark That Started It All
Every great story needs a pioneer, and broadcasting's begins with Guglielmo Marconi. In 1901, the Italian inventor achieved what many thought impossible: he successfully received a wireless signal sent across the Atlantic Ocean from England to Newfoundland. Suddenly, messages were no longer confined by wires. The world had become a little smaller, and Marconi became an international celebrity.
Of course, transmitting a few dots and dashes in Morse code is one thing. Entertaining people is quite another.
The First Radio Show
That honour belongs to Canadian-born inventor Reginald Fessenden.
On Christmas Eve 1906, he made what is widely regarded as the world's first audio radio broadcast. Rather than sending Morse code, he transmitted speech and music. Listeners along the Atlantic coast heard him play a violin, spin a record, and share a Bible reading.
Imagine being a ship's radio operator expecting routine signals and suddenly hearing someone playing music. It must have felt rather like opening a business email and finding a concert ticket instead.
Radio entertainment had arrived.
A Woman Ahead of Her Time
The story of broadcasting is often dominated by famous men, but one remarkable woman deserves her place in history.
In 1917, Gertrude Donisthorpe became the earliest known female broadcaster. Broadcasting from a field near Worcester, she played gramophone records and introduced them over the airwaves.
Her audience? One person: her husband, listening a mile away.
Admittedly, it was not the largest audience in broadcasting history, but every great medium has to start somewhere.
The Man Who Saw the Future
While many regarded wireless technology simply as a replacement for the telegraph, Arthur Burrows saw something much bigger.
During the First World War, he proposed that wireless could be used to broadcast information and entertainment simultaneously to large numbers of people. Today that seems obvious, but in 1917 it was a revolutionary idea.
Burrows would later become the BBC's first Director of Programmes and its first news broadcaster. More importantly, he recognised something fundamental: broadcasting was not just about technology. It was about connecting people.
Britain's First Radio Programmes
By 1919, engineers William Ditcham and Captain Henry Round were experimenting with transmitting the human voice rather than Morse code.
To test their equipment, Ditcham did not merely read technical messages. He read newspaper stories, told anecdotes and played records.
Listeners across Britain and even mainland Europe wrote in to report hearing the broadcasts. These experimental transmissions became Britain's first regular radio programmes.
The public response was immediate. People did not simply want communication; they wanted entertainment.
A familiar lesson for every broadcaster since.
Dame Nellie Melba and the "Magic Play Boxes"
In 1920, radio received its first major celebrity endorsement. The Daily Mail persuaded the world-famous Australian soprano Dame Nellie Melba to give a broadcast performance. She was deeply sceptical of the whole enterprise and reportedly dismissed wireless sets as "magic play boxes". A substantial fee of £1,000 eventually changed her mind.
There was, however, a catch. Broadcasting equipment could not be taken to a grand concert hall. Instead, Melba would perform from the Marconi works in Chelmsford, surrounded by engineers rather than adoring audiences.
When Arthur Burrows proudly explained that her voice would travel from the towering transmission masts across the world, Melba allegedly replied: "Young man, if you think I am going to climb up there, you are greatly mistaken!"
The broadcast was a sensation. Despite a temporary transmitter failure during the performance, listeners across Britain and around the world tuned in. Letters poured in from ships, radio amateurs and enthusiasts who had heard the concert.
Broadcasting had proved it could attract both stars and audiences.
The Government Hits the Brakes
You might expect radio to have exploded immediately after Melba's success. Instead, the government became nervous. In late 1920, the General Post Office severely restricted experimental broadcasting, fearing interference with military and official communications.
For a time, broadcasting's future looked uncertain. Fortunately, innovators are rarely discouraged by bureaucracy.
The First Outside Broadcast
In 1921, Marconi engineers found a new opportunity.
The Epsom Derby became the first horse race to be broadcast live by wireless telephony. It was a modest production by modern standards, but it demonstrated something important: broadcasting could take people to events they could not attend in person.
The outside broadcast had been born.
Two Emma Toc: Radio Finds Its Personality
If Marconi built the technology, Peter Eckersley discovered radio's personality.
In February 1922, station 2MT — known affectionately as "Two Emma Toc" — began broadcasting from a former army hut in Writtle, Essex.
The station was allowed only 30 minutes of airtime each week. Faced with such limitations, Eckersley decided not to waste a second. He joked, improvised, performed comedy sketches, used funny voices, played records and even staged what became one of the first radio plays. His famous introduction, "This is Two Emma Toc, Writtle testing, Writtle testing!", became iconic.
In effect, Eckersley invented the radio presenter. Listeners loved it.
The success of this tiny station convinced many that broadcasting had enormous commercial and cultural potential.
Enter the BBC
The popularity of 2MT led directly to the creation of a larger station: 2LO in London.
By November 1922, several manufacturers had joined forces under government encouragement to create a single broadcasting organisation. The British Broadcasting Company had arrived.
That evening, Arthur Burrows spoke the first official words: "This is 2LO, Marconi House, London calling."
The inaugural programme contained news, weather information and even billiard scores.
Listeners were so unfamiliar with receiving information by radio that announcements were often repeated slowly to allow people to write them down.
Today we complain if a webpage takes five seconds to load.
The Forgotten Women of Broadcasting
The early history of broadcasting contains many overlooked pioneers.
Margaret Partridge, one of Britain's first female electrical engineers, established her own business promoting domestic electrification. At a time when electricity itself was still a novelty in many rural areas, she helped bring modern technology into homes and churches.
Another remarkable figure was Phyllis Twigg, writing under the pen name Moira Meighn. In 1922 she wrote the BBC's first original radio play, The Truth About Father Christmas as Told by the Fairy Dustman. Broadcast on Christmas Eve, it helped establish children's broadcasting as an important part of the BBC's mission.
Years later, she would become the BBC's first television cookery presenter. Not bad for someone who started with a fairy dustman.
A Nightingale Becomes a Star
One of the most charming episodes in broadcasting history occurred in 1924.
The BBC staged a live outdoor broadcast featuring a musician exchanging musical phrases with a nightingale. Part concert, part experiment and part poetry, it captivated audiences and became one of the earliest examples of radio's ability to create a sense of wonder.
Long before television pictures arrived, radio demonstrated its unique power: allowing listeners to paint the scene in their own imaginations.
The BBC Through the Decades
Having reached the birth of the BBC, Paul Kerensa accelerated through a century of broadcasting history.
The landmarks came thick and fast:
The launch of the Radio Times, the first Shipping Forecast, and live coverage of sporting events including football, rugby, Wimbledon and the Grand National.
Then came Edward VIII's abdication speech, wartime favourites, Desert Island Discs and Woman's Hour.
The post-war decades brought The Archers, Hancock's Half Hour, The Goon Show and the Coronation.
The 1960s delivered Morecambe and Wise, Dad's Army, Top of the Pops, Doctor Who and coverage of the Moon Landing.
The 1970s introduced local radio, Ceefax, Fawlty Towers and The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin.
The following decades gave us Blackadder, Only Fools and Horses, EastEnders, The Vicar of Dibley, Strictly Come Dancing, The Office, Miranda, The Repair Shop, Peaky Blinders and, most recently, The Traitors.
What began as a handful of enthusiasts experimenting with wireless signals became one of the most influential broadcasting organisations in the world.
More Than Technology
Perhaps the most striking lesson from the talk was that the story of broadcasting is not really about transmitters, aerials or engineering. It is about people.
The dreamers who imagined impossible things. The engineers who made them work. The performers willing to take a chance on a new medium. The presenters who discovered how to speak naturally to unseen audiences. And the listeners whose curiosity turned a technical novelty into a cultural revolution.
From Marconi's transatlantic signal to today's digital world, broadcasting has always been driven by a simple human desire: to share stories.
A century later, we are still listening.
6 October 2026