From the 1920s onwards the wireless set provided an increasing number of families with an opportunity to listen to music, drama and news broadcasts. Around half of the British population were able to settle down in the evening and enjoy a musical variety show, a comedy, or a play, while reading the paper, or doing the mending. It had become a way of life.

Then, during 1926/27 John Logie Baird showed it was possible to transmit pictures over telephone lines, first from London to Glasgow, then in 1928 across the Atlantic to America. As a result of further experiments it was in 1930 that the first British television broadcast was shown – Pirandello’s The Man with a Flower in his Mouth. It was some six years later that the BBC began showing regular broadcasts.

When news spread that…