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Here's what I thought is a brilliant article about the first TV transmissions in the UK, 80 years ago, next Wednesday, 2nd November 1936, which eventually lead to transmissions in other countries. What amuses me somewhat, is that in 1934 the British government, "demanded a “high-definition” picture with a minimum of 240 lines", How far we've come just in 80 years. What's even more remarkable is that John Logie Baird's assistant, Paul Reveley, is still alive and going strong, and as sharp as a tack at age 104 "and recalls the events of eight decades ago brilliantly". I hope to get hold of the documentary, Television’s Opening Night: How The Box Was Born being broadcast on BBC Four, next Wednesday, (2nd November 2016). If your local library subscribes you ( for no charge) to Pressdisplay, you can login using the following link with your library number, (no password required), and read the article as printed, with all the pics, and sub texts. Plus, you have access to a huge number of the world's newspapers and magazines, including in Australia, (though if you wish to read News Corp titles, you'll need to use an overseas proxy). The link to the article is HERE, Daily Express 27th October 2016 Page 13. For those who don't have this access, here is the full text of the article. --- TV’s FIRST BIG NIGHT --- Daily Express - UK --- 27Oct16 "Eighty years ago the BBC made its first live broadcast to a few hundred people – and the world changed for ever" IN THE winter of 1936 there were several major public events in Britain that are still remembered: the Jarrow hunger march – 200 men walked from the North-east to London to protest against unemployment; the Battle of Cable Street – Sir Oswald Mosley led his fascist Blackshirt mob into London’s working-class and Jewish East End; and there was the abdication of Edward VIII, which shocked the nation and shook the monarchy. But none of these comes close in terms of future significance to something that lasted only an hour and was watched by just a few hundred people. That November the BBC launched its television service. It was a breathtaking moment, nerveracking too and not universally welcomed. The technology was in its infancy. As late as 1928 Guglielmo Marconi, Nobel prize-winning inventor of radio, had said he could not predict when there would be television. Philosopher Bertrand Russell said he did not foresee it working in the near future. Numerous boffins in Europe and the US had been striving for years towards the holy grail of transmissible moving pictures. In 1925 Gordon Selfridge Junior (son of the original “Mr Selfridge”) was intrigued to hear about the Scottish inventor John Logie Baird’s work and made the short trip from Oxford Street to Soho’s Frith Street to see what was going on. He was shown the moving image of a shadowy paper mask made to appear to wink and saw that moving image transmitted to the next room. He was excited by it and invited Baird to give the first public demonstration at his famous store. It drew large crowds. “It is to light what telephony is to sound,” said the store’s blurb. Baird’s equipment can best be described as a contraption, a fast-rotating disc with many holes in it with a light shining through, producing flickering pictures. It certainly did not have the slick look of a modern device. The great stage and musical star Marie Tempest was invited to be present at the event. “Interesting little man, Mr Baird,” she said. “But I don’t think that thing is ever going to work.” NINE years later in 1934 the government set up a committee to plot a way forward into the television future. They demanded a “high-definition” picture with a minimum of 240 lines. Baird’s earliest efforts had been 30 lines. By now he had upped his performance to 240 lines but his rivals Marconi-EMI a well-financed corporation, were offering 405. In contrast to Baird’s mechanical approach, they had gone down the more promising electronic path. The committee decided both tenders should be accepted for the time being and encouraged them to develop their systems further before a choice was taken. Alexandra Palace, a massive old building high on a hill in north London, was chosen as the home of BBC television and a 220-foot mast was erected on its roof to give the best chance of transmitting the service, at least to parts of London if no further. Live from Alexandra Palace between 3pm and 4pm on November 2, 1936, came the launch of the world’s first regular high-definition television service reaching perhaps a hundred very expensive television sets that had been bought by well-heeled people in London. The contest was on. After winning a coin toss Baird’s system went first, though JLB himself was not there to run it. Straitened circumstances had forced him to sell his company. Now a Captain West was at the helm. There were formal THE name John Logie Baird will forever have an important place in the history of British television. He was a true pioneer. He is credited with being the first to produce a live, moving television image. Eight decades later in 2002 he was voted number 44 in the BBC’s list of 100 Greatest Britons. Heroic, certainly, but in many ways he was a classic British heroic failure. A compulsive inventor, he could have made multiple appearances on Dragons’ Den. Among his abortive projects were industrial diamonds, self-heating socks, homemade haemorrhoid cream and a rust-proof glass razor. His first steps in television development had “the ingenuity of Heath Robinson and a touch of Robinson Crusoe”. They deployed a motor, a cardboard disc cut from a hatbox, introductions by the Postmaster General and the BBC’s chairman, then a news bulletin, a British Movietone newsreel followed by comedy dancers Buck and Bubbles, some jugglers, the BBC television orchestra and a famous singer Adele Dixon with a specially composed song: “There’s joy in store/ the world is at your door/It’s here for everyone to view/Conjured up in sound and sight/by the magic rays of light/that brings television to you.” The show was retransmitted several times, the first repeats. Viewers, or “lookers-in” as they were known, saw it in Baird’s version then flicked a switch on their sets to enable them to see how Marconi-EMI did. Three months after that first broadcast, the BBC took a decision: the Baird system was dumped and the EMI a darning needle and bicycle-light lenses. Later, while better-financed competitors explored electronics, his method remained mechanical – images captured through a fast-rotating disc. However, he initiated many ideas that came to fruition later in the hands of others and in 1929 he succeeded in transmitting 30-line low-definition images via BBC radio waves. In the next few years, faced with fierce competition, he progressed to highdefinition 240-line images. On the night in 1936 when his method vied with Marconi-EMI as the vehicle for BBC television he was no longer in charge. Shortage of money had forced him to sell. He sowed the seed but never reaped the harvest. Often in poor health, he died in 1964 aged 57. system was chosen. Their 405-line pictures became the standard. None of the 1936 programme survives but on November 2 on BBC Four there is an enjoyable documentary reconstructing the event. ABSOLUTELY riveting are the efforts of the Cambridge University engineer Dr Hugh Hunt as he struggles and finally succeeds in making a new version of Baird’s “Flying Spot” machine in all its bizarrely complex simplicity. But more unforgettable still is Paul Reveley, 104 years old and a good deal sharper than a 240line TV picture. He was Baird’s assistant and recalls the events of eight decades ago brilliantly. He is almost equalled by Lily Fry, tap dancer age 91, who was not there performing on the first night, but was hoofing away in select living rooms the following year and is tap dancing still. Not among those taking part in 1936 was Sir John Reith, the BBC’s Presbyterian director general. The BBC’s guiding spirit wrote in his diary for November 2: “To Alexandra Palace for the television opening. I have declined to be televised.” When he resigned from the BBC in 1938 he was presented with a television set. He said, “I will never use it.” Reith thought television “a waste of time”. Was he party pooper, prophet, or both? Television’s Opening Night: How The Box Was Born – BBC Four Wednesday November 2, 9pm

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