Radio, TV, Record Players & Libraries, mid 20th Century

Insights into listening to the radio
at home in 1940s UK

When I was a child in England in the Second World War, there was one radio in the house. (Televisions were still many years away.)

The radio was called the 'wireless'. I don't know why the name changed over the years to 'radio', but I do know that some twenty or so years later, anyone who still used the term 'wireless' was considered very out-of-date.

The wireless in our house was a particularly attractive one. It was in a large polished wooden box which could lay claim to being a piece of furniture in its own right because it was so elegantly contoured and veneered in cross-ways veneers. I am very fortunate indeed to have a photograph of it - see the photo.

The wireless had a speaker covered in some sort of roughish fabric, a dial two, large knobs and two smaller ones. The left hand round knob clicked the wireless on and off and further twisting adjusted the volume; the right hand knob searched the stations; the right hand lever-knob adjusted the tone (bass or treble); and the left lever-knob selected long, medium of short wave.

The range of types of radios / wirelesses

What always struck me was that every family seemed to have a different-looking wireless, housed in its own individually shaped box. Even the woods were different.

Although all fitted the same description of a polished wooden box with either two, three or four knobs, a dial and a fabric covered speaker, to me, as a young child, they all looked very different. Clearly domestic radios, unlike home telephones which were all identical to one another, must have had a number of manufacturers, each producing their own range of styles.

It turned out that all the wirelesses that I knew had been bought in the relatively affluent 1930s, before the Second World War.

Manufacture of radios during World War Two

Although there were no new types of radio for the home market during the Second World War, manufacturers seem to have thought it worthwhile to keep their names in the public eye. Hence the advert in the thumbnail on the left. The advert is somewhat wistful in the way that it speaks of 'better days'. In order to read the small print, click for an enlarged, legible version.

The wireless 'extension' status symbol

Even as the 1940s merged into the 1950s, radios must have been rather expensive in real terms. I never knew any families who had more than the one. The better-off families had something called 'an extension', ie a run of cable from their one radio to a speaker in another room. This meant that the radio could be listened to in either room.

I asked my mother if we could have an extension too. Looking back, I don't think I was particularly concerned about being able to listen in a second room. Rather, it was my first awareness of the existence of a 'status symbol'. Anyway, my mother said 'no' and that we couldn't afford it - but that was her response to most requests. During and immediately after the war, money must have been tight.

Channels, stations, sides

A radio channel was also known as a station or a 'side'. In fact, for us ordinary listeners in the war years, there were only two channels, which made the term 'sides' particularly appropriate. Both were broadcast by the BBC, ie the British Broadcasting Corporation. One called the Home Service seemed designed to inform about the progress of the war, while the other, the Light Programme, seemed to be for light entertainment.

Just after the war, a new channel was broadcast by the BBC, known appropriately as The Third Programme. It was dedicated to what my mother called 'highbrow music'. It may have been popular but we never listened to it.

Favourite programmes

I particularly remember Music While You Work which broadcast very lively music with a rapid beat, designed to encourage the women working in the factories to speed up.

Being a child, my favourite programme was the daily Children's Hour, which my mother and I listened to over tea.

My mother and grandmother - and my father when he was home from the army - listened to the Light Programme during the evenings while I was supposed to be asleep. The News, of course, on the Home Service, was not to be missed, because it reported on the war, but I was too young for it to mean much to me.

More programmes of interest were introduced after the war. My mother seldom missed Woman's Hour. It was broadcast just after her lunch when, presumably, women were deemed to be allowed a sit-down after the morning's housework.

My parents liked In Town Tonight which was broadcast on Saturday evenings and presented interviews with well-known people who happened to be in London at the time. I was not particularly interested, but in the late 1940s, as in previous years, it was accepted practice for all family members to be together in one room. So I could not help but hear what my parents were listening to, especially in winter when there was only heating in one room, with its single coal fire.

As I grew older, after the war, I liked the programmes in which people phoned in special requests for individuals still serving overseas in the forces. The requests were invariably for pop music which appealed to me at that time.

Europe was transmitting again, and Radio Luxemburg provided non-stop pop music requests. For some reason which I cannot now understand, I seemed perfectly able to listen to the music while doing my school homework to an acceptable standard.

Radios after the Second World War

---