No longer rumours rumbling - 1952

Torridge District wireless listeners can now look forward to a new era of home entertainment with the latest development in ‘Television in the West.’ It is conveyed in the following official bulletin from the BBC …

During the past few weeks test signals have been sent out daily, giving local radio dealers an opportunity to adjust sets to this frequency.

Mr Leslie Braddick, of Westward Ho! told a Bideford Gazette reporter of his complete satisfaction with results obtained in Northam and Westward Ho! and the same reports come from other districts. Reception in Bideford was reported last week as fair but on Tuesday of this week, Mr A E Hutchings spoke enthusiastically of latest results obtained on testing. Isolated instances of poor reception will no doubt occur but these will be gradually ‘cleared-up.’

The Bideford Gazette has recently reported on BBC televising of local events at Abbotsham, Northam and elsewhere for a featured programme series in the autumn, and no doubt well before Christmas the ‘H’ type of television aerial will be a familiar feature throughout the whole district.

Burrow’s Electrical advertises itself and ‘factory trained service engineers’

Or, for ‘hours and hours of pleasure’ you can contact Bideford Radio Service, proprietor E J Dicker

Go to Squire’s Radio in Market Place, Bideford, for correct advice

Nicklin’s in Mill Street offers the ‘personal supervision of Mr H S Bennett’ and you can part exchange your piano – one form of entertainment for another!

And more competition from Walter S Darch in Mill Street and Elliotts …

You can buy a ‘complete range of all television models in stock’ from Braddicks, who has been a Murphy dealer for over 20 years.

TV aerials on council property – Bideford decision

Recently a BBC television camera team with producer, Mr Brett, and a script writer, were taking scenes at Abbotsham Church fete and Northam Flower Show to appear in a series of about four episodes based on the story and characters that appeared in Ronald Duncan’s ‘Jan’s Journal.’ It is expected the scenes will be televised in the coming autumn. In such a romantically interesting part of the country, as Charles Kingsley found, it is to be expected we should welcome highlights of individual expression, whether from writer, artist, gardener or boat designer.

Reported 15 August 1952 – Wenvoe opens at 7.45 to-night

Television now serves over 40,000,000

The Postmaster General will create Television history at 7.45 this evening when he formally opens the new transmitter at Wenvoe, near Cardiff, which will them make television available to eighty per cent of the population of the United Kingdom – the highest percentage in the world. Torridge district will share in this tremendous advance, and local radio dealers are all set to supply local people with new sets, to install them, and to give first-class servicing.

In one year the number of licences has risen from 897,000 to about 1,600,000, and no one doubts that that impressive figure will continue to rise steeply. An artist performing at a popular time, such as a Sunday evening, may now expect to be seen by five million people.

Later that month, ‘television success’ was reported …