#015 John Reith: Mastermind

The British Broadcasting Century with Paul Kerensa

For ep 15, our story of broadcasting reaches one John Reith, who spots a job advertisement in the Morning Post. He's never heard of broadcasting.

But what led him to that point? Revisiting landmark moments of our story so far, we'll trace Reith's unusual, unorthodox, unexpected life. From son of the manse to voice of the nation, via love, friendship, war... and all three of those are somehow mixed up together in Reith's beloved: Charlie.

It's quite a story, and we're indebted to Ian McIntyre's The Expense of Glory, Garry Allighan's Sir John Reith, Marista Leishman's My Father: Reith of the BBC and Charles Stuart's edited The Reith Diaries. Most quotations are from the latter. I recommend all four books for a deep-dive into this.

Plus an Airwave Memory from Cole Moreton, whose marvellous book is The Light Keeper - also recommended.

For pictures, discussion and other bits and pieces, join us on Facebook and Twitter and 'like' or 'follow' or whatever they call it now there.

You can support the show via ko-fi.com/paulkerensa for one-off £, or patreon.com/paulkerensa for regular perks - including advance writing and things from Paul.

Paul's mailing list is very much joinable, for a monthly update of this, that and the other (writing, gigs, podcasts, etc).

As mentioned on the podcast, Paul's festive history book Hark! The Biography of Christmas is now in audiobook form. There's an Audible free trial here if you've not had one before - so you can get Hark! for free, then cancel, and pay nowt.

(Full disclosure - I get a couple of quids if you click and activate that, even if you only ever do the free trial.)

(Oh and another full disclosure - I'm happy to take a few quid from Amazon, but I'd rather not line Jeff Bezos' pockets much further, so if you're going to buy Hark! The Biography of Christmas, this link takes you to Hive, which supports local independent bookshops - or just ask yours direct. I'm sure they'd love to hear from you.)

Paul's Facebook Live show is PK's Uplift Live, every Tuesday from 8pm. Do join. Occasionally he talks about broadcasting history there too. There's also a quiz, some comedy, and an attempt at normality.

Thanks to Will Farmer for composing the original music.

Archive clips are either public domain or private domain from so long ago, it's nigh-on-impossible to trace... but if you own a clip and want it removed, we'd be happy to oblige. We're just here to inform, educate and entertain - thanks for helping us do so.

(This podcast is not affiliated with the BBC. Unless they'd like it to be. But as it stands, this entire operation is just one bloke shouting into his wardrobe. Thanks for listening. Otherwise it's just the shirts.)