Background
Alexandra Palace is a historic entertainment venue in Alexandra Park, London. It is located between Muswell Hill and Wood Green, in the north of the city. It was originally opened in 1873 but rebuilt in 1875 following a destructive fire. It was designed to serve as a public centre of recreation, education and entertainment and as north London’s counterpart to The Crystal Palace in south London.
Intended as “The People’s Palace” and later nicknamed “Ally Pally” (allegedly by Gracie Fields),] in 1936 it became the home of the world’s first regular public “high-definition” television service, operated by the BBC. Alexandra Palace television station was located on the site and its radio tower is still in use. The original studios ‘A’ and ‘B’ still survive in the south-east wing with their producers’ galleries and are used for exhibiting original historical television equipment.
Alexandra Palace became a listed building in 1996, at the instigation of the Hornsey Historical Society.
[Wikipedia]
Simon Vaughan
Simon is the Archivist of the Alexandra Palace Television Society
For the last couple of years I have been conducting research into the war-time activity at AP and wondered if any members of the Tech-Ops members would be able to shed some light on a television demonstration that took place in August 1943!
There are two PDF documents.
One is from February 1945 and concerns the television demonstration that was given to the Commonwealth Broadcasting Conference. This is well documented in the BBC Written Archive Centre, and we have copies of most of the documentation that survives.
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However, the other file is the one I am concerned with. It clearly shows the studio equipment fired-up and operational – yet the photographs were taken in August 1943!
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Due to Desmond Campbell keeping very detailed notes on his negative packets we have the names of the engineers and the performers in the studio, as well as two photographs of Wilfred Pafford (known to all as “Paff”) & Douglas Birkinshaw. There is no reason to doubt the date of this demonstration as all the other dates on Desmond’s negative packets match totally with transmission dates.
The date can be corroborated by two sources; firstly by Neil Campbell who remembers his father having to go to an important meeting during this time, as Desmond had to get special permission for petrol to drive to AP. Desmond had a car accident on his way home (which is why Neil remembers the occasion). Neil has a vague memory of conversations about the television demonstration being given to either Winston Churchill or the King! This seems rather strange given that a Mrs Fuller appears to be giving a demonstration of flower arranging and a Miss Fuller was seated in the studio, (I am assuming this was Mr Fuller’s wife and daughter).
Obviously, all this could have been part of the system line-up prior to the actual demonstration taking place. But, if this was a secret demonstration why would civilians be allowed into the studio, (especially as at this time AP was still being rented by the Air Ministry and the vision transmitter was being used to combat Luftwaffe navigational beams). Also why was Mary Allen (Head of Wardrobe and Make-up) there?
As you can see these photographs appear to ask more questions than they resolve.
Secondly (and perhaps most importantly), Jeff Walden at WAC has managed to find a newspaper article from “The Leader”, dated 11th September 1943, stating:
“BBC engineers, temporarily working in various parts of the country, were called to Alexandra Palace the other day, where they staged an important television picture – unseen, of course, by the public”.
With the photographic evidence there is no question that this demonstration took place and that the studio equipment was working during the war years, despite accepted histories that is was mothballed for the duration. Obviously at this stage the vision transmitter was being used for beam bending activities. As you can see from the photographs a Mr Fuller and Mr Howe are seen filming the scene in the television studio. I have searched the staff directories that we hold for 1939, 1942 and 1946 and can find that in 1939 a Mr A. B. Howe was working in the Research Department and has “television” listed beside his name. In the 1942 staff directory he is listed as a Senior Engineer in the Research department. He is listed again in the staff directory for 1946, as a member of the Research Department – Television. So from this I am assuming that he was required to be there for the television demonstration in August 1943. He is seen with a Mr Fuller at a 16mm film camera, which I think is on top of an Emitron three-legged wooden tripod, (but happy to be corrected on this) – I wonder if that film still survives, and if so, where it might be now – or indeed why it was taken, (particularly if Mrs Fuller was still on set arranging flowers)?
Several years ago I showed the photographs to “Paff” Pafford, while he was still living with his wife at home. He got extremely upset and wouldn’t tell me anything, other than tapping his nose and saying “we did lots of secret things at AP during the war”. At this point he was shaking and had tears in his eyes saying – “I signed the Official Secrets Act” – there was no way I was going to press this issue with him when he was obviously so upset! However, “Paff” did tell me that during the war years the RAF contingent, and the BBC staff based at AP, use to fire-up the studio equipment and put shows on for each other, over a closed-circuit! Perhaps this is why the studio equipment was easily put to use for a demonstration in 1943?
One of my BBC contacts, Andy O’Dwyer, works in R&D and he asked their Librarian to check the holdings to see if they have any further information on A. B. Howe, but sadly this had drawn a blank.
Jack Gray wrote an article in the early 1990’s, for “BBC Eng Inf”, over the use of the vision transmitter at AP for the beam-bending activities, and I hoped that this might elicit some information, but sadly not. Also, Laurie Brettingham wrote a book “Royal Air Force: Beam Benders: No 80 (Signals Wing), 1940-1945” which deals with the use of AP vision transmitter to bend the Luftwaffe navigational beams.
I am now at a total brick wall. I am hoping that someone in Tech-Ops will have some knowledge of what went on at AP during the war years. Perhaps someone had a conversation with Douglas Birkinshaw or Tony Bridgewater whilst they were still working for the corporation about any war-time activity.
