This story was inspired by a battery from the magic story bag
I loved electricity. Fascinated by the way a bulb lit, a motor turned, a radio played music and how a battery stored power.
My bedroom was littered with wires, bulbholders, battery clips and bits of old radios.
I suppose I was about 14 when TV replaced the radio in our house. So I fitted the old radio into a cupboard which I called my “shack”. There I listened to distant stations on headphones. It was a Cossor in a wooden box with glowing valves in the back and an orange dial on the front. Hilversum, London, Luxembourg, Light, Home and Third – radio stations illuminated by small bulbs and tuned by the black dial needle with a slow motion drive.
It’s no surprise that 40 years later when I left the BBC I had spent most of my life in broadcasting. As a technician and a broadcaster I always said – whatever I was doing at the time – “I have the best job in the world,” and I still have.
