Charity uncovers unique haul of historic treasures
A unique collection of historic photographs and papers relating to Sir Winston, Lady Clementine Churchill and other famous figures of the 1930s and 1940s has been uncovered by a Maidstone charity.
British Wireless for the Blind (BWBF), based in Albion Place, gives specially adapted radios and tablets free to visually impaired people and will be celebrating its 90th anniversary this year.
But when their communications manager Saul Watson began digging through the organisation’s archives to see what he could use to mark the occasion, he found a treasure trove that included an original gramophone recording of King George V’s first Christmas radio address to the Empire in 1932, which had been presented to the charity’s founder, Captain Beachcroft Towse VC by the King himself.
Tucked away in cardboard boxes at the back of cupboards and in BWBF’s safe were notes from Lady Clementine Churchill, messages from Prime Minister Anthony Eden, and the typed script of an appeal, broadcast by Sir Winston Churchill on Christmas Day, including corrections in his own hand.
The speech was made in 1929, the year Churchill lost his position as Chancellor of the Exchequer before returning to politics after the election of Adolf Hitler in 1933.
Lady Churchill was a patron of BWBF, originally set up in Great Portland Street in London, and a portrait of her presenting a radio to a blind person in 1929 hangs in the foyer of the charity’s HQ.
Mr Watson’s discoveries included the minutes of the charity’s first committee meeting from June 10, 1928 which reads like a who’s who of the great and the good from the time, notes from the editor of Churchill’s speeches Charles Eade and from the Attorney General from 1945 Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe.
Mr Watson said: “It was amazing. I’d pull out one astonishing find, reach in and find another!”
BWBF today employs 17 mem- bers of staff and about 40 volunteers who take its services to visually impaired people across the country.
Mr Watson added: “It’s fascinating to discover how the history of our charity has been so closely interwoven with the history of our nation.”
‘I’d pull out one astonishing find, reach in and find another’