A look back at those radio times of old
THESE old adverts for radios are more than half a century old and take us back to an age when home entertainment was very different.
They come from the 1963 Wireless and Electrical Trader Buyers’ Guide and Price List, a copy of which has been given to the Bugle by Phil Jones of Penn Fields, Wolverhampton.
Today most radio is broadcast digitally as well as on the traditional frequencies and it can be downloaded via the internet, so that we can listen to what we want, when we want.
Things were very different in 1963. Then the BBC had a monopoly on British broadcasting, its only competition being Radio Luxembourg and certain off-shore “pirate” radio stations.
Since the Second World War the BBC had three nationwide services, the Home Service, the Light Programme and the Third Programme.
The Home Service broadcast “serious” programming – news, drama and discussion – and when the BBC transformed its radio services in 1967 the Home Service was replaced by Radio 4.
The Light Programme evolved from the wartime forces radio and consisted of popular entertainment mainly. It would become Radio 1 and Radio 2.
The Third Programme was the home of classical music and cultural broadcasting; it became Radio 3.
If you were a youngster in 1963 and wanted to her the latest in pop music and entertainment, you tuned into the Light Programme. “I remember listening to Saturday Club with Brian Matthews in 1963,” said Phil Jones, “and Pop Goes the Beatles.”
1963 was the year that Beatlemania took off and many of the great singers and bands of the 1960s had their first hits.
The buyers guide gives full details of the radios, including weight – a Grundig Transworld TR16 weighed 10lbs, which doesn’t seem very portable when compared to today’s devices.
The Kolster-brandes (KB) Rhapsody De Luxe Super 8 (see opposite) cost 15 guineas (£15.15s). At that time the average weekly wage for a man working in industry was £17.12s, so luxury items like this were out of the reach of many.