BY ROGER WATSON
An abiding memory of my grandfather’s house in Huntly, rural Aberdeenshire, was the barely audible chatter coming from his Philips transistor radio. The radio sat on a small table slightly behind the chair where he always sat at the fireside. If visitors arrived at the house, he would always turn down the volume on the transistor, but it rarely got turned off. He was intensely interested in politics and current affairs.
My paternal grandfather was a local Labour politician. He rose to becoming the provost or leader of the town council in the 1960s. As a former Gordon Highlander with service in the trenches during the First World War, he had the honour of giving the freedom of the Burgh of Huntly to the regiment on 14 June 1966.
This was captured on film and is available, titled Freedom Day, on YouTube. There is footage at the start of my grandfather cycling to work. In retirement he was Custodian of Huntly Castle and he manned the office there daily. There is also footage in the film of him, in his ermine robes, delivering the speech which awarded the freedom to his former regiment. There is footage too of my much-loved uncle and aunt from Inverness with my two cousins and, if you are very quick, a short clip of my parents. Sadly, I did not feature in any footage, although I was there and recall the day vividly.
My grandfather died in 1981, while I was near the end of my PhD. I had last seen him, in hospital with prostate cancer, in 1978. We had kept in contact occasionally by phone when his reply to ‘how are you’ was, inevitably but in good spirits, ‘fading away gracefully’. I was heartbroken at his death as he had been a great influence on me politically (my allegiance has long since changed) and he was very proud that I had made it to and through my studies at The University of Edinburgh and on to my PhD at the University of Sheffield.
In those days, funerals were arranged much more quickly than is customary now and the phone call to my laboratory from my parents to tell me my grandfather had died was also to tell me that the funeral was in a couple of days. I had to pack and leave Sheffield for the north-east of Scotland almost immediately and, as the call had come in the afternoon and there was no internet then, I simply went to the station and told them where I had to get to and when.
I needed to get to Aberdeen and on to Huntly. There were no scheduled trains but when I told them it was for my grandfather’s funeral the staff took pity and told me there was a goods train to Scotland passing through around midnight and, as they had one passenger car on the train, that they would stop it and ask if I could travel in that. That worked and, while I cannot recall all the details of the journey, I think I got to Glasgow on the goods train, across to Edinburgh on a scheduled train and up to Aberdeen. I recall arriving at the tiny station in Huntly the following day.
The family congregated at my grandfather’s house on the day of the funeral. His house was rented and had to be cleared quickly, and family members were gathering mementos. My father asked if I wanted anything and, while it was for once silent, my eyes moved to the transistor radio. My father said I could take it. I did not have a radio in my room in Sheffield so this would be both practical and a memento.
The radio took pride of place next to my bed where I switched it on, still tuned to the channel my grandfather had been listening to, and I entered the world, unknown to me until then, of BBC Radio 4. I recall being fascinated by a channel where people mainly talked, where news was delivered in-depth and which had hilarious comedies. I recall being hooked to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and the fantasy world created by Douglas Adams.
The radio then went everywhere with me. It came to London with me when I trained as a nurse and it has been in every one of my wife’s and my marital homes, including the one where we now live. My grandfather had it tuned to the BBC Long Wave service, and I have never once tuned it to another station. This was both in his memory and because I loved (note the past tense) Radio 4. Remarkably, I could probably count on one hand the number of times we had to change the batteries. It seemed to use remarkably little power.
For many years it has always been kept in one of our bathrooms, usually atop the bathroom cupboard, on a shelf or on the window sill. Despite my dislike of the propaganda now pedaled by BBC Radio 4 I still turned it on each morning while shaving and at night while cleaning my teeth. I had noticed that the reception on long wave was declining, almost to inaudibility at times, but imagine my disappointment on returning from holiday this week, turning on the radio as usual and hearing that the BBC no longer transmitted on that frequency. There were copious instructions about how I could still obtain their content by alternative means… as if!
The BBC switched off their long wave transmission on 27 June.
What purpose did long wave ever serve, you may ask. Well, it was the primary means of transmitting over thousands of miles to the far-flung corners of the British Empire. Radio long waves are, by their nature, very ‘flexible’ and can be transmitted by bending them off the upper echelons of our atmosphere. Short waves are excellent for transmitting clearly over short distances – e.g. walkie-talkies and the like – but they are powerful and will simply penetrate the atmosphere and disappear into space.
Yes, we now have FM, the Internet and two generations of DAB. FM is not terrific at long distance transmission and if you don’t have a DAB coverage where you are – and many locations do not – then DAB is useless. It is fitted in most cars these days but try listening to a programme while making a long journey and you will soon see its limits, literally. The Internet is perfect for long distance transmission, of course, provided it is both turned on and not blocked. Try listening to the BBC in China without a VPN and you will see what I mean.
So, goodbye long wave. As my grandfather’s radio also and only had medium wave capacity – another service long since turned off – it has become completely useless. However, it will remain on top of the bathroom cupboard for as long as I live.
Roger Watson is a Registered Nurse and Editor-in-Chief of Nurse Education in Practice.