Objects of the BBC

Celebrate 100 years of the BBC through familiar and not so familiar objects used in BBC programmes and content. From the bizarre looking Blattnerphone of the 1930s to the Covid Tracker developed by BBC News during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Don't miss the Object of the Future, as envisaged by primary school inventors in conversation with BBC Research & Development.

My first BBC encounter was Andy Pandy, on lunchtime Watch with Mother popping up on our TVscreen in the London suburbs.

But then in parallel I had another very personal experience of the BBC, as my mother was one of the presenters on the Eastern Service at Bush House, and I remember vividly being taken there from the age of five, and encountering first hand the thrilling sense of the BBC broadcasting to the wider world.

On to the collection, and there were so many objects that triggered very personal associations... Alexandra Palace mast: I remember as a young News Correspondent in the 1990s the OB engineers I was working with had to be in line of sight of that famous mast to ensure links to the transmitter. It gave me a wonderful sense of continuity right back to those very first TV technologists. Something almost monumental about it – like an Easter Island statue.

Next, it had to be All You Need is Love from the Our World satellite link up of 1967. So many contributions from other participating nations were worthy even dire, but The Beatles and the BBC understood what people wanted. It was a high point in British youth culture and creativity, and all done so simply and elegantly.

Back to school now, and I am in my Wimbledon all girls secondary school in the basement next to the cloakroom in a room like an old-fashioned telephone box where the BBC Micro sat. No teacher ever told us how to use it, but like thousands of children all over the UK, it was the beginning of my journey into computing. And I think I realised even then that it was taking me into a new world.

What would I add? I think it would be Maida Vale Studio, where so many musical greats – classical and contemporary – performed. I remember sitting near Paul Weller to watch our mutual heroes The Zombies record R4 Mastertapes for example. And it stands for all the BBC buildings, objects, artefacts that staff and audiences treasure, that sometimes sadly seem to be abandoned in managerial reinvention.