Our story unfolds with the development of wireless telegraphy, used for Morse code, in the years leading up to the Great War in 1914. At that time, telegraphy was used extensively for long-distance communication and was an invaluable method for ship communication. Amateur enthusiasts, also well-versed in the Morse code, could tune in to transmissions from ships and mainland Europe; for them the world was brought right into their homes. The author was fortunate in being able to contact two pioneers of those pre-Great War years, Edward Backhouse and George Day, who were able to bring alive once more the thrill of those times. George Day still remembered the astonishment with which he first heard, among all the Morse, a human voice - wireless telephony.

The initial development of wireless telephony was left largely to individuals. Lieutenant Crawford was one. In 1907, by adapting his ship's wireless telegraphy equipment, he broadcast a concert to neighbouring ships. Another was Grindell Matthews, a consulting engineer, who between 1910 and 1912 experimented with broadcasting to aeroplanes and cars. As his work developed he employed, as a wireless engineer, W T Ditcham. Ditcham had plenty to do. He had to find a way of generating and transmitting radio frequency power; he also had to overcome the problems of the microphones overheating because they had to carry the transmission current. Then there was the problem of determining a suitable detector for reception. Ditcham would later become chief engineer of the Marconi station, call sign MZX, at Chelmsford.

Initially, the burgeoning number of amateur experimenters was considered by major manufacturers to be a passing phase. However, within those Companies were individuals who believed there was a future. Captain Peter Eckersley is a name that will recur throughout our tale. He and his small team at Writtle, near Chelmsford, had built a telephony transmitter for Croydon Airport about a year earlier; he was now permitted by his employer, Marconi, to develop public broadcasting equipment.

With no appreciable funds, Eckersley and his team had to make do with what was around. The Croydon airport transmitter circuit was adapted and the first public broadcast was on 14 February 1922 using the call sign 2MT. The performance was muffled, valves badly overheated and the transmission was weak. But it was a start.

Funds for artistes were non-existent, so Eckersley and other engineers had to do the broadcasting. Marconi Head Office in London decided the form these experimental broadcasts would take - stereotyped announcements, records and the like. However they had reckoned without Eckersley. Following an exhausting day's work, he and his team would meet at the Cock and Bell to decide the evening's broadcast. Then back to the hut where Eckersley, the entertainer, was star of the group, spontaneously funny and receiving much fan mail. So was the 2MT Writtle legend born. Within a year our entertainer would be chief engineer of the BBC.

By its nature the story of this evolution is both a human and a technical one, the roles of its engineers intertwining with the human story of ingenuity and struggle in dealing with problems of engineering, premises and looming bankruptcy. To omit technical development would unbalance this great tale and the author, my brother Brian, has not been faint hearted in writing of this. He has, however, limited himself to a description of the technology and its attendant difficulties; that will serve as a starting point for further reading.

In early 1922, after a visit to the USA, Isaacs, managing director of the Marconi Company, returned to the UK full of enthusiasm for the building of radio receivers and transmitters throughout the country. He spurred on 2MT Writtle, but was not going to have a clear run. Other manufacturers were pressing the Postmaster General for permission to broadcast.

Rather than a multiplicity of applications and discussions, the Postmaster General restricted the building of wireless receivers and transmitting stations to existing British manufacturers of wireless equipment. He made the novel suggestion that the manufacturers, although in competition with each other, should form a decision making committee, subject to his overall approval. This was done and the committee came to be called the 'Big Six' - although in addition to representatives of the six major manufacturers there was also one representing all the smaller companies. The Big Six first met on 25 May 1922 and later became known as the British Broadcasting Committee. In turn, this Committee decided that it would form a Company known as the British Broadcasting Company, which later evolved into the British Broadcasting Corporation. But back to May 1922.

The race was on. Much to the dismay of Isaacs, his assumption that Marconi would end up building the transmitters and other manufacturers would be limited to the building of receivers was not shared by the rest of the Big Six! Certainly, only Marconi had any significant experience in this field but, undaunted, others would give it a run for its money. They gave the go-ahead to their research staff to produce something - in blissful ignorance of the enormity of what they were demanding!

Metropolitan-Vickers was one such challenger and sharing its enthusiasm was their head of research, Arthur Fleming. 'Metrovick' had done little to show that it was a realistic contender when it learned, in July 1922, that the Postmaster-General was about to decide the Companies that would be allowed to build the transmitting stations. Their research engineers quickly built a 50 watt transmitter of a type that any amateur could have built, a boardroom was taken over as a studio and quickly hung with sound absorbing cloth. They obtained a record player, borrowed records from staff and engineers became announcers. Thus the Manchester station, call sign 2ZY, started experimental testing on 27 July 1922. What impression it gave is not known, for there were parallel struggles within the Big Six that affected the issue; however, they were still in the running. The next problem to hit them, in October, was the commitment to build and run a 1.5 kilowatt transmitter and provide a broadcast service every evening, including live performers - by mid November! How they met their deadline, the reader will discover!

Apart from the problems of acting during the evenings (as with Writtle, money was tight) the engineers had intractable problems by day as they struggled to improve their equipment. The problem was that the USA was ahead of Britain and solutions that had been found there had been patented and were unavailable. In the UK, Marconi was ahead of the field and guarded its patents jealously. Nevertheless, Manchester 2ZY engineers persevered and, among other achievements, produced an excellent (but quite ungainly) microphone.

Western Electric had left it even later in developing its station, Witton 5IT, on the outskirts of Birmingham. With its production capacity fully committed to the manufacture of radio receivers it was not until early October 1922 that it began to design its own transmitter, in its London laboratory - with a deadline of 15 November! The equipment was packed on to steam lorries on 11 November, was held up by fog and arrived on the following afternoon. Under the direction of A E Thompson the studio was built and furnished, the aerial was erected and the station was operating three days later. However, once again, money and therefore artistes were in short supply and initially Thompson and his installation engineers had to entertain.

The pressure and stress on all engineers was unbelievable. Music placed yet new demands, not only on the quality of the microphone but also on studio acoustics. Very little was known about acoustics in 1922, even in concert halls, as witness the Albert Hall, London at the time! Microphones that could deal with music, amplifiers of unprecedented power, efficient aerials – all had to be designed as matters of extreme urgency. The frustration when new ideas did not work, the overwork, the looming deadlines, the quick meal snatched before entertaining the public … time was always short. When the great Dame Nellie Melba, accompanied by top brass, came to sing at 2MT Writtle, the engineers did put a small piece of carpet on the concrete floor in front of the microphone. This she kicked away and proceeded to sing into a microphone on which the engineers had fabricated a cone out of an old cigar box. Little did she know that in the middle of her performance the transmitter failed!

But the strength lay with the Marconi Company. It not only had a lead, thanks to development work at Chelmsford but, as it was to build six of the eight stations, it could justify a greater financial commitment. Furthermore, one of these six was the central London station, 2LO, into which it put its main effort, allowing 2MT Writtle to become technically static. Under the guiding hand of Arthur Burrows, 2LO grew rapidly. It was close to theatreland, enabling artistes to perform (gratis) before their evening show, and it was close to the decision-makers. 2LO continued apace, introducing Londoners to radio by inviting them to halls where they could 'listen-in'.

A mainstay at 2LO was the young and energetic Stanton Jefferies, who, interviewed for the post of conductor, found himself immediately de facto musical director and soon rose to Station Director. Overworked and overcrowded like everyone else, Stanton Jefferies would have auditions by day, become Uncle Rex for Children's Hour and then dash off to a nearby pub with Cecil Lewis to prepare for a Covent Garden evening. Jefferies would not forget the occasion when a celebrity was to broadcast and he had managed to persuade the press to sit outside. One obedient person he did not recognise; he inquired as to his name:

"My name is Reith."

Reith was appointed Managing Director by the newly formed British Broadcasting Company (formerly Committee ) in mid-December 1922 and a small room was found for him and his few staff in Magnet House, London. His personal office was described as a cupboard. From that 'cupboard' he controlled the eight stations which the Big Six had created - plus Writtle, Chelmsford; each of these continued to operate with its individual call-sign.

An immediate task was to find premises big enough for his 2LO engineers who were bursting out of their space in nearby Marconi House; premises also big enough to hold his office staff who had to liaise with all eight stations. Just before Christmas 1922 Reith and three of his senior staff went around central London premises-hunting. They needed somewhere quiet, large enough to allow for expansion, close to theatre land and sufficiently presentable to receive persons of power and influence. They settled on the Institution of Electrical Engineers, next door to the Savoy Hotel and overlooking the Thames.

The tall, autocratic and demanding John Reith fought on all fronts. He won his battles against a hostile press, he demanded and won a good financial basis on which to develop the BBC, he undertook building works and expanded beyond the Institution of Electrical Engineers as his staff swelled to about 300. He alone decided the types of programme suitable for the listening public. He was even instrumental in having his employer, the British Broadcasting Company, with its links to manufacturing, replaced by a Corporation, the British Broadcasting Corporation, basically as we know it today. The effect of this man on his staff can be imagined but they were young and keen and as our story closes they recall those dynamic days with fondness; the start of a great enterprise. We present the story of their enthusiastic struggle to you. Auntie was young once.