Dr Bill Mitchell looks back at the early days of broadcasting and its impact on the Dales

In 1958, the BBC broadcast from Alum Pot, that huge limestone shaft above Selside.

T’wireless lads, who arrived in a Land Rover and two cars, were greeted by members of the Bradford Pothole Club. A considerable length of cable was laid in Long Churn, the approach passage, and into Alum Pot itself. Aerials set up on the moor allowed interviews to be transmitted to the village, then passed forward by landline.

Nowadays you may chat to almost anyone, anywhere, via a pocketable device. In the 1930s, a hush descended on Skipton as Joe Wilkinson made his wireless debut by singing When I Married Amelia. That tinny voice had novelty value. It’s not the case today. Sound and vision bombard our senses.

I recall visiting a West Craven farmstead where the farmer had dressed for a special occasion. He would sit before the radio and listen to Saturday Night Theatre.

For a host of families living at villages and farmsteads well away from electricity supplies there was a broad smile when George Newsholme, of Clapham, appeared to view. In 1952 he invited me to join him in his blue van on one of his rounds when he would exchange batteries.

He kept wireless voices and music strong and clear. At one spot he showed me a battery he had just collected from underneath a milk stand. A piece of black cotton had been tied to it. Said George: “The folk here are good payers – but they like to be certain they’ve got a new battery and not an old one.”

Philip Robinson, who was regarded as the Voice of the North, was based in Leeds. During the Second World War he compered programmes that the BBC transmitted to North America. Philip inaugurated the series entitled Have a Go! which became an institution through the personality and wit of Wilfred Pickles.

During the colder months of the year thousands of people switched on their radio sets to have their hearts warmed by a programme called The Northcountryman. This was a weekly miscellany about northern life and people. The programme was introduced by Philp Robinson, whom I met at Clapham, noticing that when he left the village he had some catkins pinned to his overcoat – and there were the strains of a folk tune on his lips.

A major source of memories of t’owd radio days was James R Gregson, a Yorkshireman who had almost as many ups and downs in life as a lift attendant. He was born in Brighouse in 1889. I had my first long conversation with him in 1956 when he was living at Riverside Cottage, near Linton-in-Craven.

His first broadcast – a 15-minute talk about theatre work – was in 1924.

He recalled: “The studio was like a padded cell. The microphones were of the ‘carbon’ type. When they became tired and faint, the engineer would kick them about the studio to shake them up. Producers had to “twiddle their own knobs.” This task was later left to the engineers..

Bertha Lonsdale is another name one associates with the early days of radio. She contributed some memorable plays, based on factual events, to the BBC’s Children’s Hour, which was transmitted from Manchester. I remember her radio portrait of Lady Anne Clifford, who has strong connections with Skipton Castle. The names of her castles were recited as though they were in a litany.

The BBC recording unit occasionally turned up at Clapham, where The Dalesman was published. They had a large car to which extra strong springs had been fitted to accommodate the mass of equipment that was placed on the back seat. I have occasionally appeared on television, most recently near the old single-span bridge at Clapham where – in times past – the radio has simply recorded what was said. Now it was being televised – chatting with Matt Baker for the programme Countryfile.