It
soon proved that my mother’s wireless set survived unscathed my
many manipulations. Hence, the rules were further relaxed. This meant
that I was now allowed ‘on the Medium Wave’. The increasingly
appealing LW and KW, which stood for Long Wave and Short Wave,
remained off-limits however. No reason was given, but I think my
mother feared that engaging too many of the push buttons on the
wireless box might upset some delicate balance in the innards of the
set.
On
the new stomping grounds my attention was soon drawn by the
children’s programmes in Dutch broadcast from Hilversum in The
Netherlands. To me they were slightly more appealing than any of the
Flemish programmes on our own Belgian NIR, which stood for quite a
mouth filling ‘Nationaal Instituut voor de Radio-omroep’.
As
I grew a bit older I became captivated by so-called ‘Hoorspelen’.
In English they were known as radio plays. Through them the wireless
became my very own Tardis. The actors -with only their voices-
magically transported me to another place, a different time and new
sensations. With no visual component these audio dramas depended
on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine the
story. As a result they were often referred to as “the theatre of
the mind”. Radio
drama became very
popular before television ruined everything. That’s why even today
I often only listen
to Eastenders whilst doing some work on the computer. I like to think
that my imagined version of the goings-on in Albert Square somehow
has the edge.
Looking
back, the effectiveness of radio drama was probably best born out by
a Halloween radio special broadcast by CBS in the States. In 1938
Orson Welles proved so good at communicating with his listeners and
creating the theatre of the mind, that he drove a nation into panic (if the papers of the day are to be believed, that is).
In the radio adaptation of ‘War of the Worlds’, he presented H.G.
Wells’ novel as a simulated news broadcast. People believed it and
ran into the streets with wet towels as makeshift gas masks to
protect against the poison gas the radio said was headed towards
them. Many had no doubt that civilization
was laid to ruin by
invading Martians and were convinced it was the end of the world. One
particular farmer who, when hearing about the menacing Martian war
machines with their tenticular arms and stilt-like metallic legs, is
said to have gone out into his field armed
to the teeth, ready to do battle with the alien monsters. In the
darkness the poor man mistook his neighbour’s water tower for one
of the gigantic Martian invaders, blowing several large holes in it
with his shotgun.
In
the seventies we had a copy of the broadcast as performed by the Mercury
Theatre in our music library on board Radio North Sea. In fact on
September 17, 1973, ‘Daffy’ Don Allen put the ‘War of the
Worlds’ double LP on the air in it’s entirety on RNI. The album,
lasting for over an hour, had just been released in Europe. While
it was playing, the dj’s on the Mebo apparently sat listening in
the darkened studio. Graham Gill was reported to have chewed off all
of his fingernails during the performance. Unfortunately I wasn't on board at the time. In connection with the
‘War of the Worlds’ many people have remarked that when they
approach the towers of Red Sands Fort -the former Maunsell
Sea Fort home
of Radio 390 in the Thames Estuary- they are immediately reminded of
these woeful Wellsian war machines.
More of AJ's radio- and other anecdotes.
