Broadcast Engineering Museum 2026 open days

[ppppenguin]

What a weekend! We had more than 230 visitors over the two days, a new record.

Not long now until our next regular open day on Sunday 4th October. We have a special event: Iain Betson will have a display about cold war broadcasting and will be talking about the subject.

From the 1950s to the 1990s, if the Cold War had turned hot, the Government had well-laid plans for what to do in the event of a nuclear strike on Britain. Part of those plans was the implementation of the BBC-produced, but Government-directed, Wartime Broadcasting Service: A single national radio station that would have replaced ALL radio and TV services in the UK.

Originally conceived to provide both information and boost the morale of survivors whilst they waited for rescue, it morphed into a mouthpiece to tell the nation how they might survive after the H-Bomb was dropped and the recovery of the country afterwards.

But for many it would have been the last voice they ever heard...

Using a multimedia presentation of images, audio, video, AI recreations, first-hand memories of the people who ran it and declassified documents, Iain Betson tells the story of this little-known piece of Cold War history: Where would it have been broadcast from? What would have been heard? (you would be surprised!)

Who, in the event of an attack, would have descended into the bunkers to broadcast it?

And does such a service exist today?