Episode 7 - Larry Bennett (talks about Portishead Radio)

The Highbridge Podcast

Ident 0:10
You're listening to the Highbridge podcast, celebrating the people, places and history of the Highbridge area in Sedgemore

Mell 0:18
And welcome along to another edition of the Highbridge podcast celebrating the history people and places in the Highbridge Sedgemore area of Somerset. This season is funded by Seed which is a consortium of community organizations in Sedgemoor comprising of Bridgwater senior citizens forum Bridgwater Town Council, Community Council for Somerset homes in central Somerset film, and young Somerset, which is funded and supported by Arts Council England, creative people in places lottery funding, and the Arts Council. This episode, I'm chatting with Larry Bennett, who is going to tell us all about probably one of the world's most famous radio stations, which was based in Highbridge. Why was it so famous and who listened? Want to find out more then listen in to this fascinating chat with Larry Bennett? To start us off, Larry, tell us a little bit about what the radio station was all about.

Larry 1:27
Right? It was probably at its time the world's largest maritime communication station. If you think of today, when you pick up a phone, you can speak anywhere in the world by a satellite anywhere and any aircraft, any ships anywhere in the world, you can do that. Back in the 1920s. When it was formed, the only way to communicate with a ship was via radio. And that's using Morse code of all things. There was no telephony at the time, everything was in Morse code. So if you wanted to get the message to a ship, you sent a message to your local post office, who would then forward it to the radio station at Highbridge. And then they'd relayed by Morse code to a ship over the radio link. And if they wanted the message returned, the ship's radio officer would send a message back via the radio station, and it would then be forwarded to the destination. And that carried on for 30 -40 years from 1920s, 1930s, 1940s. Right up to the 1960s when radio telex came into operation, which made it much easier for shipping companies to send messages direct. There was also rated telephone communication but that didn't come to Highbridge till 1972. Prior to that it was done through a station at Rugby with a receiving station that Brent in Essex and also at Baldock.

So basically, the station was going to let everyone communicate with the ships at sea and vice versa. And that was the whole point. At the time, the British merchant navy was huge. One of the largest fleets in the world. And the station was and probably was even when it closed down the biggest maritime communication station in the world.

Mell 3:02
In Highbridge?

Larry 3:03
In Highbridge yeah,

Mell 3:04
The other thing that threw me when I first discovered it was it's called Portishead radio.

Larry 3:09
Yep. In maritime communication parlance. The station is named after the transmitting site. The station was formed in 1920. The original transmitters were at Devizes in Wiltshire. That was a site of an old point to point station which was converted to Army use in World War One. And in 1920, the post office took it over but transmitters there and it became Devizes radio station. The problem with that it was nowhere near the sea. It was a high power transmitter that was causing all sorts of problems to the receivers in the same location. So what the post office did was they put a receiving station in Highbridge away from all industry close to the coast. And then transmitters were about Devizes, the receivers were at Highbridge. But then in 1926, they moved the transmitting site to Portishead on Porterhead Down. And that's how the station got its name for so from 1925 It was known as Portishead radio. And that's how it stayed until the bitter end in 2000.

Mell 4:09
So when they actually moved into Highbridge they kept the name and that's why it stayed Portishead?

Larry 4:15
Exactly yeah the Portishead transmitters closed in the 1970s. But the station was so well known throughout the world. They just kept the name even at the closing down time the transmitters were at Rugby, but the main Portishead radio so so synonymous with shipping, they kept the name all the way through.

Mell 4:33
So when did you work there?

Larry 4:36
I was there from 1980 until the bitter end in 2000. So, unfortunately, I never got a job at sea, they preferred sea-going radio officers who knew the business backwards, but the turnover in staff was so high in the 1970s. They took people straight from college basically and that's how I managed to get a job. Obviously, there was quite a stiff entrance test you had to take a morse test and you had a year to prove yourself, otherwise, you were just chucked out. So you had to take a 27 words a minute morse test a French test of all things, which I was exempt from, because I had a French O level, and what's called a station and walk around, the station manager took around the station. And you had to tell him what every single part of this station did, from basic communication theory to how to power up the auxiliary power supply in case of failures and so on.

Mell 5:26
So that would be just in case of emergencies. And you were the only person in the building?

Larry 5:30
Exactly, yeah, the station never closed, it was 24 hours a day, three, six 5.25 days a year, for over 75/80 years.

Mell 5:40
So the size of this transmitter, it must have been huge

Larry 5:45
Initially, yeah, at the time when the 1920s, they hadn't investigated shortwave very well. So to increase the range, they thought they had to increase the power. So the Devizor transmitters were sort of 10/15 kilowatt, huge transmitters. But as they develop shortwave communication, which the radio amateurs at the time were quite keen on doing, they found they could cover the world on maybe two or three kilowatts. So back in the day, you'll see pictures on the website, which I'll tell you about later on, have the original transmitters, and they were absolutely immense. And of course, those days, it was all spark transmitters, and so on. Modulation didn't come till later in the 1920s.

Mell 6:24
So when the station originally was broadcast, and in its heyday, how many ships and how much traffic was actually going past or communicating with Highbridge

Larry 6:37
Oh immense, probably at its heyday, we take over 2000 telegrams a day, from probably well over 1000 ships, all in Morse code.

Mell 6:47
So that that is also time-consuming because you've got to translate it and then put it back and then send it out and then reply, an

Larry 6:55
it's not as bad as it sounds. But the good thing about Morse code, it's built up letter by letter. So we can send and receive messages in any language in the world, we used to take loads of messages in Greek. And because the letter by letter, you didn't even have to understand it. So we'd sit their headphones on, message form in the typewriter. And as the guy would send it from ship, we just type type it in, letter by letter on the typewriter. Once that's done, we check it out to count the number of words, make sure there's nothing missing, and then just pass it down the belt to be sent off by telex or telephone.

Mell 7:27
It's a completely different world to how it is today with just picking up a mobile phone and contact somebody.

Larry 7:33
It was an art form, basically, I think. You know, some of the skills you'd see people there, they'd had the other headphones on drink a cup of tea, sending Morse c...