Restoring Baird's Image - IET Digital Library

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Acknowledgments The discovery nature of this book means that a great deal of the material presented is original and new. In addition, a considerable amount of supporting material puts the story into context with the history of imaging technology. Where possible, this material has comprised facts and photographs that are either new or have rarely before been published. I am particularly indebted to Clare Colvin of the Royal Television Society (RTS), John Trenouth of the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television (NMPFT), Nicholas Moss of the BBC and Ray Herbert for supplying photographs to use in this book. In addition I thank all those referenced for permission to use their material freely. In maintaining the book's theme of restoration and preservation, I have suppressed the defects of age, such as shading, scratches and crease-marks, in every one of the these historic photographs using off-the-shelf computer graphics software. Over the years, various people have supplied me not only with historic information but also that valuable commodity for a solo worker, encouragement. Foremost among them is Ray Herbert, whom I have known since 1982. Ray is a former Baird Company employee whose personal knowledge of Baird's achievements and whose personal archives of the Baird Company are unsurpassed. Time has taken its toll in the years since this work began; almost all of the pioneers of British television engineering from the 1920s and 1930s are now no longer with us. Amongst those, Tony Bridgewater showed probably the greatest interest in this work - particularly since he had been a Baird employee who transitioned over to the BBC for the 30-line Television Service. I remember Bridgewater and the other pioneers with respect and gratitude for their encouragement. My thanks also go to Doug Pitt and all the members of the Narrow Bandwidth Television Association (NBTVA). They keep alive the interest in those early days of television through their innovative use of technology to achieve television on amateur radio channels. This book would not have been possible without the kind support from the owners of the discs. I am grateful to H. C. Spencer, J. G. S. Ive, B.
xx Restoring Baird 's Image Clapp and E. G. O. Anderson for allowing me in the 1980s to transcribe their precious discs. I hope I have made them even more precious by doing so. At time of writing, three of the six Phonovision discs are in the collection of the NMPFT in Bradford, one is in the archives of the RTS and the two remaining discs are in private hands. For the later recordings of BBC television transmissions, I am grateful for Dave Mason and Jon Weller for bringing their discs to light. I am especially grateful to Eliot Levin of Symposium Records who provided the essential transcription of those later discs and undertook the archival transfers of all the Phonovision discs for the NMPFT in 1996. The historical background on John Logie Baird was drawn in part from his autobiography. I thank Professor Malcolm Baird for permission to quote extensively from his father's book. In addition, I thank Earl Sherrin for permission to quote from J. D. Percy's unpublished memoirs. In preparing this book for publication, Martin Salter of R. H. Consultants (lately of Ampex Corporation) and Ray Herbert helped considerably by applying their extensive knowledge to check and correct the book for historical accuracy. My thanks go to Martin Eccles, Editor of 'Electronics World', for permission to re-use the title of my October 1998 article, 'Restoring Baird's Image' and for supporting my series of five articles. In gathering the photographic and written material that supports this book, efforts were made to track down the original copyright holders. In a few cases it may be possible that copyright has been incorrectly attributed. In that instance, I apologise for the error. I dedicate this book to my children Rhian, Malcolm and Heather, and to my wife, Lydia - the first to share in these images from the dawn of television.
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