BBC CARRIES ON

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 83, 24 January 1941, Page 12

BBC CARRIES ON

Broadcasts Under The Ground

By

JAMES

DREW

Now that BBC Headquarters have at last been bombed, people are wondering what the consequences will be? Can the service be put out of action, or have precautions been taken against the worst that can happen? Some of the answers will be found in this short article written for "The Listener"

ROADCASTING House is a B structure more than eight stories in height, with a considerable area underground. The studios and their suites are suitably grouped in a vast central tower, arranged so that artists are segregated on all floors from administrative and executive departments, which are accommodated in the well-lighted offices encircling the tower. Hence there may be said to be a building within a building, the brick tower being definitely distinct both as regards construction and occupation from the steel-frame building that surrounds it. The decision to build the central tower in brick only was made, partly to eliminate the risk of sound transference from studio to studio through a rigidjointed steel frame, and partly because the mass of the brickwork would still further cut out external noises. Ready for War But the BBC several years ago drew up plans to make Broadcasting House more than twice its size. An official news item stated that more than a million cubic yards of earth were to be excavated, but it did not say (as independent sources did) that this was part of a big air raid precaution programme. The building was to go 55ft. below pavement level-lower than the vaults of the Bank of England. By the middle of 1939 the excavation was complete, and it was expected that the new building would be ready for occupation by the end of last year. The fact that a hollow sound had been apparent in some recent London broadcasts is perhaps explained by the incorporation of five underground studios in the extension. In order to eliminate all possible risk of extraneous noise each was constructed as a separate shell, floated and isolated from the building itself. "The Mystery Man" When the crisis of September, 1938, broke it was disclosed that the BBC had been prepared for some time, even to the gas-proofing of the three underground floors. Colonel R. S. Trafford had left his office in the Talks Department and assumed the full-time duties of emergency plan organiser in a _ subterranean office devised for the purpose. He was the "mystery man," who 18 months previously secretly entered the BBC and drew up the radio plans for Britain in time for war. He examined

the whole programme schedule for the next six months — concentrating on the programmes that would go on even though war were raging. Provision was made for the oa tion of all emergency programmes to radiate news bulletins and pronouncements by the Government and the tink. with No. 10 Downing Street was duplicated. The Home Office and the War Office were also wired to a House. So far as the actual transmitters are concerned thorough precautions have been taken. Landlines are all subterranean and generally duplicated in secret | positions. Droitwich and the other transmitters have self-contained units and big reserves of fuel to maintain operations indefinitely. They also have great pools of water’ with which to extinguish fires, and are all closely guarded. So the calm, even-voiced announcers who continue to proclaim that it is "London calling" are not deceiving us. They have grounds for their confidence.