Radio Room

Those Radio Times

Interest in vintage radio sets is on the increase. The radios of the 1930s and 1940s with their polished art-deco cabinets, softly glowing dials and mellow tones, evoke a good deal of nostalgia amongst those old enough to remember having such sets in their own homes. Younger people too seem fascinated by this technology of times gone by.

In recent years, reflecting this growing interest, radio museums have sprung up outside London in such places as Chester, Isle Of White and Sussex. Now Nottingham has its own vintage radio museum, the only one in the East Midlands.

For many years Nottingham Industrial Museum had a large collection of old radios, some 80 odd, which had been donated to the Museum over the years. These were wrapped up in storage and never seen by the public.

In 1993 it was decided to do something about this sad state of affairs, the Nottingham Arkwright Society set up a small radio museum area in the only available bit of space, the 'old kitchen'. A selection of some 50 of the most interesting radios were rescued from the stores, put back into working order, polished-up and exhibited as a working display on Steaming Days.

Amongst the more interesting items are several working crystal sets dating back to the early 1920s. Children in particular find it fascinating to listen to a modern 'pop' station on a pair of ancient headphones attached to a radio built nearly 80 years ago! The collection also includes several of the earliest valve radio sets in the country, all now in full working order and twiddleable under supervision.

Hands on exhibits with children in mind also include a microphone rigged to an oscilloscope so you can "watch what you're saying" and a Morse code telegraph system.

To complete the picture of home entertainment in the good old days, there is also a recorded music section with a 1940s Phonograph, wind-up gramophone with a selection of 78rpm old time records and later electric record players.

Visitors to the Radio museum are entertained by a 1920s horn loud speaker playing old time music from a concealed tape recorder.