Shipping Forecast centenary: give Daventry its due
This October marks a hundred years since the first dedicated national weather forecast for shipping was broadcast from the BBC's newly-commissioned Daventry radio transmitter, then the most powerful in the world.
This was a bit ironic, since Daventry is about as far as possible from the sea. But its transmissions could be heard by over 80% of the population, and its signals covered many stretches of our coastal waters.
The life-saving link between radio waves and those at sea are celebrated in the new book Good, occasionally rhyming, a collection of poetry and prose compiled by Rob Stepney and Kathy Clugston, who for many years read the Shipping Forecast.
Commissioned in 1925, the Daventry transmitter continued broadcasting until it was taken off the air in 1949. Three of its valves can be seen in the town's Museum.