Mum's family get their first wireless

I'm writing up my Mum's memoirs and have arrived at 1932 when at the age of nine, she was over the moon to have a real live doll in the form of a baby brother whom she adored for the whole of his life - she eventually outlived him.

Mum wrote;

Also about this time we acquired a wireless, which was a great event in all our lives. It had a fret- work front over fawn silk which covered the speaker and stood with great pride on a shelf. No electricity or batteries as we know them - the power came from a collection of about 12 ‘wet’ batteries housed in a wooden cabinet which Dad made. 

These batteries had to be taken to the shop to be charged - one each week - and as each was about half the size of a car battery, you can imagine this was quite a job. 

We still had one of these types of wireless in 1948. 

There were just 2 stations at this time - Daventry National and London Regional, and it was like magic to hear music coming out of this box on the shelf. 

Previously the only music I heard was Mum singing around the house (which she did all the time). Mostly she sang the old Music Hall songs, so I got to know them well, but if I joined in with her, she immediately switched to singing alto, so I got used to part-singing. 

Now we had all the dance bands - Harry Roy etc, and always Henry Hall at Saturday tea-time, followed by the football results, the news and the fat-stock prices!

This was really when people began to know what was going on in other parts of the country and the world, but communication was still very much in its infancy.