The
Romance of Marconiphone.
Recorded around
After hearing this page when it was first uploaded a few years
ago, Ola Andersted from Sweden kindly wrote,
identifying the narrator as Ralph Richardson.
Just click on the picture of the label to hear the record.
As you will find out, it attempts to induce the purchaser of a Marconiphone to recommend a friend who would like a
demonstration of one. In return, you would receive a free copy of the book ‘A
City of Sound’ – presumably whether your mate bought one or not? 8^)
Now this record is quite common – I have had three or four copies
of it, and saw another at a record bazaar a few days ago. But the book is
another matter. I never found one, and I have haunted second-hand bookshops
(from time to time) for many decades. Perhaps few people actually recommended a
friend?
Last week, we finally lost all patience, and taxed Abebooks for a copy. No problem: eight or nine were
available; oddly, three of them from the U.S.A.
The cheapest one from the U.K. sufficed to quench our burning
thirst, so here it is:
Who is – or was – Ernest Pendarves
Leigh-Bennett? Manifestly, he wrote books – books such as ‘Making a Modern Car’
(Armstrong-Siddeley, 1924); ‘Come Abroad With Us’
(The Southern Railway, 1929); ‘Historic Exeter’ (Exeter Official Publicity,
Exeter, 1936); ‘History of a House Flag (Rotterdam-Lloyd, 1939); ‘Some Friendly
Fairways’ (Southern Railway, 1929); ‘Red Funnel Stuff For 1939’ (Isle of Wight
and South of England Steam Packet Company, 1939); ‘Golf in the South’ (Southern
Railway, 1935); ‘Southern Ways & Means’ (Southern Railway, 1931); ‘On This
Evidence’ (The Centenary of the Legal & General Assurance Society, 1936).
On this evidence (ahem), Leigh-Bennett was a freelance author who could be
retained by a company or official body to write for them. Which is exactly what
Marconiphone got him to do with the above book, which
is dated 1933.
Mind you, he also wrote other books, such as: ‘Devon and Cornish
Days’ (1933?); An Errant Golfer (1929); Dandies of Covent Garden (?); All At
Sea (1938);
The Launch of The ‘Queen Mary’ (1934);
The Other Man’s Job (1937) and Cornish Granite (193?), and doubtless much else.
Indeed, he may have been active in many other fields; but I
cannot find anything about the man himself in Google – which is what usually
happens when someone is prolific, as Leigh-Bennett certainly was. Alas, all the
references seem only to be about his books.
A comment on a website devoted to Armstrong-Siddeley
cars says of ‘Making a Modern Car’: ‘The book is written in a very effusive
style…’; and so is ‘A City of Sound’. On the 78, Ralph
Richardson is reading part of the text, from pp
14-15. I always liked the phrase ‘watery
wilderness’; and L-B (if he will permit us to be so
familiar) was evidently much given to these alliterative pairs. Waste of the
World; Solace in the Sound; Captious Critics; Horror in Hull; Telegraph
Tinkles; Controls so Calmly; Temerity to Tamper; Factory Fascinations; Welter
of Work; Purring Placidly; Shining Switchboards; Fumbling Finger; Helsingfors or Haverfordwest.
Actually, that’s virtually all of them.
The book has a deliberately ‘antique’ appearance. The edges of
the hard covers are ‘floppy’ – I don’t know what the proper term is – and the
edges of the pages are quite irregular, as if they have been cut roughly. I
have had more than one uncut book, but have always cut them very carefully with a thin, sharp knife
to make the page edges as even as possible. It’s is probable that the
‘antiquarian’ feel of the book (which, by the way, is only 50 pages plus some
illustrations) is intended to increase the prestige or gravity of its subject –
the purchase of expensive domestic radio equipment in the depths of the Great
Depression - which as far as the general public were concerned, was only 10
years old in 1933. The type face employed is intended to do the same thing, I
think.
Just click on the above thumbnail to see the page big. The type
face is, shall we say, idiosyncratic; the italics have a most unusual
back-swept tail to the ‘d’, one which was current in handwriting long before.
Ah: I see I missed ‘Hierarchy of Hayes’… For ‘Hayes’ is
indeed the fundamental purpose of the book. After sections on Marconi’s
early years, the use of radio in the Great War, and its subsequent role in
binding together the British Empire, the second half of the book is E-B’s
impressions of many days spent looking at the various departments of the Marconiphone Company, on the giant EMI factory site at
Hayes, Middlesex. The Hayes factory is indeed ‘The City of Sound’. E-B records
his impressions as he travels from department to department, always deferential
to the skilled experts in their work at all levels, but keen to learn what they
are doing, and how they do it. But he is frequently baffled by the technical
details – or at least pretends to be, for the sake of his readers.
I think that’s enough? There are 8 pages of monochrome photos. at the back of the book. The second, a historic one, is
given below.
Click on it to see it larger. I wonder if I ought to start
collecting the works of E B Leigh-Bennett? Many of
them were sold or otherwise widely distributed, and are not unduly expensive.
He is an excellent communicator. We shall see…
Page
modified
Revised
14th December 2011.