Burnham-On-Sea resident and former Radio Officer Larry Bennett has recently published his second book.
Following on from his successful history of Portishead Radio which was published last year, his latest book, entitled ‘All Ships, All Ships’, is the complete history of the short and medium-range maritime radio stations which were located around the coast of Great Britain until the service closed in 2000.
These stations provided a lifeline to ships navigating close to shore, broadcasting navigational and weather warnings, co-ordinating distress incidents, and handling radio telegram messages and radiotelephone calls.
A book-signing event has been arranged for Friday 12TH November between 1.00pm-4.00pm at the Ritz Social Club in Burnham-On-Sea, where copies of this book and the Portishead Radio book will be available to purchase from the author.
Larry worked at the radio station at Highbridge until it closed, and he has been researching the history of the UK’s maritime radio service for many years.
He says: “The pioneering days of Marconi and his peers are covered, as well as the development of the Post Office maritime radio network which commenced in 1908 from a station at Bolt Head in Devon.”
“Each of the stations has a chapter devoted to them, including Burnham Radio/GRL which operated from the Radio Station site at Highbridge, alongside the long-range station Portishead Radio until the early 1970s.”
“From Land’s End to Wick, and from North Foreland to Oban, the main Coast Radio Stations are featured in depth, as well as the associated stations in Ireland and the Channel Islands.”
“The great Humber Radio flood of 1952 is covered in great detail, and maritime tragedies such as ‘Piper Alpha’, ‘Herald of Free Enterprise’, and ‘Princess Victoria’ are featured.”
“The book is profusely illustrated with numerous photographs, many appearing in print for the first time.”
“Memories of staff, sea-going Radio Officers and local residents have been used throughout the book, along with press and magazine articles featuring many episodes and incidents handled by the stations.”
“Details of wartime operations are covered, and the final years of the service are sympathetically recorded. A transcript of the final few minutes of Morse code transmissions from 1997 forms one of the many appendices which trace the history and development of the service. The decline of the service and the introduction of Distributed Operational Control (DOC) to remotely-control the network is explained in detail.”
Priced at £17.99, the book runs to over 500 pages, and is available from Amazon and other on-line retailers.
The book has already reached #1 in the Amazon ‘best-sellers’ chart in its genre, and is beginning to sell steadily around the world.
Signed books can also be ordered from the Portishead Radio website at www.portisheadradio.co.uk if required.
