- Contributed by
- BBC Open Centre, Hull
- People in story:
- Henry (Paddy) Rigg
- Location of story:
- BBC, Bangor, Somerset
- Background to story:
- Civilian
- Article ID:
- A4151990
- Contributed on:
- 04 June 2005
Henry (Paddy) Rigg
Henry (Paddy) Rigg joined the BBC in the late 1920s to work in radio at BBC Belfast. When television started in 1936, most of the staff were recruited from within the BBC and Henry became one of the early television pioneers based at Alexandra Palace.
However, the exciting days of television were to stop when war broke out in 1939. The service ceased to operate and those few households with screens found them blank - albeit temporarily.
Henry didn't go off to fight on the front. Instead, he had to remain with the BBC where his engineering skills were at a premium. His war duty was to keep the main BBC transmission stations at Alexandra Palace in London, Bangor in North Wales, and Washford in Somerset operational.
His first daughter Dawn was born in 1940 in Minehead, where he was working at the time on the transmitter.
After the war ended in 1945, he returned to Alexandra Palace and then moved on to Lime Grove, working on the “Ask Pickles Show” with Wilfred and Mavis Pickles.
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