Recently the BBC asked through Radio Times for any historic recordings of past broadcasts. We have an old 78 record purporting to be taken from a broadcast made from our church. The Radio Times archivist, Dr Steve Arnold, has confirmed that on Sunday 15th June 1952 the morning service was broadcast from Hale Congregational church. The record contains the musical items and the reading from the service given by Rev. H. E. Coltman. Steve wrote “It is fascinating to see what survives from the past. It was quite an expensive undertaking in the early 50s to make a recording, so this must have been considered important. If you have an uncompressed transfer of the digital file we could offer it to the BBC or the British Library in due course.” The requested copy has been sent accordingly.
The 8 minute recording is available on the church history website and can be played via this link (opens an external site in a new window).