The programme which is thought, by many, to have persuaded many people to get television for the first time was the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth 2nd in 1953. By then, the BBC was a veteran of live transmissions away from the comfort of the studio, as the first OB was on 12th May 1937. This was another Coronation - the crowning of King George VI. The man responsible for that production was T H Bridgwater, one of the Outside Broadcast engineering staff. "There was no producer at all" he says, "I think the philosophy at the time was 'here is an event passing by - all you have to do is point cameras at it'". Sixty years later, he remembered that the camera whose picture was shown to the handful of TV viewers was chosen by him, standing on the steps of the BBC van, and watching the procession as it rolled past the distant cameras. The cameras were not allowed inside the Cathedral to watch the actual ceremony - that was to wait another 16 years
A later head of the Outside Broadcast department, Peter Dimmock - and one of the men responsible for televising the 1953 Coronation - says there was significant opposition even then to the idea of allowing cameras inside Westminster Abbey to allow ordinary people to watch the ceremony. He says it was only pressure from newspaper writers that persuaded the 'powers that be' to allow the cameras inside the Cathedral. Even so, the cameras weren't allowed to show any closeups, which, it was feared, would place the Queen under too much pressure. Of course, the Queen was a thoroughly modern monarch who grasped the concept that broadcasting would allow her to become much closer to the widespread commonwealth of nations over which she reigned.
The broadcast was shown live in Britain, and then a recording was flown to the US and Canada and other countries around the world. It was the event which turned Britain - and many other countries - into a nation of 'tellywatchers'.
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