S.O.S. AND BROADCASTING

Evening Star, Issue 19407, 16 November 1926, Page 8

S.O.S. AND BROADCASTING

OTHER GASES OF URGENT MESSAGES A CALL FROM SAHARA The safe recovery of the pills which a Birmingham chemist made up with a quarter of a grain of strychnine is another triumph for broadcasting (says the London ‘ Observer ’). The mistake was broadcast as soon ns it was discovered, and the pills were traced and placed in charge of the police before the woman to whom they were posted received them. Three hundred S.O.S. calls have been broadcast this year, and more than 200 have been successful. Last year they numbered 242, and 156 were successful. No call so sensational ns that concerning the poison pills has been recorded before, but many interesting messages were recalled as the result of the pills episode. A motorist travelling in the South of France was asked in one of the calls to return home on _ account of the serious illness of a relative, the index number of his car being given in the announcement. “Wo heard a few days later,” it was stated, “ that the motorist had been stopped and given the message by an A.A. scout, who was a wireless enthusiast and recognised the number of his car. On another occasion a message was picked up in the Sahara.” A hospital once asked for a call for ass’s milk for a child lying seriously ill. Within twenty minues several persons rang, offering both asses and goats. Nothing so thrilling as the capture of Crippen by wireless has yet come of the calls broadcast at the request of Scotland Yard. These calls have been mostly for ■witnesses of accidents and for traces of persons suffering from loss of memory. WHAT IS “URGENCY”? The British Broadcasting Company has two general rules governing this section of its work. With the exception of such an urgent and unusual case as that of the poison pills, S.O.S. calls are only broadcast—• 1. In cases of serious illness, and then only when the address of the person required is unknown and the application is accompanied by a medical certificate, or the company are in possession of the means of obtaining medical verification of the message. Urgent S.O.S. calls of this kind are sometimes broadcast when the address of the person required is known, but. owing to the closing or breakdown of telegraphic facilities, it is impossible to reach the addressee through the ordinary channels. 2. In case of a missing person, but only when written instructions have been obtained from Scotland Yard. S.O.S. calls are never broadcast—• 1. Unless it is a matter of life and death. 2. Unless all other means of communication have failed. 3. In cases where death has already occurred. All sorts of people, of course, have asked for messages to be broadcast which are entirely beyond the scope of the service. One the other day wanted the loss of a cat announced, and offered to pay every expense, and then telephoned: “Don’t make the cat announce ment; cat returned.” The loss of canaries and of parrots has been broached to the 8.8. C. authorities in the same way; and a lady who missed her train from Manchester to Blackpool wished the fact announced in order that her friends might not wait tea. ' GENERAL STRIKE APPEALS. The general strike produced many curious appeals. There was that of the lady who had to get up early to walk to business, and asked the 8.8. C. to broadcast a message to her neighbors to stop playing the piano after mid- ' night; and there was the bookmaker who had had an unlucky day at the races, and telephoned from an obscure hotel in Chester that he feared his clients Ijnd discovered his whereabouts, and asked the 8.8. C. to let him know in their next transport bulletin “the next train leaving Chester, the destination being immaterial.” Then there was the case of the man embarking at Southampton ' for Australia, whose friends wanted a message broadcast tolling him “ not to worry, as they had found the tickets he had left behind in Glasgow.” The most extraordinary appeal of all came from a man who telephoned to say he wanted a message broadcast for silver paper. “What do you want silver paper for?” he was asked. “I make it into balls and give them away,” he replied; and then added: “Do you know what I _ like best in your programmes? I like your afternoon eon-, certs, I put no the head phones, take a glass of beer, and go to sleep.”

Last evening the City Fire Brigade answered an automatic false call to Thomson and Co.’s premises 'iu "police ■Street.