The Broadcast Engineering Museum - England

[ppppenguin]

We have one of the Marconi Mk II cameras that was used at the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. We are making a special display around it for our open days. The photo shows a Mk II camera in the triforium at Westminster Abbey with senior cameraman DRG “Monty” Montague.

In a book written to commemorate Richard Dimbleby, the BBC's TV chief commentator at the Coronation, Montague wrote: "I used to enter with a sort of Groucho Marx straddle and make for the box seat where I could straighten up sitting down – a paradox this, but comfortably true"

[ppppenguin]

It was a really successful weekend. About 200 visitors spread over the two days. There will be much more on our website once we've got our breath back and sorted out the photos.

The first photo is a few cameras clustered round a bar, dressed to be a bit like "Coronation Street", a popular and very long running UK series. All these types of cameras were used to shoot "Corrie" over the years. EMI 2001, Marconi Mk III and IV, Ikegami 323(?)

The second photo is our tribute to the late HM Queen Elizabeth II. A Marconi Mk II camera that was used at the 1953 Coronation, a couple of portraits of the Queen, some Coronation memorabilia and a 1949 Invicta TV. This last was actually a cheat. A modern CRT monitor inside the old cabinet. We have several true period sets but we had far too many other things to do other than make sure a vintage set kept working all weekend. This photo was taken before we had hooked up the set.

I've also attached a PDF of the right hand poster, about TV and the Coronation. We also put a little note next to it saying: "

Then the Queen arising out of her Chair, supported as before, the Sword of State being carried before her, shall go to the Altar, and make her solemn Oath in the sight of all the people to observe the premisses.

This was part of the solemn oath administered by the archbishop and signed by the Queen. The word "premisses" is not a mis-spelling. It's an archaic word. We can understand this as the Queen saying she will observe everything asserted in the oath.

Thanks to television, for the first time in the history of the monarchy, the Queen really was crowned "in the sight of all the people"

[ppppenguin]

We've had our second open weekend, again under the Heritage Open Days scheme. Very successful with more exhibits and fantastic weather. A bit too hot for some of the kit

Come and have a look round:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aUhLLy6Ryg

The cute kid stealing the show is the grandson of the late Michael Cox. He founded Michael Cox Electronics whose first and probably most famous product was the CoxBox caption colouriser from the late 1960s.