John Logie Baird

"MY earliest memory of him dates back to 1938 in the garden at our house in Sydenham, South-East London.

"He was muffled in an overcoat and scarf— he always felt the cold."

A PROMINENT Helensburgh man wrote his first and only book at the age of 84.

And finding out about it came as a real surprise to his grandson, Professor Malcolm Baird, son of TV inventor John Logie Baird.

A TEENAGE neighbour of Helensburgh-born TV inventor John Logie Baird sent his recollections of an association with the inventor to the Helensburgh and Gareloch Times in the 1960s.

TV INVENTOR John Logie Baird is by far the best known member of his Helensburgh family, but his sister Annie also had a distinguished career in nursing.

TV INVENTOR John Logie Baird is arguably Helensburgh’s most famous son, but what about his father?

The Rev John Baird was a formidable figure. Many may have seen him in a well known and much published photo outside his West Argyle Street home, with his sister Annie and son John.

The November 2013 closure of the Logie Baird pub on James Street, Helensburgh, prompted Malcolm Baird to reflect on his father's connections with alcoholic drink.

JOHN LOGIE BAIRD was the son of a Scottish minister and he was raised in the late Victorian era.

His sister Annie, who lived until 1971, told me that in those days there was no alcohol in the family home except for a small unopened bottle of brandy that was kept for medical emergencies.

TV INVENTOR John Logie Baird is always thought of as a brilliant scientist . . . but he had another talent, writing.

His forays into fiction, as an enthusiastic contributor to the Royal Technical College Magazine, won him admirers amongst his student peers.

Book review by Malcolm Baird of 'The three dimensions of John Logie Baird' by Douglas Brown, published by the Radio Society of Great Britain.

John Logie Baird died in 1946, but television historians are still divided about his contributions.

By Professor Malcolm Baird, President of Helensburgh Heritage Trust

WE are sometimes told that television has taken the place of print. I would like to explore this idea.

This article is the text of a talk given by Andy Andrews to Bliss Probus Club in February 2011, at the Chequers Public House, Goddard Lane, in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire. Andy was 99 in August 2011 and is still going strong. His original handwritten manuscript was transcribed by Kenneth Crawford in March 2012.

John Logie Baird was born in Helensburgh, Scotland, in 1888 and died in June 1946. He was Superintendent of Clyde Valley Electrical Power Company until the end of the First World War. In 1920, because of very poor health, he went to Trinidad and opened a jam factory.

Professor Malcolm Baird, son of TV inventor John Logie Baird and president of Helensburgh Heritage Trust, remembers the first broadcast.

BBC TV Scotland opened in a wave of optimism on Friday March 14 1952, just a few weeks after the Queen’s accession.

AN interview in June 2011 about a radical overhaul of the National Trust for Scotland raised a few eyebrows in Helensburgh.

The Scotsman interviewed Trust chairman Sir Kenneth Calman, who said that the Trust must become more commercially minded, intervene to save threatened historic sites, and generate more cash from its existing assets.