Life is strange. the Wright brothers invented how to fly with a heaver than air machine. Boeing have developed the airplane so much that it is just nothing like the Wright Brothers first aircraft. they still use the basic principals.
Father that is John Logie Baird invented Television. Over the years it has been improved. he had 1800 line full colour television up and running in the 1940's.
One American Company spent $75 Million trying to make colour television and only achieved it after father died and they stole his patents.
his rather backward wife did nothing. he was making his own three gun and four gun cathode ray tubes before he was sadly taken from us.
Without any Doubt
John Logie Baird of Helensburgh Scotland
Invented Television!!!
The Television Inventors Award
My Mother had gone on a visit to her old boss John Logie Baird, who was living with his family on the South Coast. She had worked for him for several years as a live in housekeeper, because his wife and children were living on the south coast for greater safety during the second world war. With hindsight it seems that there relationship was a very close one. She was some 25years younger than John, and did absolutely everything for him, including greeting the many famous stars, who understood the importance of his invention. Many became friends of mothers, they included Winston Churchill, and Walt Disney.
Mother that is Kathleen Faux had an artistic gift, she used it to help john with his hobby, Photography. She as the photos show she loved to pose and was a willing model. She coloured many of his photographs, making such a good job of them that they caught Walt Disney's eye, enough for him to offer her a job at his Studio in Los Angeles.
While many were searching for the code of colours to make colour television, One company spending a fortune [75million in the 1940's].John with mother's artistic help managed to find the basis of three colours produced by light, that would provide enough of the spectrum for normal viewing. By 1946 when he died he had 1000 line colour television up and running. It was then as today that the small minded go for important jobs. I too am having problems with Universities and News Papers. The educated steal ideas.
Sadly for all concerned I was the result of this visit to her old boss. I say sadly because she had been married some three years to a Stanley Mays who lived in the same small village as mother. Abridge, the village, is small and very rural, and often John went with mother to visit her friends and family. Now I enter this world, and I am hated by both mother and Stanley, who out of sheer frustration beat me often in a frenzy, so much that at the age of 5 I was admitted to Whipps Cross Hospital.
I was taken to visit my father twice and in a settlement to both Kathleen and Stanley he bought them a home, 107 Wanstead Park Ave. The deal was that the home was theirs as long as they brought me up as their own. I am sure that father felt that this was best for me, and all involved. The sting was that poor Stanley could not bare to even look at me, and for most of my childhood I was hidden away from him. Father sadly died when I was three years old, leaving Stanley and Kathleen free to dispose of me. In preparation for my leaving mother would sit and tell me of her life with John Logie, but never saying exactly who I was. I was placed in an orphanage. I had new shoes a new coat and a new small Teddy. The orphanages were tough in those days and I managed to survive by shutting down, living day by day. My shoes wore away and my feet were always wet, the coat became thread bare and thin so I was always cold. We were beaten if we talked so I had two years of silence. We were not taught anything, we existed. There were no birthdays, and there was no love, but we were fed and we were kept alive. I had the Baird blond hair so was often paraded in front of people who wanted to adopt a child, I was often patted on the head, yet it was always the pretty girl who was taken away, never me. I knew a lot about my father but never connected myself with him. Mother had never touched me so I had to learn to walk alone and even dress myself alone, which was good as I knew how to survive alone and without love in this orphanage.
My father had a perfect pitch ear which he passed on to me. This means that listening to piano music is wonderful, leaving me in a glorious state. My father fell in love with a young lady he met in a Library it was a match made in heaven the only doubt he had was that her background was not as good as he had hoped. While he was making up his mind and trying to find a way to earn a living between the Caribbean and England the young lady married another man. Devastated father managed to work out a sharing deal with her husband. But as he progressed with his life he always had one eye open for another love. By chance he met a young concert pianist and fell in love with her and her music. They married but he still saw his first love and as soon as his wife's piano playing stopped so did his love for her. She always looked down on John never accepting him as an equal . I am sure that my mother and John were never in love, only in lust.
I feel positive that if I met Malcolm I would like him, as he is my half brother.
I will write down all my mother told me of Father, including the fact that he had a strong dislike for his son, hence the lack of TV appearances. Mother loved him and the memory of him following his life, and holding him up to me as being "Such a fine little boy, with wonderful manners." The Bairds also loved a rare breed of dog called Bedlington Dogs. when she could afford one she bought one and had it at her side until she died aged 83. I have an understanding with Malcolm, as was he too illegitimate? Perhaps some day DNA will answer the questions.
He loved hollyhocks and foxgloves. He planted Cherry Trees around to help him carry a little of Helensburgh with him
John Logie Baird had a passion for clocks and watches, also enjoyed the Victorian Music box, the pianoforte box was his favourite, as it often sounded as if the pianist had six hands. Friends were very important to him. He never got over the loss of his mother and blamed his father for her somewhat hard life. He loved Helensburgh and his home there, surrounded by Cherry Trees. He stopped smiling on photographs so that people would take him seriously, thinking that his fathers wonderful sense of humour had held him back as far as promotions within the church. He needed love and was always devastated when the woman he loved so much spurned him. He always wanted to marry above his class as he adored the Arts, from Orchestral to Modern in music. He loved the Opera and Ballet. The theatre was also a great way to spend time. He hoped that an upper-class wife would open doors to this side of life. He loved the fine life down to tea from Bone China, and a clean napkin with every meal, even if it was only tea and a bun. He was fascinated by the Occult and astrology , with building and decorating, with food and good wine.
I forget the name of his soul mate, t was unimportant at the time I was told, I think it was either Susan or Pat, the hard thing was that she was absolutely perfection for him. He loved her beyond explanation, the only hesitation he had was that she came from a normal background and was not the better class girl he hoped to marry who would open doors for him to lead to the Lords and Lady's of this World. while thinking about what was the best thing to do, his love impatiently married someone else. He had asked her along on his Caribbean trip, but she had refused feeling that it was improper for a unmarried lady to escort a man in this fashion.
His journey on this earth was for him filled with wonder and he wanted to experience or at least know how things worked, how things were created. His inquisitiveness could lead him on and his then brilliant mind would take over allowing him to solve any problems. When the cathode ray tube became a better television system than his early experiments he soon learned to make them, adding with his skill colour into the equation. He could almost invent to order and as he crossed the path of something that interested him he would earmark it, to return later, like Fibre Optics. He sadly died before he could pursue this channel.
There is allot written about my father, seldom do we hear how the USA waited for his patents to expire then grabbed them, this gave them colour television in the 1950's, thanks to the BBC we had 405line black and white. As you read the books on my father you end up with the distinct feeling that his family looked down on him as a lower-class eccentric. Read all the items you can and the image is there. His wife had such little interest she did nothing with his patents! I think Malcolm was too young and I was, Kathleen should have helped but I guess she would not have been welcome at that time. The next strange comment from his son was that father only left the sum of 5000 pounds! at that time this would have bought some ten houses a lot of money!!!
Then his wife returns to South Africa unusual for a mother to leave her children? she had I guess spent the inherence. I received nothing from anybody yet don't complain.
He was a brilliant man with his mind full of new ideas. People don't understand the sheer difficulty in making something work. He met many stumbling blocks and managed to overcome them all, to be the first to produce Televisions. Only if you lived with him can you know about him. The problem with colour television was how to reproduce the huge spectrum of colours on the screen. One "gun" per colour was fine but when you need thousands of colours it became impossible. His house keeper by chance was a fine artist and together they found the secret three colours needed to produce a good colour picture on the screen. Trying to attempt the same the USA spent some 75million Dollars without success. All the small minds including Bairds grandson who hid, when I went to the museum in Bradford Yorkshire, peeping at me from corners, don't know the great Logie Baird.
The picture he was producing was messy and he spent days and weeks trying to improve it, even taking a tip from the film industry by placing a blanking plate between each frame. Eventually he found out that a plate in front of the light sensitive valve with a curved slot geared and timed to the main spinning disc did the trick. The picture became sharp and the shades greatly improved. He had bought several bulls eye lenses from a bicycle shop, they were mounted on the spinning disc to pick up the picture. They were hard to set into the thin card even when he used copious amounts of the Red Sealing Wax. They would fly out with a tremendous force as he spun the large disc, threatening the life of anybody nearby. Then thankfully late one night the light dawned that he only needed one lens mounted before the light sensitive valve. When we look at it today we see it as "Easy" to do, and feel I could have done that. Yet we know that it was another fantastically great mind from the wonderful Helensburgh that made it possible.
Piano Concerto 20 466