THIS is the interior of the so-called “house of mystery” in Lister Street, which by 1933 was linking “the outside world with nearly 1,500 Keighley homes” via some 150 miles of wire carrying “entertainment, instruction, and enlightenment from the nerve centre in Knowle Park throughout the town”.

Radio Relay brought the 1930s listener “all the amenities and pleasures of trouble-free radio entertainment” for 1s. 3d. per week. Subscribers paid neither deposit nor installation charge, and could call out a service engineer free. Loudspeakers “in beautiful finished cabinets” could be hired for threepence per week.

Keighley’s Radio Relay Service was operated by JS Ramsbottom and Co, of Bow Street. When a Keighley News reporter visited their Lister Street headquarters in 1933 he described “the complete receiving and amplifying set” as “almost the width of an ordinary living room, and roughly six feet high”, as seen here.

The late Mr RL Rawling, a former Radio Relay engineer, recalled how the wireless set seen here on the right was used for transmitting programmes from America during the night.