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     Somehow I had got hold of it. This second isolation period completed, the medical authorities, in their wisdom, burnt the poor Jo’s Lion and to this day Jo has never forgiven me. Such are the trials of brotherly love.
     A lifetime on I was surprised to learn that soon after arriving at the Howland’s to isolate me from scarlet fever – their own son, Gordon, had contracted the infection and his parents had confined him to a bed on the top floor of the house. I subsequently learned that Gordon almost died yet it would appear my parents knew nothing of this at the time. It is quite likely I contacted the infection directly from Gordon, while staying at his house.
     By the time I was eight I had removed the clockwork motor from the record player and using Mecanno parts, wood and anything else that came readily to hand the construction of a cinematography projector began to take shape.
     From these Disc Jockey beginnings the seeds of interest in mechanical entertainment had been sown. In due course I was taken to the cinema and although the films interested me, I was more overawed and puzzled to understand how these pictures were controlled and projected onto the screen. One day I was given the chance to go into the projection room to see the machinery I was in my seventh heaven. For it was all so interesting.
     As the years passed the moving pictures replaced my love of the gramophone, gradually they occupied my thoughts completely. I was sold hook, line and sinker! I would make one for myself.
     All my time was taken up designing film feeds shutters and illumination lamps all had to be designed; high wattage lamps had to be found and housed to get concentrate light onto the film. I used an old “magic lantern” lens to condense and focus the beams onto old 16mm. Cine films I had obtained from an old junk shop in Harrow.
     The film content was of no consequence; my aim was to project a moving picture onto a screen made from a white sheet hanging on the wall. The large governed clockwork motor brought my project into the realms of the professional!
     At the time when the war broke out in 1939, television was being transmitted. But was only for the few wealthy enthusiasts who were able to indulge and purchase the few Television receivers available. I had seen them exhibitions and shops, and my interest was soon aroused.
     The green television images shining out from the round Cathode Ray Screens, enthralled and fascinated me. As an eleven-year-old, I had no chance to purchase a working receiver and even if I could afford to get one BBC transmissions were closed down at the outbreak of war. However in these early days I could make my own breed of “Cine projector” which, with further modification could become a type of television.
     One day, during the later period of the war, my father took me to an exhibition at
Selfridges Store in Oxford Street, London. The inventor of the Television, John Logi Baird, was present, showing his original mechanical Television transmitter and receiver together with a great number of electronic units, some still in their development stage.

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