'Nuclear Bomb Exploded!', 'Communist Troops Advance In Korea!', 'Nasser Takes Over Suez Canal!, 'Budapest In Flames!', 'No More National Service!' These fragments of history have been sent richocheting around the estate by dozens of black-dialled wireless sets. By the time the Daily Mirror lands on our door-mat (even though it carries the tension-packed Garth cartoon strip) the sense of being on the cutting-edge of history as it is happening has faded away. By the time evening draws in and we are leafing through the Bath & Wilting the edge of excitement has been almost completely blunted away.
Our wireless set is the most draught-free corner of the sitting-room ('the north-west passage'.) This is where we huddle round and listen to nerve-tingling episodes of Take It From Here and the charismatic Eth and Ron (1948 - 1961), to Dick Barton - Special Agent! (people still cannot believe how it was taken off air in 1952), Jet Morgan's Journey Into Space (launched back in 1953), epic football matches such as Wolverhampton Wanderers' 3-2 victory over the Hungarian champions Honved in 1954, and - from 1951 on - (provided you could find the elusive 208 metres wave band) the latest hit-songs from Radio Luxembourg. If the old man is around he will shout "Turn that dirge off!" from his sofa bunk. Unless, that is, the silky charmed voice of 'Horace Batchelor' is slithering down the ether. The words of Horace hold everyone in their spell. In the days before Horace walked on history's stage K-e-y-n-s-h-a-m was a Nondescript Someplace Somewhere Town known only for its chocolate factory (as well as the lewd gnomes on display in its suburban gardens.) That all changed when the inventor of the 'infra-dig' method of winning fortunes on the football pools took Radio Luxembourg listeners by storm. As soon as the K word was spoken (with each of its eight illustrious letters repeated in turn) the spirit of Saint Keyne - founder of the settlement of Keynsham back in the fifth century - begins to emanate out of the swirling mist.
There have always been a few sour and discordant voices who whsper that K-e-y-n-s-h-a-m only left its imprint on the map of world consciousness in order to ensure that tens of thousands of 'Big Pools Win' seeking postal orders safely winged their way into Horace's K-e-y-n-s-h-a-m post office account. Yet Horace was a "most sincerely, folks!" Hughie Green kind of guy who -from 1948 on - (when the secret of the 'infra-dig' method first was first unveiled to an astonished world) - poured out twelve million pounds from out of his own Post Office account and into the coffers of the downtrodden masses. (How much stayed in Horace's own coffers is what air cadets are told to call a "known unknown".)
Today the word 'Batch' has come to be used as a shorthand term for 'Batchelor'. It denotes the musty and rather off-putting odour that batchelors who refrain from washing their bed linen, socks and under-garments are said to reek of. (According to Mr M. Amis members of the 'Batch' fraternity always prefer black to white underpants as they stay cleaner for so much longer.)
The Radio Luxembourg broadcasts of Horace Batch had their downside. it is said they helped promote the deluded myth that a win on the football pools is enough to ensnare the Goddess of Happiness. Yet who could deny that those distant post-war years would have worn a far more sombre look without the K-e-y-n-s-h-a-m incantations of the world famousHorace Batch.