John Logie Baird

Among John Logie Baird’s old papers are some pages from a magazine called “Scotland” in its 1936 summer edition. He was asked for recollections of his earlier life and he recalled school and social life in Helensburgh, with a few comments on politics as the world drifted towards World War Two.

Talks with Great Scots    1. – J.L.Baird

(Of his Youth and the Northern Character)

“I remember, I remember, the place where I was born ...”

THIS Memorial Address was delivered to the London Memorial Service for John Logie Baird by The Rev. Robert F.V.Scott, D.D., Minister of St. Columba’s Church of Scotland, Pont Street, London.

"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 research note by Malcolm Baird, July 8 2019, amended March 6 2021

I have been re-examining  the colourful story of John Logie Baird’s jam factory in Trinidad in 1919-1920. It has appeared in his own memoirs [1] and in later biographies [2,3].

CELEBRATIONS marking the 90th anniversary in October 2015 of Helensburgh inventor John Logie Baird successfully transmitting the first ever grey-scale television image would have delighted a famous old friend.

The great entertainer Jack Buchanan, who was born in the burgh on April 2 1890, was a lifelong supporter of the TV inventor and invested in the new medium.

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.