Ought we not have some shrine to the pips?

Next week marks the centenary of the pips. On Monday at 9 p.m. a documentary will be broadcast on Radio 4 debating whether the six little tones which ring in each hour ought to be axed as obsolete or preserved for tradition’s sake. Some contributors will speak of them as annoyances – ‘the cockroaches of broadcasting’ is a memorable phrase – and others will ask what could possibly replace them. By the end of the programme, whatever your view, you will have the pips lodged firmly between your teeth.

The first pips, which represent the Greenwich Time Signal, were transmitted at 9.30 p.m. on 5 February 1924. Discussions had been held the previous year between the BBC’s John Reith, astronomer royal Frank Dyson, and Frank Hope-Jones, chairman of the Wireless Society of London, about catering to the public desire for accurate time-keeping.