ONE of the most extraordinary events in the history of broadcasting took place 100 years ago, in a Surrey garden near Limpsfield. Foyle Riding was home to the leading British cellist Beatrice Harrison, who, on May 19, 1924, became world famous overnight when the BBC—in one of its first live outside broadcasts—relayed her ‘duetting’ in her garden with a nightingale. The broadcast achieved a worldwide audience of millions and Harrison’s subsequent ‘cello and nightingale’ relays direct from her garden became regular, much-anticipated events for the next 12 years.
Harrison was a wonderful cellist. Born on December 9, 1892, in the foothills of the Himalayas, she was the second of a quartet of musical daughters. Her father
