a broadcasting station based in continental Europe which could be received in the United Kingdom. Captain Leonard Plugge, who became a Member of Parliament, also set about building his own International Broadcasting Company by leasing transmitters in France and other countries to beam commercial radio into Britain. The venture was very successful and, because Reith had banned Sunday light entertainment on the BBC, the IBC stations gained as much as 80 per cent of the Sunday listening audience by 1938. Meanwhile, Peter Eckersley had sought other ways to bring the signals of the IBC stations into the living rooms of Britain. Rather than relying upon a receiving set licensed by the General Post Office, he began to wire parts of England for an early form of cable radio but was stopped by the intervention of the GPO. The IBC stations were eventually silenced when Adolf Hitler's troops captured the transmitters. From 1937 onwards Peter Eckersley worked for British Military Intelligence MI6 to help combat propaganda coming from Nazi Germany with British propaganda stations. He was turned down for war work. The Eckersleys took holidays in Germany a number of times and attended the Nuremberg rallies of 1937 and 1938. They appear to have separated between then and the start of World War II. Dolly worked for the German broadcasting service during the war (as did James Clark, her teenage son by her first husband Edward Clark), and recruited William Joyce. Dorothy and James were tried in 1945 for providing support to the enemy: she was sent to prison for a year and James was bound over for two years. She died in 1971. Peter Eckersley died, aged 71, on 18 March 1963 at the West London Hospital in Hammersmith. References Further reading Eckersley, P.P. (1941). The Power Behind the Microphone. London, Jonathan Cape. Eckersley, Myles, Prospero's Wireless, Myles Books 1997, , A biography of Peter Pendleton Eckersley - pioneer of radio and the art of broadcasting. 1892 births 1963 deaths British radio people Royal Flying Corps officers People educated at Bedales School English electrical engineers English fascists Huxley family Royal Air Force officers British Army personnel of World War I Royal Air Force personnel of World War I