John Logie Baird loves inventing things! When he hears about another inventor who has built a machine to show real live pictures, John sets about trying to do the same. Equipped with bits and pieces found in his house, John begins a journey which will change the course of history forever. Mister T.V. follows the life of John Logie Baird and the story behind the invention of the television.

'A fabulous distillation of all the joy and bitterness, hurt and humour of an extraordinary man... I doubt there will be a better written, more interesting or important book published in Scotland this year' - Daily Mail (2004) 'Funds were going down, the situation was becoming desperate and we were down to our last £30 when at last, one Friday in the first week of October 1925, everything functioned properly. The image of the dummy's head formed itself on the screen with what appeared to me almost unbelievable clarity. I had got it! I could scarcely believe my eyes, and felt myself shaking with excitement.' In one of the most extraordinary and entertaining autobiographies to be written by any scientist or inventor, John Logie Baird tells the story of his life and the scientific journey which led to the creation of television. He writes with blunt candour and caustic wit about his childhood in Scotland and the wild escapades of his early business career, when he marketed his own patent brand of medicated undersocks, failed in a hilarious attempt to set up a jam-making factory in the Caribbean and went on to sell soap wholesale. Then he gives the definitive account of the epoch-making experiments through which television was created, and his later troubled relationship with the fledgling BBC and his bête noir, Lord Reith, who disliked television. The BBC obstructed and snubbed Baird at every opportunity. Some of his commercial and scientific rivals made a concerted attempt to discredit his status as the central figure in the invention of television, and even today, this has led to his importance being misunderstood. Edited and introduced by Baird's only son, Malcolm, this new edition will help to set the record straight. This edition features a new preface and updated and expanded footnotes, referencing two important technical books by Dr. Douglas Brown on Baird's work on colour and 3D television during World War II. In August 2020, an American journal published a research article by Brandon Inglis and Prof, Gary Couples, with details of the special photocell that Baird used in early stages of his research (1924-26).

Examines the life and work of John Logie Baird, who created successful television systems and was a key figure in the history of the development of television.

John Logie Baird is someone whose name is virtually unknown to most Americans. He was a gifted Scotsman who managed to perfect the world's first working television system.

This is a balanced biography of one of the 20th Century's outstanding inventors, published to coincide with the 75th anniversary of Baird's first public demonstration of a rudimentary television system.