JB PRIESTLEY is known for many works, but is probably less known as the “second most inspiring wartime broadcaster since Churchill”.

In 1940 Hitler’s armies occupied most of Europe and Britain faced threats of invasion and the Blitz - of which the 80th anniversary is on Monday. Priestley’s wartime radio broadcasts, from April 1940, attempted to rally the world, particularly the United States, to Britain’s cause.

Published for the first time in Britain Speaks, these overseas broadcasts provide a fascinating record of the People’s War. Bradford-born former MP Austin Mitchell has delved into the BBC archive to discover previously unpublished material revealing how radio was used to influence the wider world into supporting the war effort. JB Priestley, by then an eminent, successful writer, had gained popularity as a broadcaster. His role during the Second World War was critical - both encouraging morale at home and the support of Government to bring America into the war effort.

Austin Mitchell, a former Bingley Grammar School boy, was a journalist at Yorkshire Television from 1969 to 1977, presenting Calendar. He writes: “His Bradford background made JB Priestley Britain’s greatest broadcaster and morale booster of the Second World War.

At the start of the war upper class politicians in Parliament and the Ministry of Information had talked down to the people as in early slogan ‘Your determination and your courage will bring us victory’. Priestley realised that this was a people’s war, not a struggle to preserve Ascot and the Boat Race, but one fought by everyone. To win their enthusiasm they had to be offered a better future. That meant a vision of full employment, slum clearance, health and education, the kind of programme which brought Labour victory in the 1945 election.

These views he made clear in his famous Sunday night Postscripts, though he was taken off air in 1941 by Churchill who saw that Priestley’s messages would divide a Tory Party he’d just taken over. Yet Priestley continued to urge his views with ‘Britain Speaks’, his twice weekly broadcasts to America and the Commonwealth through 1940 to autumn 1943, by which time victory was coming slowly into sight.

Britain Speaks is a collection of the best of those broadcasts. As well as sustaining British morale he painted for the overseas audience a picture of Britain’s total mobilisation and showed how, despite the bombing, defeats and pains endured, British life went on. The determination of the people to end the Nazi tyranny never faltered.

As a man of the people Priestley was better able to speak for the people than any other broadcaster. His flat Yorkshire accent carried Britain’s message to the world in a way no upper-class voice talking of restoring empire could ever have done. He built up support from the Commonwealth and sympathy from America which became Britain’s arsenal and eventual ally but unlike American correspondents clustered in London, he went to Manchester, Leeds, Blackpool Glasgow, and Liverpool to report on the impact of war and the feelings of the people.

The best report came from his home city, Bradford. There he discovered that the bombing had had a minimal impact. Nazi bombers had flown hundreds of miles to destroy a drapers, Lingards, and a pie shop which many as old as me may still remember because of the giant pie which remained still bubbling in the windows despite the bomb damage. The pie, like our resilient city, lived on to enjoy the peace for which Priestley, more than any other broadcaster, had paved the way and prepared the people.”