There is now a growing body of feminist scholarship on the gendered meanings of objects in material culture (see Kirkham 1996) - and, more specifically, on the significance of domestic leisure and labour technologies like the video recorder (Gray 1992) and the microwave oven (Cockburn and Ormrod 1993). The research findings which are presented in this chapter complement that work by focusing on the ‘hidden history’ of early radio in the home during the 1920s and 1930s. Through an analysis of oral history interviews with elderly people living in a town in the North of England, and by drawing on documentary sources from the period, I am concerned here to try to chart the formation of broadcasting’s relationship with the household. To borrow a phrase from Lesley Johnson (1981), early radio was involved in ‘capturing time and space’ in everyday life. Its position in the private sphere, both as a technological object and as a provider of programme services, went through a transformation over these two decades. From being an ‘unruly guest’ in the living room, the radio became - symbolically at least - a ‘good companion’ to household members, and my research demonstrates how this process had an important gender dimension. At the moment of its arrival in the home, masculine discourses constituted the radio set primarily as a site of technical experimentation and adventure. Only later did women start to incorporate the wireless into their day-to-day routines, as changes were made to the design of the listening apparatus and as broadcasters began to address their audience as ‘the family’ .