Emley Moor mast is celebrating a big anniversary. EMMA KIRBY went up it and had a tour of the workings inside

FIFTY years after the first transmissions from Emley Moor a lot more is going on at the mast than you might think.

To mark the anniversary, the company which owns the site, Arqiva, held an open day for special guests to look around and - if they were very brave - travel up to the top of the 1,000ft tower.

Emley mast is Arqiva's national operations centre for all its broadcast activities. The control rooms monitor and maintain a network of 50 high-power television masts, 1,100 relay stations and 700 transmitters for FM, AM and digital radio.

The tour started in the television control room, where operators sit behind two banks of computers, monitoring a 20ft screen showing ,ore than 100 individual channel streams.

The guests then moved on to the hardware. Technical managers from ITV, Galaxy radio and the BBC nodded along wisely to the descriptions of what was happening inside a series of beige boxes - but some of the other guests were flummoxed!

As broadcast engineer Tim Varga explained how the transmitters worked people racked their brains to remember their A-level physics. But as Tim pointed out pipes and said they were carrying Channel 4 one guest said she couldn't help imagining a tiny Noel Edmonds whooshing along, doing deals with the banker.

For such a massive structure the mast is surprisingly hollow. From inside it is a perfect example of the 60s vision of a concrete future. With a huge metal structure carrying the lift up the centre it looks ready to take part in the space race.

Six people squeezed into the tiny lift for a noisy and juddering seven-minute journey to the platform at 900ft.

With a clunk the guests arrived and piled out for a 360° view of a large chunk of Yorkshire.

From that height the rolling dales look rather flat and sheep seem like so many scattered grains of rice.

Villages are dotted in the foreground, Emley, Kirkburton, Shelley.

Huddersfield is distinguishable, with the Royal Infirmary and Castle Hill standing out. Further afield the urban sprawl encompasses Dewsbury, Bradford and Leeds.

Drax and Ferrybridge power stations puff out innocent-looking white clouds on the horizon.

The only thing missing from the panorama is the mast - but it does cast a big shadow!