THE LITTLE RADIO

New Zealand Listener, Volume 1, Issue 14, 29 September 1939, Page 23

THE LITTLE RADIO

By

H.G.

H.

HE little radio kept up a tinkling dance tune away over in the corner of the used car habitation. To add to the depression of the sixty cars temporarily out of use -the place was dimly lit. A few days ago many of them had heard their death warrant from that same little radio: "No petrol for private cars." The very, very cheap twenty-year-old Ford seemed to crumple up with the news. He had hoped that some day he could at least share a corner of some implement shed and take out meals; but now with this knell sounding in: their ears even the three-year-old Chevrolet with the superiority complex, looking out of the front window could hope for nothing but a long internment. There was a little office over near the radio on which a still deeper depression seemed to have settled. The little radio rattled on brightly, the only thing in that derelict company unconcerned with petrol and its vagaries. While the light in her corner was going she could go. The boredom in the big car shed could be felt. Three days now since their doom, and from that fateful moment not one had been even for a trial run up the road. "A bicycle built for two" chirped out from the corner. What impertinence! Even the old Ford way back in the shadows, still longing for the corner of the implement shed, lifted his 1920 eyebrows in disdain. As for the V8 with her back turned scornfully to the delivery truck that had barked her enamelled skin in entering, even she in this last humiliation spoke to a shabby little Morris wearing "A

sorrow’s crown of sorrow," remembering happier things. Those little lanes of Oxford where she had made her trial run! True, she hadn’t been painted then, but what a future she had looked to. The V8 was speaking, "Whatever ricketty station is that thing switched on to! If I only had still my short wave I could get London, A bicycle, indeed! " There was a lull in the radio singing. A man’s smooth voice was advising that an anti-cyclone was advancing over the Tasman; and then! God bless the little radio. "After next Friday owners of private cars may have ten gallons per month." The old Ford shook himself and felt to see if his tank was still there. The V8 made a pleasant remark to the delivery truck and cracked a joke with the Morris, and the Chevrolet in the window furtively wiped a few specks from her bonnet. A man’s whistle now accompanied the little radio in the corner. Blessed be petrol.