A Run Through The Programmes

New Zealand Listener, Volume 1, Issue 15, 6 October 1939, Page 5

A Run Through The Programmes

dinner two or three times before he was Satisfied with it. Yet he used that very careful literary style to depict the rough life of the Californian gold diggings, and some of his stories and poems have become classics. It is not, however, generally known that he left America in 1878 to become a Consul abroad, and never returned. C. R. Allen is to give a centennial talk about him from 4YA on Thursday, October 12, at 8.40 p.m. Another New Serial Spring is coming in indeed, and what with daylight saving and the lengthening days, people will be thinking soon about summer sports. But when the new serial, "Silas Marner," begins from 3YA at 8.47p.m. on Tuesday, October 10, we can visualise Christchurch people torn by a dreadful conflict of emotion-whether ’tis better to have another set of tennis or another hour of the wireless pet. Forty Years Ago The people of the gay ’nineties had a repu‘tation for fast living, but their songs don’t support it. Such a melody as " Silver Threads Among the Gold" brought many a lump to the late nineteenth century throat, and "The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo," "Daddy Wouldn’t Buy Me a Bow-Wow," and "Two Little Girls in Blue," were hardly less effective in producing sobs or laughs. In a programme arranged by Frank Luther, wellknown American broadcaster, to be presented from 2YC Wellington at 8.45 p.m. on Friday, October 13, many of these songs will be recalled. Be honest with yourself and see what happens as you listen, Hobson’s Choice Captain Hobson, our first Governor, and one of the most pathetic figures in our early history, came to New Zealand on a difficult és and delicate mission. He had to do the best he could to make New Zealand, or part of \ it, British; but at the same time he had the _ most definite instructions to make the welfare of the natives his first consideration. These instructions are a State document of the highest importance. They show that while the irregular settling of New Zealand was attended by a good deal of rascality, the official founding of the colony had fine ideals at the back of it. Mrs. R. M. E. Ross is to

speak about Hobson’s instructions on Tuesday evening, October 10, from 4YA Dunedin at 8.40 p.m. Cinderella: Round the: Wettd Fairy stories are much travelled things. The same story crops up in different parts of the globe and it is sometimes hard to trace where it came from. This is certainly the case with Cinderella. The story of the slipper appears in ancient writings in various forms. It is found in Italian and French literature, and it is an interesting point that in the English version Cinderella’s slipper is

of glass. But from about 670 B.C.-when the story seems to have started-the slipper was of fur, and fur it is no doubt in Rossini’s comic opera "La Cenerentole," to which listeners will hear the overture from 3YA Christchurch at 8.30 p.m. on Sunday, October 8, Off The Tourist Route Very few people know Greece at first hand, especially the Greece away from the ports of Athens and Corinth. Some tourists wander round the ruins of the Parthenon and try to recapture the old glory. But there is another Greece, the Greece of the old peasant and the shopkeeper; the Greece of the olive tree and the vine, of the wildflower and the climbing goat. There is at least one person in New Zealand who knows that Greece at first hand, and that is Ida Lawson of Dunedin. Miss Lawson studied archaeology at Cambridge and toured the Mediterranean with a girl friend. She got to know the people of Greece and had many curious experiences. You will hear about them if you listen to 3YA on Thursday, October 12, at 9.5 p.m.