MUSIC FOR THE TROOPS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 2, Issue 47, 17 May 1940, Page 48

MUSIC FOR THE TROOPS

2,500 Records Sent In To 2ZB

HE ZB Studios have found an unstinting response to any requests e which their announcers have made regarding supplies in some form or another for our soldiers. Recently Gladstone Hill, who conducts the "Band Session." at 2ZB each Sunday, was over-

joyed. He announced that the troops were forming an orchestra, and badly wanted a piano. accordion.. The telephone rang before the end of the session and a lady inquired whether £30 would be sufficient to. buy a brand new piano accordion! You can imagine Mr. Hill’s joy.

There have been many examples of such generosity. Here is another: Auckland may have its cats and kittens, but Wellington has its record$! Listeners will be glad to know that response to. Gladstone Hill’s "Band Session" request for records for the soldiers was almost. unlimited. The session was still in progress when the telephone rang, and kept on ringing, with toll calls and local calls. Mr. Hill says his private phone was hardly silent a minute during that afternoon and evening. "It was evident," he said later, "that an early start would have to be made with the collection, so with a postal van we set off at 8 the next morning. " At noon, it was necessary for me tu start sorting the records, and someone else took my place on the van. By 4 o’clock I had sorted and despatched 1,200 records, and had sorted another 300 for future use. The van came back with a load too big to take off that night, and the next morning another 500 were brought in." 2ZB was taking records in at the studio as fast as the girls could handle them. On the Monday evening the Railway phoned Mr. Hill and asked what they were to do with the records that had come in! When supplies were more than could be handled something had to be done about it. When people telephoned to say they had a number of old records to give, Mr. Hill found himself saying,

"Well, we did want them but we don’t" or words to that effect; and then 2ZB came to the rescue and asked listeners not to forward any more records until further notice. At the time of writing the result of the broadcast had been: 10 gramophones (three portables, eagerly sought after by the soldiers), 6 radios. 2,500 records (and another 500 to come in). 1 violin, A quantity of dance orchestral music. The violin was sent all the way from Hawera, and records came from Blenheim and Nelson.