Around The Nationals

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 79, 27 December 1940, Page 24

Around The Nationals

HE photograph of Heddle Nash, printed on the opposite page was taken during his recent Australian tour. He has been singing in the studios and with New Zealand choral societies this month. Audiences may have noted that he sings long and exacting oratorio parts entirely without reference to music- His appearance in next week’s programmes will be as popular as his broadcasts this week. Wellington’s 2YA is still the lucky station. He gives a studio recital with an orchestral accompaniment on Sunday, December 29, at 8.31 p.m. * * * LAUD BENNETT, pictured on the opposite page, is King Number One of the Four Kings of Rhythm, the 2YD feature which now broadcasts to a big audience from 2YA and 2YD every Thursday night. He is a Londoner, and started out with the De Havilland Aircraft Company and, after that, a "city" job. But in 1925 he decided to travel south, and arrived in New Zealand in 1926. For 14 months he played for dance bands in Wellington, and went to Australia in 1927. When he came back, after wide experience in all sorts of musical work, he was travelling as musical director of the Frank O’Brien Revue Company. When O’Brien left New Zealand he joined the late Nat. Phillips and after that had a season in the South Island with Jim Gerald’s company. ; BS * * F A. P. Harper notices this paragraph, he will probably be annoyed to find that he is referred to as the Grand Old Man of Mountaineering in the Southern Alps, because he is really the grandson of the famous Bishop Harper of Christchurch, and might even regard himself as "A Young New Zealander." But he has been exploring Southern Westland and the N.Z. alpine area for 50 years! There must be few mountain districts in the South Island he has not tramped over pretty thoroughly, and probably no fair sized hill or mountain in the whole country he has not at least been on. Listeners will remember Mr. Harper’s fascinating talks earlier this year on the Whymper Centenary, as well as many other talks on mountaineering in New Zealand, and will be anxious to hear his two talks, one this week, and the other next week, both from 3YA (Friday) on " Recollections of the Old West Coast Road." Here is something just as colourful as the mountaineering talks, although covering a slightly different field, the spacious days of the old coaches that ran over Arthur’s Pass and down the Otira Gorge, which he first crossed as long ago as 1872. Romantic tales of old coachmen and other "identities" flow through his talks, with here and there a not unexciting experience, or an amusing tale, but above all the authentic air of the old West Coast.