Items From The ZBs

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 81, 10 January 1941, Page 25

Items From The ZBs

NOTABLE broadcast ftom 1ZB wag provided the other week by the Wanganui Technical College Military Band, under the baton of M. P. Byrnes, The session was introduced by Brian Knight, of the Progressive Education League, who organised the visit to Auck. land. The band is only 22 months old, and when it was started, only two players knew any music, and they were learners, However, the boys showed conclusively that it is possible to build up a first class military band in a very short space of time. The band spent a week in Aucke land, the climax of the visit being a big Christmas Festival held in the Auckland Town Hall. * * % VERY Sunday morning at 9.45 2ZB broadcasts a session entitled "And I Say It’s .’ It serves as an excellent test of musical knowledge. A record is played, and listeners are invited to guess who the artist is, points being given for each record. It is not as easy as it sounds, for although it is comparatively easy to distinguish between singers, it takes a keen musical ear to distinguish between two virtuosos of the piano of between two violinists of approximately the same calibre. yee oe A RECENT evening highlight from station 1ZB was a talk given by -Lieutenant-Colonel Sawyer, curator of the Auckland Zoo. Colonel Sawyer is an old broadcaster from 1ZB, and is well remembered for his "News from the Zoo" series in the Children’s Magazine, He has a rare sense of humour, and he tells amusing stories of his many curious charges at the zoo. Colonel Sawyer has had a lifetime of experience with wild animals, having been at various times in charge of game preserves in Zululand, Natal, Rhodesia, Sudan and Palestine. T can’t be very often that mother and son have jobs of announcing on the same station at the same time, but that was the situation at 2ZB before Christmas. A special Christmas shopping ses-. | sion was conducted by Ann Howard, in private life. Mrs. Victor Lloyd, while Geoff Lloyd, of course, is on the regular announcing staff of the station. > * * RECENTLY interviewed by Hilton Porter in his 1ZB session " Personalities of the Week,’ was Miss Catherine. Douglas, who had just arrived from Grenock, Scotland. She had worked in a Y.M.C.A. canteen for the forces, and had met several New Zealand soldiers. Cheerful and confident, the New Zealanders were doing a lot toward keeping up morale she said. Another " interviewee " was John Farrell, who has been associated with His Majesty’s Theatre for many years. His life has been lived close to the theatre, and he is an authority on Gilbert and Sullivan, having played the title role in the Mikado 50 years ago. A picture of a group of "Personalities of the Week" appears on | page 43.