THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 95, 18 April 1941, Page 6

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

n interesting sidelight on the passion for fiction reading which permeates New Zealand is shown by the popularity of the series of talks on books and authors which, although originally a 2YA feature, is now being heard from the four main stations, LYA, 2YA, 3YA and 4YA every Saturday morning. The timing of the feature and its modest title "A Few Minutes With Women Novelists,’ may have delayed some readers from starting to become regular listeners, but nowadays this interesting quarter-hour talk must be the standard morning tea accompaniment of many families who work the 40-hour week. Margaret Johnston, who gives the talks, is English mistress at Wellington Girls’ College, and she ‘must have done a prodigious amount of reading to be so well versed in the background and output of women novelists, because she has already given over 20 talks, and in many of them refers to more than one author. Folks From Home England binds her children to the motherland by ties of sentiment which are stronger than steel, In this hour of England’s crisis men from Kent and Durham, Yorkshire and Bristol, working through their county associations throughout the world, are gathering clothing, food, and blankets, to send to their stricken relatives in England. In Wellington, six English Folk Societies, representing Birmingham and the Midlands. Bristol, Dorsetshire, Northumberland and Durban, Yorkshire, and Kent, are

joining to help England on St. George’s Day, April 23, by a concert in the Wellington Town Hall Concert Chamber, which will be broadcast by 2YA. The funds raised by the concert will go to the Mayoress’s Depot (Lady Galway Patriotic Guild) which is constantly sending cases of clothing to England. One of the highlights of the concert will be an address on England by the Bishop of Wellington. The Story of Gallipoli : Colonel " Jackie" Hughes, as he is familiarly known among his friends, is the proper person to speak about " Gallipoli?’ because he was not only present at the landing but was also present. at the momentous conference on the beach that evening when the assembled staff officers seriously considered immediate evacuation. He was also present at the famous charge at "New Zealand Hill"

in the Boer war, the best example in New Zealand’s experience of the moral effect of a bayonet charge. As a sportsman " Jackie" Hughes has also been in everything, and even played in the football forwards when he was 9 stone. When he left to go to the Boer war he held the secretaryship of every sports body in Napier. He is to speak on " Gallipoli-a Story of the Past," from 1YA on the evening before Anzac Day. For the Bing Boys To thousands of people throughout the world. there is only one singer worth listening to-Bing Crosby, There are Bing Crosby clubs and organisations whose one object is admiring him-there is one in New Zealand even-and any radio station which has ever run a request session will testify that for permanent popularity there are few singers, serious or light, to challenge his position. It is for the special benefit of these "Bing fans" that Station 2ZB is giving every Sunday in the Radio Matinee an instalment of Crosby’s life. Needless to say, songs by Bing are also played, and altogether the session is a feast of something or other-as they say. Aladdin and His Lamp So long have we been exiles from that Heaven which "lies about us in our infancy" that there is little we can remember about Aladdin but the fact that he had a magic lamp from which, when it was rubbed, emerged a »genie who would do practically anything you

ordered him to do. Later, we seem to remember that a shrewd fellow got possession of the lamp and made all sorts of trouble. But to be quite honest we forget what happened after that, and accordingly we shall be tuning in to Station 2ZA, Palmerston North, on April 23, when the dramatised story of Aladdin will be broadcast. This is one of a series of dramatised fairy tales produced by the C. P. MacGregor studios. Luckily Walt Disney has accustomed New Zealanders to fairy tale characters speaking with an American accent. Fifty Years On? We are willing to bet that when the A.C.E. talk about " Getting a Thrill out of Fifty" (IYA, 2YA, 3YA, April 21), they won’t be referring to the cigars Great Aunt Agatha sent us at Christmas. But while we are sure about what they won't refer to we can’t be so certain of what they will be talking about. Last time we heard little Sophie Tucker singing for her supper she told us that life began at forty. The A.C.E. may have decided to go ten years better, or they may be merely singing the joys of the Open Road (now that the Easter congestion has abated) but whatevgr they talk about we are sure that listeners will, as usual, get a thrill out of it. New Afford Serial If anyone should know the ingredients for a radio play based on suspense, horror, and crime, it is Max Afford, staff playwright of the Australian Broadcasting Commission. He has written 40 radio plays, has adapted 50 stage plays for the radio, has written two long stage plays, and has also written and had published in England three detective thrillers with the well known characters of Jeffery Blackburn, his wife Elizabeth,

and Chief Inspector Read of Scotland Yard. Of the 40 radio plays, the NBS have presented five, of which the most remarkable was the serial The Mysterious Mr. Lynch, heard a year or so ago. Now the NBS have produced Max Afford’s latest radio serial Grey Face, the first episode of which will be broadcast from 2YA on Wednesday, April 23. Grey Face has all the ingredients Mr. Afford mixes so well. Jeffery Blackburn, his wife, and Chief Inspector Read find themselves in a nasty mess of Egyptology, ancient curses, and the terrible nightmare of the Limping Feet, with a murder here and there to liven things up.

Finnish Hygiene . We are all familiar with the story of Jack the Giant Killer, who climbed a beanstalk and cleverly put away an adversary many times his size before coming down to dinner. The Finns didn’t quite manage to tuck away the Russians before dinner, but they must have had plenty of toughness to keep in the fight for as long as they did. Whether it was their athletic training, their variety of Turkish baths (which involved blithely jumping from a steaming oven into sparkling ice-cold water) or merely their system of hygiene which gave them their muscle, we can’t tell. "Finnish Hygiene" will be the subject of a talk by Dr. Halliday Sutherland (who was in Finland himself a few years ago, and in New Zealand last year) from 1YA at 10.45 a.m. on April 23. Music of the New World When the Czech composer, Dvorak, visited America in 1892 he was so impressed with the haunting songs of the negroes that he considered that a truly national music for America might be derived from: the fegro melodies, so he wrote the popular "New World" symphony which embodies true negro elements. " The New World Symphony" will be heard from 1YA on Sunday afternoon, April 20, but the dance band enthusiast will be disappointed to notice that the tunes bear little resemblance to hot mammy blues. Dvorak worked over the old folk-lore on the plantations: Tin Pan Alley had not then started itr raucous career.