"BOYS OVERSEAS" RADIO FEATURE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 98, 9 May 1941, Page 3

"BOYS OVERSEAS" RADIO FEATURE

NBS Receives Huge Mail

O single feature ever presented by radio in New Zealand has been the cause of so many letters to the NBS as the Sunday morning programme With the Boys Overseas, Mothers, sisters, sweethearts, cousins, wives, and friends, have been writing to the Service asking for repetitions of messages, inquiring for further details, or offering appreciation of the programme, There are so many letters, in fact, that if the volume continues, extra members of the staff may be required to cater for them, To Make Sure You Listen A large group of inquiries concerns the unfortunate cases where people heard from someone else that a message was given for them, but which they missed through not listening at the time, Sometimes there are rather tragic lapses of this mature, where, say, a mother has missed a personal message from her son. To guard against accidents of this type the NBS makes two special provisionsthe first is that the list of names of men sending messages is read over at the beginning of the Sunday morning session, and then there is a period while the Sports Talk is being given to allow friends to ring up relatives and draw their attention to the coming message, The second provision is that the personal messages are repeated on Monday evenings, so that people who could not be reached by telephone on the Sunday morning can be advised by letter or telegram in plenty of time. There are cases where special circumstances have intervened, as for example, when a mother might be in hospital, and in cases of this nature the NBS has gone to some trouble to be of assistance, though it will be appreciated that such special privileges could not be extended very far. No Undue Delay A large number of letters to the NBS are prompted by the fact that a soldier has sent a cable or air mail letter advising his relatives in New Zealand that he has had the’ opportunity of making a record for broadcast. The relatives then immediately write or telegraph to the NBS asking when it will be heard, or,

if they have listened in for a week or two without hearing their message, they demand to know exactly why their message has been missed, The explanation of this delay is a simple one. The Broadcasting Unit in the Middle East makes records when and where there is the opportunity, and as soon as they have made up a batch, the parcel is posted from the Middle East to New Zealand by ordinary mail, which takes, of course, a few weeks longer than‘the cable or air mail service. There may be a further delay in Wellington of a few days, but the New Zealand public can rest assured that there is no undue delay in this service. In fact, where people have written in to say that they know there will be a message for them from a soldier whose correct name is given, the NBS endeavours to write and advise them when to listen, as soon as the NBS itself has received the record here. The important phrase in the preceding paragraph is that referring to the correct name, There are many thousands of soldiers in the Middle East, and of course many of them have names like Smith and Brown. An inquiry for a message from " John Smith" or "Sergeant D, J. Smith" is almost useless if the announcer with the unit refers to him as "Jack Smith." If inquirers would give the names that their soldier friends would be likely to use, it would save the NBS staff an immense amount of trouble. Wide Appreciation That this programme is widely appreciated there can be no doubt. The NBS has received letters of thanks from men in the field who have heard from New Zealand how pleased their relatives were to hear their voices. There have even been letters from casual listeners in Australia commenting favourably on this feature, and in particular one letter tells of hearing in the New Zealand Boys’ Overseas programme, a "Cheerio" from a friend in the Australian forces in the Middle East. The " Cheerio" came from an Australian soldier who happened to be present at a garden party where Doug. Laurenson asked the boys to speak, Although some hundreds of New Zealand soldiers have already had the opportunity of sending a personal greeting, these are but a small fraction of our men in the Middle East, Many people must have wondered when their boy would get that opportunity, yet there have been no complaints and indeed wide understanding of the difficulties faced by the small staff of the Broadcasting Unit in choosing at random a few individuals each week, No special effort is made to choose men from different districts, yet when one hears the place-names mentioned by the announcer, one realises that every district in New Zealand has sent its quota overseas,