"RAMSAY OF BURNTWOOD"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 122, 24 October 1941, Page 7

"RAMSAY OF BURNTWOOD"

Prize-Winning Centennial Radio Play

STORY of the beginnings of a New Zealand sheep station is told #n Ramsay of Burntwood, a radio play by Russell Reid, which won a first equal place in the Centennial competitions, and which has just been produced by the NBS. It ‘will be heard from 2YA at 9.27 p.m. on,Sunday, Octo-

ber 26, and later from the other NBS stations. The events in Ramsay of Burntwood might have happened on any sheep station during the early pioneering days. The story is told by Malcolm Ramsay, old and crochetty owner of Burntwood, who, before his powers fail him, is dictating the history of Burntwood. It is a record of hard, back- breaking work, and of an insatiable hunger for more land on the part of his father, John Malcolm; also of the secret the son shared with his mother, Janet Ramsay, who had not been carved from the same tough timber as many other »pionéering women, and who, one drought-parched summer, decided to return to England and green fields again. The climax of the play is a bush fire which sweeps through John Ramsay’s land and threatens to destroy his homestead. When the wind providentially changes and the fire has been diverted, Ramsay finds that what nearly meant his ruin has saved him the costly job of clearing scrub and bush froma large tract of newly-acquired land. And it is this fire which gives the station its name. Russell Reid, who wrote Ramsay of Burntwood, was formerly a member of the staff of the NBS Drama Department. He is now an assistant-producer at the Miramar Film Studios, Wellington,