HISTORY ALSO ON HAND AT THE NBS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 127, 28 November 1941, Page 12

HISTORY ALSO ON HAND AT THE NBS

S distinct from the "High Jinks A in History," featured each Saturday evening from Station 2YA in the Happy-go-Round, Merry-go-Lucky Variety Show, there’s something much more serious in an historical way on hand at the NBS. If an armistice were to be proclaimed to-morrow, the NBS would be able to produce a programme of recorded historical highlights to fit the occasion. If New Zealand women were to lose the vote and subsequently inaugurate a suffragette movement, Mrs. Pankhurst might come on the air to aid and inspire them. ‘A great deal of recorded history lies buried in second-hand shops, and D. T. Venables of the NBS staff, is always hoping to unearth it. The other day, Mr. Venables discovered a museum piece in @ recording of the New Zealand singer Rosina Buckman, who has now "gone

out of wax," so to speak. Recordcollecting may well become as fascinating as the hobbies of those who collect stamps, old manuscripts, or studies by the Old Masters. Nobody knows what treasures will yet find their way into the hands of Mr. Venables. Gramophone recording began during the first decade of this century-the Edwardian era-and most of the celebrities of the period have left their voices to posterity. Sarah Bernhardt, Admiral Peary, Paderewski, Conan Doyle, Theodore Roosevelt, Dame Nellie Melba, or the Earl of Oxford and Asquith may speak to us over the air on a suitable occasion, Ever since war broke out, the BBC has been broadcasting history, and the NBS has been recording it. Much of the history of the Second World War has already been written-ag far as it

has gone-on black discs that can now repeat for us in New Zealand the voices of the famous or of the infamous, speaking to the world as history was made. From the 1938 crisis we call "Munich," we may listen to the voices of Neville Chamberlain, Daladier, Hitler, Mussolini, Benes, and Roosevelt. As a prelude to. the calamity of September, 1939, we may hear Hore-Belisha, Anthony Eden, Sikorski, Beck, Raczynski, Paderewski, and others. From Holland could come the voice of Queen Wilhelmina, addressing her people as their country was being invaded; from France, before the collapse of the Republic, M. Reynaud could speak; from Norway, Denmark, Finland, Belgium, Luxemburg, could come other tragic chapters. The episode of Dunkirk has been described by J. B. Priestley and Ronald Cross. Sir Archibald Sinclair, Lord Beaver-

brook, Ernest Bevin and General Wavell help to carry us through the Battle of Britain. We can hear Major Attlee and Mr. Duff Cooper; J. B. Priestley gives us "Women and the War," Dorothy Thompson, "Let’s Face the Facts," and Emlyn Williams, "Portrait of a Londoner." Throughout the early part of the story could sound the voice of Neville Chamberlain, and then would come Winston Churchill. We may hear him in his first speech as Prime Minister of Great Britain, we may hear him in his famous "Every Man to His Post," and "War of the Unknown Warriors." Every hour of the twentyfour, the listening ear of the NBS is tuned in to the heart of our Empire, to record for the people of New Zealand any new development in this war of nerves and world of surprises.