RECORDEAL

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 127, 28 November 1941, Page 44

RECORDEAL

Written for "The Listener"

By

C.F.

H.

T all seemed easy and unalarming when Iwas far away in Auckland. "Come down to Wellington and make a recording of half-a-dozen talks," What could be simpler? Hadn’t I already broadcast at 1YA? Why should 2YA _ present greater problems? True, when I looked back to the awful night of my first broadcast, I shivered with remembered horror-my arrival, very early, outside 1YA, one damp fist clutching a bulky scrip, laboriously handwritten. Big lamps by the door-this was in days of peace-then an enormous empty room without a view. Illuminated loneliness-that was the dominant impressiorf. Talk about being afraid to go home in the dark! I was much more afraid to stay in that strange room in the light. I had been nervous enough before at the thought of the experience ahead of me, but this was worse. I felt like a French noble who, having nerved himself to face without a tremor the guillotine and the-mob, finds on arriving in ‘his tumbril that the guillotine has disappeared and the mob has gone home, The Worst Didn’t Happen The stillness, the silence, the solitude began to’ get on my nerves. I thought of Enoch Arden as he gazed upon the glories of the island- . .. but what he fain had seen He could not see, a kindly human face, nor ever hear a kindly voice. Still Enoch had one advantage over me. He had all the time there was. If I didn’t find the kindly human face within the next quarter-of-an-hour, the whole evening’s radio programme would be upset, and worse, still, New Zealand would miss my inspired and inspiring broadcast. : Well, the worst didn’t happen. Just as, in despair and now feeling like Alice in Wonderland, I had begun to open door after door only to find more solitude and more silence-once, indeed, I found myself in a cupboard just as I was at my last gasp, I saw-no, not the White Rabbit, but-a human being, a deliverer. Of course, the ordeal was still to come. A 9:0 p.m. I had to go over the top. However, suffice it to say-if you can say "suffice it to say" without lisp-ing-at 9.15 p.m,, though a shattered wreck, I was still alive. Well, then, I had survived that experi-. ence. How could a repetition have any terrors left? "Like An Early Victorian Heroine" So, on a certain day in September, I alighted, like an early Victorian heroine, upon the Wellington arrival platform at 9.30 am. The Limited, recognising the importance of the occasion, had decided to celebrate it by being on time. The NBS headquarters, . I had been assured, were only a step from the station. Either they: are some steppers in Wellington, or my informant has been, in another incarnation, a houseagent. Still, after making inquiries from the usual utter strangers or utter idiots, I got there in time-that is, in time I got there. Tricky thing, the English language.

I met with a very kind reception, but now I felt like a patient entering a nursing-home for a serious operation. The nurses try to give the impression that there is nothing to be alarmed about, but the excessive kindness gives the show away. First of all, there was an exploratory operation, known as a voice test. Two doctors-I mean, officials-were present. One seemed to imagine that I was trying to be dramatic, the other obviously thought I was being dull without trying. A Terrible Discovery After these cheering preliminaries, the balloon really went up. I’m sorry if I’m mixing my metaphors, but everything was rather mixed that morning. Instead of the cobra that had leered at me across the table at 1YA, here a silver apple dangled two inches from my mouth. The metaphor changed again. This was obviously the Judgment of Paris, I mean, of Wellington. I didn’t look, but no doubt the apple had " For the Clearest V" engraved upon it. When I came to the end of the first talk, a deathly silence supervened. It would be nice if I could say that the entire staff rushed in. to congratulate me on a notable performance, but this is a true story. Suddenly the silence was broken by a strange voice repeating, curiously enough, parts of my talk. An awful light broke. To misquote Kipling, "T thought I didn’t know the voice and it was me!" Attenuated, ultra-refained, too utterly BBC. To think that, like Moliére’s hero, who had been talking prose all his life without knowing itto think that is how I have been talking all these years in blessed ignorance! But why has nobody told me about it? After that terrible discovery I had no more spirit left in me. I hurriedly mumbled through the rest of the talks. What did it matter? That fiendish recording angel would turn them all into the same high-pitched, ladylike bleat. Do you’wonder that F have called this unvarnished statement " Recordeal "?