ABC APPOINTS TWO WOMAN ANNOUNCERS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 6, Issue 155, 12 June 1942, Page 19

ABC APPOINTS TWO WOMAN ANNOUNCERS

WO women have just been appointed to the announcing staff of the Australian Broadcasting Commission in South Australia. Although women announcers are used by the ABC in the Eastern States, the two women just appointed are the first to become announcers in Adelaide. They are Mrs. Joyce Steele and Mrs. Norah Rose. Officials who have heard thousands of radio voices, and would-be radio voices, were jolted out of their cynicism when they were conducting auditions of women who wanted to be ABC announcers in South Australia. They discovered a voice that might be a real radio "find." The voice was that of Mrs, Steele, and until the auditions it had never been on the air. But officials are confident that listeners will like it very much, Station Owner's Wife Until shortly before the war, Mrs. Steele lived the life of a station owner’s wife. She was kept very busy, for she had the station homestead to manage, and a baby son to bring up. Later, the Steele family came to South Australia. A second son was born 18 months ago. When the war broke out, Mrs. Steele thought perhaps she could help by taking a job. She knew that women announcers were doing their part with the British Broadcasting Corporation, and so she asked the ABC for an audition, But there was then no vacancy for a woman announcer, and nothing came of the audition. However, recently the ABC advertised for woman announcers, Mrs. Steele applied for the job and go it. Long Experience When Mrs. Norah Rose faces a microphone, it will be with the confidence born of long experience. She is, perhaps, the only woman in Australia who has broadcast from a radio-station between air raids. Mrs@ Rose is a Londoner, and has two daughters, 10 and six, who are at school in South Australia. Her husband # was stationed in Singapore, and it was there that Mrs. Rose began her association with radio. In 1937, she began to arrange radio talks and children’s sessions for the Malaya Broadcasting Corporation. Since then, she has written many scripts and arranged many feature sessions. / : When Mrs. Rose returned to Britain for a visit in 1939, she paid a number of visits to the British Broadcasting Corporation. In the studios in London she picked up many valuable tips from experts. : On December 29, 1941, when the Japanese blitz on Singapore was beginning, Mrs. Rose broadcast two air raids-and that was her last broadcast from Singapore. Two days later, she left for Australia,