THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 8, Issue 197, 2 April 1943, Page 2

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

HOSE who remember the visit of the Grenadier Guards Band to New Zealand will perhaps recall an embarrassing incident when the Band landed in Auckland. We shall not repeat the painful details, but they had something to do with the right, or it may have been the privilege, of marching with the Band in a public procession. Now we discover from the programmes that the Band itself will open the evening programme at 3YA on Sunday, April 11, with a selection called "Marching With the Grenadiers." Aucklanders are almost advised not to listen-unless of course they want to know whether the Grenadiers are now penitent and would welcome even a Girls’ Band if it turned out to welcome them. Winter Course Talks ‘The National Broadcasting Service is getting ready for Winter Course talks at the four main stations. 4YA will be leading off with concurrent series, scheduled: for alternate Tuesday evenings. The first series will be "New Zea-land-Past and Present.’ Some of the talks in this series will be in the form of discussions, and among the subjects under copsideration are "New Zealanders, Their Merits and De-Merits" and "Women in New Zealand." The series promises to be lively. The second series, "Science Looks Ahead" will deal with a variety of topics intimately related to the future of civilisation. An introductory talk to the Winter Course will be given by Dr. G. M. Focken on Tuesday, April 6th. Listeners are asked to note that the time for the course is earlier this year-7.15 p.m. Back to Africa When Invercargill says good-bye to the serial Abraham Lincoln at 8 p.m. on Thursday, April 8, some listeners may wonder what they would have heard if Lincoln tad been before them in the flesh. Well, we can’t tell them, but our English namesake can. It has interviewed him on his pedestal in Parliament Square and been assured that although he has had a rather troubled time since Pearl Harbour, nothing has moved him so deeply as the homage of the negro soldiers who gather, as often as they can, round his monument in London to tell him that, with his aid, they are on their way back to, Africa to help in liberating mankind. To his white countrymen his message is still what he told them im the third year of their. own Civil War: "We accept this war for an object, a worthy object, and when that object is accomplished the war will end, and I hope to God it will never end until that object is accomplished." In The Woad Those who condemn the sophistication of modern life will enjoy a little trip back to the good old days when druids and mistletoe had their serious uses and when men wooed and wed in woad. We do not know Ketelbey’s "In the Camp of the Ancient Britons" (4YA Saturday, April 10, 7.45 p.m.), but we hope to pick up the various noises that go to the making of a good ancient British camp-the guggle-guggle of the mead

horn, the dull sound of bones being chewed, or the chink of a dinosaur sharpening his teeth on Stonehenge. Our artist here shows us the lighter side of ancient British life, and though ancient

Britons doubtless took themselves just as seriously as modern Britons and never dined without a change of woad, there is a pleasantly democratic and equal-rights-for-all flavour about. his sketch. If cacophony has crept in we blame those interfering Romans. Music for Films The composition of film music is at present a full-time occupation for William Walton, according to recent advice from England. Some war films have been made already that still remain secret, but others have been released, and may yet be seen in New Zealand. Meanwhile, it is good news that the much-talked-of oratorio Belshazzar’s Feast is at last on its way to being recorded, means having been found of overcoming the technical difficulties which it presents, with its big choir and big orchestra. Walton’s Piano Quartet will be heard from 4YO on Tuesday, April 6 at 9.20 p.m., Short Stories If brevity really were the soul of wit then short stories would contain all the wit that the average long novel lacks. But unfortunately the good short-story writer is a rare bird. Our acquaintance with some of the best of them is however being renewed by Mrs. J. F. Nathan

who is giving a series of talks on Saturday mornings from 2YA on "The Art of Short Story Writing." Mrs. Nathan has already given a talk on Chekhov, She will go on to discuss Guy de Maupassant next Saturday, and in succeeding weeks will speak about other notable short story writers such as O. Henry, Jacobs, and Kipling. A Scented Winter First prize for attractive titles must surely go to the A.C.E. people who this week have "Leaves and Fragrance for the Winter," in the Monday talk from 3YA. We read the title and find ourselves at once in the midst of the lavender field, picking a leaf of apple-mint and turning it back upon itself until it cracks, pulling our fingers along a stem of a heath-or on our wild hills, of manuka instead-and perhaps taking out our winter coat and feeling in the pocket the sharpness of a sprig of dried thyme or rosemary. This talk may turn out to be about winter decorations. But we hope it is going to be about gathering scented leaves and buds to press and crush for their sweetness in winter.’