"EVERYBODY'S SCRAPBOOK"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 216, 13 August 1943, Page 8

"EVERYBODY'S SCRAPBOOK"

A Radio Miscellany of Memorable Events ©

| (By

GERALDINE

GREY

Special to "The New Zealand

Listener" from the BBC)

HE magazine programme "Everybody’s Scrapbook," now broadcast fortnightly to overseas listeners (it has been heard on Friday evenings from 2YA) is one of the British Broadcasting Corporation’s programmes most popular with the Home audience, And it has stood the test of time. It recently celebrated its tenth anniversary. The first radio "Scrapbook" was in the nature of an experiment. Turning the pages of an actual scrapbook is, to many people, a pleasant way of spending an odd half-hour, But would they like having the pages turned for them? And hearing, instead of seeing, what was on them? The eye could.rove at will, resting on or passing by inconsequential snippets, witty flippancies, and startling believe-it-or-not revelations. Would an arbitrary selection of fragments of music, dramatised story and song affront or arrest the ear? Like many stage "try-outs," this radio one took place at Manchester-in the BBC regional studio-in 1932. It was the first broadcast "magazine" pro-

‘gramme. It held a wandering commission over the past; reviving memories of bygone years, reviewing near-past events. Listener response was immediate and appreciative. In the following year, when the fourth "Scrapbook" was earmarked for presentation, it was decided to bring it to the National microphone. Gradually, too, it became less haphazard. Instead of ranging at random over the years, it con-

centrated upon one year (one in the past, of course) at a time. Thus it covered, in separate programmes, most of the years between 1900 and 1930. The political happenings, the theatrical successes and the "stars" who made them, the sports events, the social "occasions" were surveyed in a microphone parade. With the coming of the war, the "Scrapbook" scope was vastly widened. It became "Everybody’s Scrapbook""An Album of Things Worth Remembering in These Present Times." Though

still a miscellany of re-presented events, both grave and gay, conjured up in terms of music and song, story and verse and "effects," its contours have softened. Contrasts still make up the pattern of each programme, but so many of the "things" of older years that are worth commemorating are essentially’ in contrast with life to-day. The aim of "Everybody’s Scrapbook" is to recall, in the midst of war, the most significant of those "things;" things which are memorable because they are enduring-great music, stories of endeavour and adventure, dramatised pictures of attainments in science and art; things that sustain faith in the ultimate victory of good over evil. World-Wide in Scope The wartime "Scrapbook" series ine cludes British people from all parts of the world. They tell stories of life in theif native lands, and vivify their national history by introducing their musi¢e and folk lore. Ordinary men and women, no less than eminent personalities, contribute to this medley of picture-pages in sound. Illustrative of the variety and imaginative content of these programmes, a few individual items may be instanced: a thumb-nail biographical sketch of Elizabeth Fry, of the famous family of Quakers, who did great pioneering work in social reform; the singing by Uriel Porter, the coloured singer from Jamaica, of negro spirituals still sung by his people in the West Indiés; a dramatised enactment of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s voyage in an open boat to rescue members of the crew of the Endurance in which he made his Antarctic expedition in 1914; a Welsh choir singing a bellsong composed by a native African chief (who had never heard a bell, but is a convert to Christianity) to summon his people to worship. Leslie Bailey, who compiled the trial "book" over 10 years ago, has worked on each of the more-than-80 programmes broadcast since then (of which about 30 have been wartime productions). In nearly all, the voice of Pat Curwen, quiet, friendly, essentially English, has been heard announcing the headlines as each new page was turned. Francis Worsley, the producer, is also producer of the "Itma" series of Tommy Handley programmes. Mansel Thomas, a Welshman, directs the music.