FUN AND HEARTACHES

New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 291, 19 January 1945, Page 12

FUN AND HEARTACHES

BBC Links Parents and Children

(BBC Special to "The Listener’ by

JOYCE T.

ROWE

~One of the Links)

GOOD deal has been written about the message programmes sent out from this country to British children evacuated to the Dominions and U.S.A. both at the time of their inauguration by the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret Rose and throughout their very successful series. Now, of course, the service has ceased for sécurity reasons, but there was a lot of funand heartache -- mixed up in the work which might prove good reading. I’ was Enid Maxwell’s secretary for the first two years of the service and her assistant for the last few months, so I got a good inside look. We used to hold recording sessions with the child-

rerits parents about twice a week, We néver accentuated the fact that the messages were recorded; preferring the children to imagine their parents speaking to them direct-a thing they were unable to do owing to the odd times the programmes went out. Many and wordy were the battles we fought in that recording room, though almost invariably amicable, too, I’m glad to say. Not unnaturally, most people wanted to say the same things, and we had to tread a delicate tight-rope between varying the monotony of the programme .for other listeners While remembering that they were the parents’ messages, after all. Then there was the time limit. They were allowed 30 seconds per pair of parents, but that didn’t prevent many of them appearing, beaming, with a good four-minute address. Lots of them would insist on wihding up their mesgages With "Keep your chin upthere'll always be an England." It got to be quite a battle cry with us till we shuddered whenever it appeared on the horizon, which was painfully often. But the one thing they always put in, and which we would never have dreamed of cutting, was their thanks to the fosterparents for all their kindness to the children in their new homes.

Another thing we had to be on our guard against was the first sign of anyone breaking down. It only took one mother to dissolve into tears and it spread through,the whole session, I shall never forget standing impotently before rows of weeping mothers and depressed fathers wondering how on earth I was going to get a cheerful word out of one of them. I finally said, very brusquelyfor to show my sympathy would have been. fatal at that damp stage-‘I know English weather's prétty bad, but it can’t be this wet." And was relieved te see the first dim smiles appear, and the session got under way. We got a few messages recorded (with only one "Always be an England," I was relieved to find) when we came to another

obstacle. Mrs. B. was by way of being a poet. Enid Maxwell (1 know she will forgive me) was not, and had cut the ~ message ruthlessly in order to fit it into the 30 seconds, but had played havoc with the rhymes. So Mrs, B. and I retired into a corner and produced an epic which went triumphantly over the air to Cape Town:"Hello, Cyril; ate you there? This is Mummy on the air." Programme in Rhyme Which reminds me of another time wé burst into rhyme. Jack Peach of the CBC unit often tiséd to compete the North Affieficati programihes, and we decided oncé to write the whole programme in rhyme. I must admit it wasn’t as successful as it might have been because, of course, the listener » felt the messages should all have been in rhyme, too, but it was a lot of fun for us! Unfortunately though, the script looked much longer than it really was, and we found ourselves at rehearsal sadly under time. So we had to set to and write some more verses, Midnight struck and Jack had to go on the air, but I was still scribbling madly — not (continued on next page)

"continued from previous page) unfiaturally the standard deteriorated a bit as timé wert on! I was still writing the closing stanza when Jack came to the last message: From Banff to Saskatchewan we comeTom Nicholson, here is your MumBrother Bill’s in Home Guard, Sister Jane’s working hard But we're sotry yout Dad couldn't come. See what I mean about detetioration? In due cotirse, I was promoted, and allowed to sée the ,esaireseatiglh on the oe ee _ -* le le

air myself. All the messages were recordéd on bands — perhaps eight or more to a récord-and it took a great deal of earnest rehearsal to get record’ atid Script to agree. The red light flickered, off went the announcer, "Hello Betty, hére’s your mother talking to you from Balham... ." A hot yet icy prickle tan down my back, for out of the loudspeaker camé a deep bass voice "Hello John, this is Dad." We used to do variety programmes to North América, as well, and I have great joy in remembering the argument between Godfrey Kenton, who was going to recite "O, to be in England" with Noel Tiff, who was insisting that the poem should have an undercurrent of vacuum-clearers to give it the correct spfing-like quality. Tragic Occasion Of course everything wasn’t so lighthearted. Orice the sending of a message roved a very tragic occasion. Mf. and ts. H. had sé@nt out their son and daiighter to Australia for thé duration, and the little boy had died there. They wanted to send the girl a message to cheer her up. I believe we were nearly all in tears before that recording: was completed. Anothet time, however; we were talking to a father who had five children in Africa: "How you must miss them," we said. "Not likely," he replied, "there’s four more of ’em at home." But like all go6d fathers and mothers, he sent the right sort of message. And like all good children, they wrote aid told us they’d thoroughly enjoyed it. " -----