H.M.V. on the Hustings

New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 317, 20 July 1945, Page 16

H.M.V. on the Hustings

‘| HE broadcasts in the British election campaign, recorded by 2YA, have been remarkably interesting hearing. It need not be thought political partieanship if I record what seems to me an historical fact--that Mr. Churchiil has changed the course of British public oratory. His was the first yoice I heard

in this series, and I marked all the old characteristics ---- the pitch, the rising intonation at the end of sentences, the peuses, a certain manner of using the vowel sounds, and the general indefinably nautical quality of a big ship

driving through heavy seas. Then a night or two later Brenden Bracken had unmistakably the same tone. Well--the faithful follower-that ‘was to be expected. But here was that stalwart of Labour, Ernest Bevin, .and even that. Welsh nightingale, James Griffiths, and there was no doubt whose voice inspired their palates if not their politict, The: thing has been done now; one hears the ~ Churchillian intonation too commonly for it to be conscious imitation. It is the return of an Elizabethan quality; one can hear it in reading Drakg’s speech to his sailors: "My masters, I am a very bad orator, for my bringing up" hath not been in learning; but whatsoever I shall here say let any man take note of it if he list . . . and I will answer for it in England, yea, and before Her Majesty ..." The voice is alive.