RADIO RUNS IN THE FAMILY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 355, 12 April 1946, Page 20

RADIO RUNS IN THE FAMILY

The Pollard Sisters Have Diverse Talents |

MONG the pioneers of radio entertainment in New Zealand weré three Welsh sisters -- the Pollards — Bessie, Myra, and Vera. They started as members of a radio club in Christchurch when the only .accommpdation for performers was a wool-shed in Tuam Street, partitioned off with curtains. The trio later entered into broadcasting seriously. Two are’ musicians and the third is heard regularly in commercial talks sessions. And one of them married a member of the staff of the NBS, so there is a radio family of four. Bessie Pollard, Mus. Bac., now studying for her Doctorate of Music, recalls in the early days having to enlist the help of her sisters in pfoviding an evening’s programme when _ scheduled artists did not arrive. During the war

she joined the temporary staff of 3YL, arranging classical programmes, and was transferred to the NBS staff, Wellington, two years ago. She is now known mainly for, her special programmes of .recorded classical music presented by Station 2YC at night and by 2YA in daytime sessions. Miss Pollard is also a concert pianist and a composer. She has written several works for the piano, including a Theme and Variations for Two Pianos, which will be heard from 2YA in May. Recently she wrote incidental music for a performance in Wellington of The Merry Wives of Windsor. One Studied Folk-Music Myra (Mrs. Myra Thomson, of Christchurch) is q soprano, and also a pianist, but she has made a special study of (Continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) folk-music. Among the fruits of this study is the series of programmes, "Britons All," with harp (which is being heard at present from 3YA on Friday evenings), accompaniments by H. G. Glaysher. She believes that this instrument is the ideal one for accompanying folk-songs. For all this work she writes her own scripts and arranges the sessions. Before she married, Myra was a school teacher whose special enthusiasm lay in forming school choirs. She organised several, and had probably her greatest success with a choir at Port Chalmers. All her school work was connected with music. Her nationality, as well as her ability, was one of the reasons why she was chosen to organise a Welsh women’s choir for the Centennial Exhibition in Wellington. She has patriotically called her daughter Myfanwy, and this seven-year-old is already showing an interest in music. Home Decorator In eight years of broadcasting for the commercial stations, Vera, who is "Anne Stewart" to ZB listeners and Mrs, Ian Mackay in private lifep has spoken just on 700,000 words about home decorating -she took courses at Canterbury College School of Art in colours, grouping and architecture. Her work for the ZB stations follows up a girlhood hobby, for she chose to keep dozens of scrap-books with pictures of rooms and houses, rather than dress dolls.

Many young women who want to be decorators have the idea, she says, that it merely means designing lampshades and pretty cushions. But true decorating involves suiting colours and designs to individual rooms and making the best possible of homes and houses. She ‘has had a hand in the furnishing of hotels and public lounges as well as private houses and almost every mail brings her letters from listeners faced with problems of decoration. The male of the quartet, Ian Mackay, of the head office of the Commercial Division of the NBS, entered broadcasting when 2YN (Nelson) was 2ZR. He has worked at several NBS stations, as manager, presentation officer, director of the mobile station, 5ZB; as an announcer, and a_ specialist in outside broadcasts. He also inaugurated various feature sessions such as "Slaps and Claps." = He told us that being married to a home decorator has advantages. He wouldn’t dare attempt any improvements at home, for, he says, his wife is by far the better carpenter. His defence for pleasant home laziness and a leisure given up to stamp-collecting is that he cannot complete a decorating job to his wife’s satisfaction, so he’s quite content to leave it at that.