CHARACTER IN A SERIAL

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 396, 24 January 1947, Page 24

CHARACTER IN A SERIAL

Sir,-I was surprised to read E. H. S. Batchelor’s criticism of the character of Sergeant Seager in the radio serial Mackenzie. The serial intended to portray the sergeant as an even-tempered man, with a firm sense of duty as befitted a police officer, but very human and very kindly; it showed how he tried to help Mackenzie in the struggle thet unfortunate was having within himself. And I wrote the serial with the exact picture of Seager, as I knew him, in my mind. It is many years since I used to see him regularly. I was then a young law clerk; he, then an old man, héld office in the Supreme Court in Christchurchan unforgettable character with his soldierly figure, his quizzical eyes. He often talked to me af Mackenzie. He gave me a written account (which I still have) of the sheep thefts, the trial, the gaol escapes and the hunting, that and his amplifying conversations form the basis of the serial, in which I tried to create the real Mackenzie, a man with the poetic strain often found in the Highland Scot, hard on the surface but capable of deep affection and loyalties, driven off his true course by rankling

early injustice. And at times I disclosed much of that through the sympathetic eyes of the Seager of the play. For imperfection in accomplishment, I may fairly be criticised, but I don’t mind confessing that your correspondent’s statement that Seager had been made to appear both slangy and boastful, got under my skin. I have such affectionate regard for the memory of Seager that the idea that I might have done him an injustice made me read through the radio play script, which was followed word for word in the acting. Not one word of slang is in Seager’s dialogue, not one sentence which could possibly be construed as boastful.

THE AUTHOR

(Auckland).