"THE ROCKING HORSE"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 403, 14 March 1947, Page 5

"THE ROCKING HORSE"

Sir-I have heard some silly things from my radio, but a BBC play under the above heading which I recently heard from 3YA is surely a masterpiece of silliness and prompts me to burst into print. Here is the plot in a few words. A child, whose parents live far beyond their means, hears voices whispering about the house, "Money, money, we must have more money." This gets on the child’s nerves and he asks his mother why they are not rich and is told that it is because father is not "lucky." To mother’s amusement the child says -he is lucky because God has told him so. Thereafter whenever he rides his rocking horse the name of a horse in a forthcoming race meeting comes to him "straight from heaven." With the help of the old butler he backs -these heavenrevealed tips and in no time is able to pay £5,000 into mother’s banking ac-count-it being arranged that she be told it is a legacy from a forgotten relative. Mother indulges in an orgy of spending and the family is soon on the rocks again. No tip comes from Above for a long period-child grows thin and pale and ‘goes about muttering "I must know

the winner of the Derby, I must, I must," etc. The night before the Derby he is heard riding his rocking horse furiously and suddenly he shouts "Malabar, Malabar," and falls off his horse in a fit. He is on his death bed when the old butler rushes in and says "We are saved, Master Paul-I backed Malabar and he won." Paul dies in his mother’s arms, but Mum’s banking account goes up £70,000. (And I haven’t made a mistake in the noughts.) : Does the BBC really think so little of the intelligence of its listeners as to imagine that any one of them could be entertained by such crass nonsense, not to mention blasphemy?

H.

THOMPSON

(Christchurch).