John Hilton

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 410, 2 May 1947, Page 5

John Hilton

HEN John ‘Hilton died half-way through the war there were probably only three men left alive who were more sure of an air audience no matter how often they spoke — Hitler, President Roosevelt, and Mr. Churchill. It is no doubt true that when he spoke to millions each of them spoke to tens of millions, but it is not quite certain that any of them, if he had remained a private citizen, could have done what Hilton did day after day for ten years. That, however, is speculation. What we know is that Hilton before he died had a steady audience of five or six million listeners and that most of them thought of him as a personal friend. Some listened because they liked the sound of his voice; some because they liked what he said; most because he had become a’ kind of lay confessor whose words warmed and released them even when he was condemning their sins. Inevitably, therefore, a book has been written about him, a very good book* which traces the story of his career from his first paid job as a boy in a bicycle shop to his death from overwork at 63. This is not a review of that book, or an advertisement for it, but it is fair to point out that it. explains what most people so far must have found it difficult to understand, namely, the power of Hilton’s voice as well as its extreme attractiveness. The secret all the time was knowledge, knowledge first and then conviction. Nor do we mean simply the knowledge that converted him from a civil servant in the Ministry of Labour to a professor of economics at Cambridge. That was. important, but could have, resided in his head only. The knowledge that made him so effective on the air was humanised knowledge — book learning applied to human experience and shared with common people. Radio of course made | him; but we have not yet fully realised how much he did. for radio, and it is necessary*to read his story in full to understand what his achievement was. *JOHN HILTON, By Edna Nixon. Alien & Unwin, Ltd., through the British Council.