THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 410, 2 May 1947, Page 4

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

Lotus Buds? F you are one of those people who always lose The Listener halfway through the Crossword, listening to For My Lady sessions is a somewhat chancy business. The only thing that is consistent about the series is the title and the time of broadcast. To our sure and certain knowledge-and we only listen to the radio between 10.0 and 11.0 on week-day mornings for two weeks per .annum-My Lady is offered on various days a couple of serials, personal details about a Musical Comedy Star, a Queen of Song. a Popular Comedienne, of (bless the word!) an Entertainer; a thrill from a Great Opera, the life story of a Famous Orchestra, or just a plain talk. Sometimes even sub-titles don’t help much. Take For My Lady: Beside the Shalimar, for instance. That could be and, to the unitiated, sounds as though it should be, the Kashmiri Song-sung, recited or dramatised-but it is really just as likely to be a travelogue, 4 biography of Laurence Hope, or:a talk on care of the hands. Ladies who are curious may find out from 1YA at 10.20 a.m. on Monday, May 5S. Writing for Children S Dorothy Neal White points out in her recent book About Books for Children, many parents who take infinite pains to make sure their children are reared on the correct diet, with the proper emphasis on vitamins, carbohydrates, minerals, and the like, scarcely give a thought to the intellectual nuurishment the same children may be absorbing from the books they get or are given. But through the efforts of such critics as Mrs. White, and of enlightened librarians, a much more intelligent mterest is now being taken in children’s literature, and Margaret Pearson, who will be heard in a recorded talk on "Writing for Children" from 4YA on May 6 at 10.0 a.m., will have a more informed audience than she could have expected a few years ago. But listeners should find much that is new in this session, which will discuss children’s books from the writer’s point of view.. And Margaret Pearson should know more than most about the subject, for her own children’s stories are in the bestselling class in Australia. Dear, Dead Days O you remember those dear old days eight or 10 years ago, when all the world was young and the wages tax was half-a-crown (or whatever it was) in the pound-those halcyon days when we felt sure we would enjoy peace in our time, when nothing ruffled the universal calm except terrorism in Spain, bloodletting in Abyssinia, pogroms in Germany, anschlusses in Austria, incidents in China, and consternation at Geneva? What manner of people were we in those days? One way to find out is to listen to what we laughed at, and 3ZR will give its listeners the chance to do that on Wednesday, May 7, at 9.41 a.m, in the programme "Here We Are Again," in which will be presented the Japanese Houseboy, Eb and Zeb, the country storekeepers, and some of their contemporaries, Canterbury Cavalcade ; | HE Winter Course Talks from Station 3YA this year will follow an ambitious plan which aims to cover

different aspects of the history of the province up to the present day. And there will even be an attempt to paint some picture of the future. The series is divided into three main sections, the first dealing with the early days, the second with the transitional period and the present, and the third with future prospects. The first section covers the growth of transport in the provinceincluding shipping, railways, coaching

and roads-the homes of the pioneers, trades which flourished in, the early days, but which exist no more; early sport, education and music. The transitional period talks will tell of the growth of industry and agriculture, and the third series will touch on possible sources of power, and the further growth of industry and of ‘cultural activities in Canterbury. The first talk was heard on Monday, April 21, at 9.19 p.m.; succeeding talks are at the same time each Monday. Shipping was dealt with by W. A. Pierre and Dr. R. A. Falla in the first talk, and a talk on coaching by E. M. Lovell-Smith, a well-known authority on the four-in-hand, will be heard on May. 5. A Far Journey PILGRIMS and pilgrimages are the subject of the talk which Professor Arnold Wall will give from Station 2YA at 7.15 p.m. on Tuesday, May 6. He will, we understand, start off with some comment on the fact that the idea of the pilgrimage, though it has vanished apparently for ever from the Western world, is still far from being extinet in the East, but that even when they flourished, the pilgrimages of medieval Europe were different in one important respect from the Eastern variety: they were undertaken almost entirely by the well-to-do, whereas poverty has never been any bar to those who set their faces toward Mecca. Having started thus, Professor Wall will, we gather, come to rest eventually in an ancient English hostelry called "The Trip to Jerusalem," which is famous for its signboard, its beer, and its bloody history. But the main part of his journey, so to speak, will be devoted to an account of an actual pilgrimage from Iceland to Jerusalem in the 14th Century, taken from a guide-book nearly contemporary with Chaucer. So Upsetting! HE last time we attended a wrestling match, we argued with the fan in the next Seat that it was either a shortarm scissors, or a step-over-toe-hold that gave Butch the victory. But he said it was neither; it was a half-Nelson. And we were inclined to agree, because it seemed that the protagonists but only

t half tried to do their duty." It was all very upsetting, especially when Butch landed squarely on the Press table, taking the top sheet of our notes back into the ring with him. The most famous wrestler of ancient times was Milo of Croton (c. 520 B.C.), who scored 32 wins in different national games, six of them at Olympia. There are at least four recognised styles, Cumberland, West Country, Scratch-as-Scratch-Can, and Greco-Roman. We don’t know enough about them to say which, if any, of these is most popular in Canterbury, but perhaps P. R. Climie, of Christchurch, will tell us when he gives his talk on wrestling from 3YA at 7.15 p.m. on Friday, May 9. Early Music ILLAH and Ronald Castle, whoese work in the field of early music and ancient instruments carries on in New Zealand the tradition of the late Arnold Dolmetsch of Haslemere, will be presenting another of their recitals from 2YA on Tuesday evening, May 6, at 8.33. This programme, however, will be something more than their usual offering, tor it will be the occasion of the first broadcast in New Zealand of the modern harpsichord. The use of the harpsichord makes it possible to’ present examples of some of the finest chamber music of bygone days with the true accompanying medium. For this harpsichord recital, the two artists have selected a group of works displaying the variety of tone which can be achieved by different combinations of treble and descant recorders, violin, and harpsichord, "Greensleeves to a Ground" (twelve divisions on the tune of "Greensleeves" by an anonymous 17th Century composer) is for descant recorder and harpsichord, while Corelli’s "La Follia" (one of the finest compositions of the period) is for violin and harpsichord (see photograph on page 21).