NEWS FROM THE ZB’S

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 416, 13 June 1947, Page 20

NEWS FROM THE ZB’S

T’S generally the journalist who does the interviewing when news is being sought, but 4ZB Dunedin drew the boot on to the other foot the other Sunday evening when it interviewed Leslie Jillett, newly appointed editor of the Evening Star, Dunedin. Some time ago 4ZB farewelled the paper’s retiring editor, W. F. Alexander; and it thought it meet and proper to welcome his successor. Mr. Jillett was welcomed first by the Mayor, D. C. Cameron, who extended to him the best wishes of the city. Then the interview was taken up by Jim MacFarlane. (Photograph on opposite page). * * oe N her 101st birthday, Station 4ZB called on Mrs. Susan MacFarlane, Dunedin’s centenarian, who gave an interview to Peter Dawson, of the station staff, in which she recalied many incidents in the early history of Otago. Mrs, MacFarlane has spent 78 years in Dunedin. When she arrived, on an immigrant ship, she was quartered in the military barracks, as was the custom, and later built a two-roomed house in the Caversham district. She married a véteran of the Crimean War. As her husband was unable to work, owing to an accident, she took over one of Dunedin’s earliest private hotels, the "Peacock," on what is now the site of the city bus terminal. She spoke of times when board and lodging was 15/a week, and meals only 6d each, and of the 18 hours a day she spent cooking for her boarders. Mrs. MacFarlane had a’family of seven, four boys and three girls, all of whom are living. A son, Joseph, who is 76, is her companion at home, and there’ are 30 grandchildren. The recorded interview which was played later from 4ZB, drew many congratulatory messages from listeners. * * * [N Italy, during the 13th Century, a young woman named _ Francesca, daughter of the Count of Ravenna, was given in marriage to Giovanni Malatesta, a member of a noble family of Rimini. The marriage failed because Francesca discovered stead a deep affection for her husband’s brother, and on their relationship being found out, both were assassinated. That was in 1289. The story became a basis for much writing and composition. Dante included Francesca in his Inferno, where, in the fifth canto, he relates a conversation with the girl who is suffering the punishment allegedly the reward of all earthly sinners. The story Dante told so impressed Tchaikovski that he expressed in music the effect Dante had achieved so brilliantly in words. The result was the symphonic fantasy Francesca da Rimini. Of this, a critic said at its first presentation, that it was a "musical monstrosity." Yet Saint-Saens affirmed that "the composer’s talent and astounding technique are so great that the critic can only feel pleasure in his work," Listeners to 1ZB will have an opportunity of testing their own reactions to it when it is broadcast in full at 10.0 p.m. on Sunday, June 22. It will be played by the New York Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra conducted by John Barbirolli,