Obituary

New Zealand Listener, Volume 18, Issue 447, 16 January 1948, Page 20

Obituary

HE death occurred in Wellington last week of a popular radio figure, J. B. Thomson: (above), compére for some years of 2YA’s For Our Scottish Listeners session, and of the station’s annual. Hogmanay programmes. Mr. Thomson was born at Shotts, Lanarkshire, in 1882, and. became an actor on the professional. stage in Scotland, being for some years a member of the John Clyde Company. Later he emigrated to Canada, where in the intervals of working at his trade as a carpenter he took part in stage and elocutionary work both in Canada and the United States. He came to New Zealand 27 years ago. Always prominent in Scottish affairs in this country, he was a member of the Wellington Association of Scottish Societies, a foundation member of the St. Andrew’s Burns Club, its president during 1935-36 and 1942-43, and treasurer at the time of his death. He was a great lover of Burns’s poetry and as a reader or reciter of Scots dialect verse he had few equals in New Zealand. His radio debut was made with Alfred Bristowe and Patricia Renner in the NZBS play Marjorie Fleming, in which he acted the part of Sir Walter Scott. Later, through his pipe-band sessions fram 2YA, Mr. Thomson made many friends throughout the Dominion, and he received a large mail from listeners both here and in Australia.