AWAY TO A GOOD START

New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 490, 12 November 1948, Page 13

AWAY TO A GOOD START

ZB’s Pian Special Xmas Broadcasts

SPECIAL programmes for Christmas 1948 which listeners to the four ZB stations and 2ZA (Palmerston North) will hear throughout, Christmas Day are to be home-grown and home-produced. That is to say, they will be made up of, material that has already been or is now being gathered throughout New Zealand." They will cover activities ranging from the gum-fields of Waihopo in the far North to a mining town on the West Coast of the South Island. The whole idea this year will be to emphasise the way in which New Zealanders spend-or have spent-Christ-mas, rather than reproducing the Christmas manners, styles and customs of other lands. Full details of the sessions will be announced later, but in the meantime, here is some idea of what the Commercial Division of the NZBS. has been planning. With the co-operation of the Army Archives section of the War Histories branch of the Department of Internal Affairs, there will be accounts of Christmas Day in the battlefield during both World Wars, giving the reactions of New Zealand soldiers, their thoughts and their feelings at that season, while in the front line. Women listeners will have a session to themselves, with the four ZB stations forming a link to greet each other,

and with each of the four main cities contributing something to the programme. Another project which is well under way will be a session of general appeal-an attempt to give a complete radio picture of the New Zealand Christmas from the high country to the sea coast, the farm to the city. Listeners will be introduced to the celebrations in a Maori village home, and learn how the men of the Forestry Department observe the festival. Dunedin’s Centennial. Celebrations, still on the active list, will not be forgotten, for the Mayors of the other cities will use the radio to greet the Mayor of Dunedin and to congratulate Otago on the success of its full year of festivities. The usual good wishes to those maintaining essential services during the holiday will this year be extended in actuality broadcasts from taperecorded interviews. The day’s programme will culminate in a dramatized programme in which a small boy representing Youth will talk to Father Time as the latter thumbs over the Christmas files of newspapers covering 80-odd years. Such programmes, of course, represent only a -few of the highlights. Fuller details of the sessions with titles and times of broadcasting, will be given next month.