A New Zealand Christmas

New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 495, 17 December 1948, Page 6

A New Zealand Christmas

ROGRAMME staffs attached to the four ZB stations and 2ZA (Palmerston North) have had the celebrations of Christmas in mind for some months. As a result of their preparations, listeners will bee entertained in the traditional way, of course, but this year with programmes having a predominantly New Zealand atmosphere. As we go to press (and as most readers know by now we have to do that some time in advance of the programme-week) the Weather Presentation officer has not been able to give a clue as to whether it will be damp or dry in Dunedin or Dargaville. But it can be assumed that a radio set won’t be far away, ae the family are getting suntanned, or toasting their toes at the fireside.

we 4h HE main features, to be heard from all Commercial stations on Christmas Day, will include a special Diggers’ Session at 10.0 am. (3ZB at 10.30 am.); These People Helped to Make Christmas, from 1ZB at noon, 2ZB at 1.30 p.m., 3ZB at 1.15 p.m., and 4ZB and 2ZA at 1.0 p.m; a Women’s Christmas Session at 2.30 p.m.; Greetings from the Danish State Broadcasting Service (featuring carols by a childrén’s choir) from 1ZB at 3.30 pm., 2ZB at 5.0 p.m., 3ZB at 6.0 p.m., 4ZB at 1.45 p.m., and 2ZA at 3.0 p.m.; New Zealand’s First Christmas at 8.0 p.m., and finally From Fernland, Forest and Farm, at 9.15 p.m. Occupying nearly an ater From Fernland, Forest and Farm-a documentary feature-will have the principal place on the programmes on Christmas night. It has’ been written with the idea of covering a large number of New Zealand outdoor activities at Christmas time. It opens’ with a story of the gumdiggers in the Waipoho district and goes on to a description of a scene in a small Maori home at Whakarewarewa; a climb up Rainbow Mountain near Rotorua, with a peep into a foresters’ lookout, and some details about how the men looking after the timber lands observe the festival. There will be an interview with a shepherd in the Mackenzie Country, and a descriptive tale of Christmas in the small mining village of Denniston. The Diggers’ Session for this occasion has been compiled from information supplied by Army Archives and the War Histories Branch of the Department of Internal Affairs. It will contain dramatized accounts of how men in the line in, both the First and Second World Wars spent a Christmas Day, and record the conversations of soldiers during the season of peace, goodwill towards men. Stories about Christmas Day, 1914, in the front line, are many and varied. One is of a lively exchange of banter and expressions of goodwill instead of bullets and shells. Another is of a truce which lasted till midnight,

and of parties of British troops visiting the enemy trenches as Yuletide guests of the Germans. It is recalled, too, how in one part of the line, German and British regiments played a football match. During the 1939-45 War, the tradition of Christmas was observed in many theatres of battle. Thousands of New Zealanders were overseas, some were in the Oflags and Stalags. Variety in methods of celebration were governed by the exigencies of service, but there was no real variety in thoughts of home and invariably the toast was-‘‘*To the last Christmas overseas; we'll be home next year." These People Helped to Make Christmas will consist of a series of in--terviews with tramwaymen, policemen, mailroom sorters, traffic officers, hydro-. electric operators and others whose jobs compel them to work while other people are having holidays. , On Christmas Day, 1814, the first Christmas’ service in New Zealand was held at the Bay of Islands by the Rev. Samuel Marsden, who was one of the first churchmen to take an irterest in the Maoris. The programme New Zealand’s First Christmas will be based on Marsden’s early experiences in New) Zealand, fis dealings with the Maori chiefs, his purchase of land for missionary work and the establishment of mission stations in the far north. Below are summarised some of the local features in the Commercial station programmes for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. ‘