Well-Managed Programme

New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 498, 7 January 1949, Page 13

Well-Managed Programme

) HE second of the Christmas readings, | | heard from 4YA was, I thought, better | then the first. Christmas in New Zealand was traced from the times of early exploration to a much nearer date, and a splendid touch was the introduction of quotations from New Zealand authors -people of whom we hear far too little on our radio. The reading from Katherine Mansfield’s story "At the Bay" brought the baking warmth of sun-on-the-sand into my very chilly dining room. Indeed, the Dunedin weather was such, that week before Christmas, that when the speaker told me that "The New Zealand Christmas is not always spent at the beach," I could cheerfully have seized the nearest blunt instrument and heaved it at my radio. ’m glad I didn’t, for I would have missed the snippet of a story by A. P. Gaskell, in which all the atmosphere of the popular New Zealand institution known ‘as the beer-party was expressed in a few lines. I should like to have quoted a great deal of Mrs. White’s remarks about our "vestigial remnant" of the old English Shristmas, but rather than leave out (continued on next page) arranged by Dorothy White, and | /

| RADIO VIEWSREEL (Cont’d.)

(continued from previous page) any I shall refrain altogether, and merely say that the programme, an altogether unusual and stimulating one, was very well managed by the arranger and her two co-readers, Dick White and W. G. Clayton.