BACKGROUND TO THE TOUR

New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 517, 20 May 1949, Page 6

BACKGROUND TO THE TOUR

Altitude Tests for All Blacks

DP you know that geographically South Africa is the loftiest of the Dominions? As a people, most South Africans practically live in the sky, a fact which the All Blacks will very quickly discover, since football at five or six thousand feet above sea level makes you a little breathless until you get used to the thinner air. They will also notice that whenever they leave a South African harbour and enter the veld (or "felt," as they call it \over there), the railway starts twisting and climbing up mountains in a_ tortuous struggle to gain the high plateau where most of the people live and enjoy one of the finest climates in the world. The story of South Africa-its history, climate, and peoples, its industry and farmlands, its gold and diamonds, and, above all, its sport-will be told in a series of six talks by the men who know most about the country, the South Africans themselves. The last talk in the series, South Africa at Play, is by Dr. Danie Craven, vice-captain of the 1937 Springbok team. The talks were recorded in South Africa and flown to New Zealand, and they will be heard

from all YA and YZ stations and 3XC Timaru. The first is from 1YA at 6.0 p.m. this Sunday. This talk, by J. A. I. Agar Hamilton, editor-in-chief of the official South African War Histories, deals with the _ country’s history from 600 B.C. when Phoenicians sailed down its coast, until the Boer War and the formation of the Union in 1910. The second talk, Springbuck on the Veld, by John Bond, a well-known journalist and amateur naturalist, describes the countryside and wild life.

South Africa, he says, is the southern end of the world’s biggest zoo. Diamonds and gold are the subject. of the third talk by Nigel Sutherland, and he describes not only the big scientific mines, but the innumerable small diggings: "Thousands of man-made crat-

ers surrounded by heaps of sifted gravel stretch as far as the eye can see, and in those craters are the diggers, burnt brick-red by the sun. Each bucket of soil is washed and sieved, a pair of keen eyes looks hopefully over the wash, and then back to the pick and shovel goes

the digger, ever hopeful." He doesn’t say, however, what sort of Rugby footballers these men make. The fourth talk, by W. K. Buchanan, is called The Land and the Factory, and the fifth, by Rene de Villiers, is simply titled Its People. It gives some idea of the racial problems in a population made up of a mixture of Dutch, British, French, Hottentots, Bantus, Malays, Indians, and the million "Cape Coloured" people who have resulted from intermarriage, Station 2YA only will remain on the air to broadcast full commentaries on the Test Matches direct from South Africa (they will probably start at about 1.0 a.m., N.Z. Time), but the commentaries will be recorded and rebroadcast from the main National stations following the 9.0 a.m. weather forecast on each occasion. A five-minute summary of play will be broadcast following the News. at 6.0 a.m., 7.0 a.m.and 8.0 a.m., and a 15minute review of play will be heard at 1.40 p.m. Since the Test Matches are being played on Saturdays, these broadcasts will be made on the Sundays following the games. The radio coverage of all the other games will be confined to a five-minute summary after the News at 6.0 a.m,, 7.0 a.m., and 8.0 a.m., and a 15-minuté review at 9.15 a.m. on week-days and 1.40 p.m. on Sundays: All commentaries and reviews of play from the National stations will be given by the NZBS sports commentator, Winston McCarthy.