Diversity

New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 524, 8 July 1949, Page 11

Diversity

N Tuesday evening 3YA did its best to be all things to all listeners, There was a three-minute orchestration of a Chopin Impromptu at 7.30, possibly a Suitable introduction to the Dad and Dave episode which followed. What fiorse would Mr. Ramsay ride in the Snake Gully Cup? Unlike most of the local residents he weighed in under ten

stone and he was in great demand as a jockey. Somehow his voice was not reminiscent of Chopin, nor had it the qualities one’s imagination gave to the voice of Virginia Woolf’s philosopher Ramsay in To the Lighthouse. No matter. Virginia Woolf was something we didn’t have from 3YA on Tuesday evening. At a quarter to eight there was the second episode of a BBC serial in eight parts, Lady in a Fog, a thriller in the Peter Cheyney manner, Half-an-hour later the gun shots and screaming tyres gave way to an intimate, intense, and most lively discussion between four very well-informed women on the care of mothers and babies in nursing homes, the second of three discussions entitled Do New Zealand Babies Get the Best Possible Care? Mrs, I. L, G. Sutherland attacked the way New Zealand mothers are regimented and made some good points against the rigidity of the Plunket system. She was gently aided by the Chairwoman, Mrs, H. R. Hulme. The other three ladies present, all in the baby business professionally, more or less, differed politely and at times effectively. Whether the rigidity and discipline of our maternity homes had anything to do with the mechanical uniformity of the emotions of New Zealanders born this century was a question this listener could not pursue or develop in his own mind against the competition provided by two large lumps of meat throwing each other round the wrestling ring-an entertainment which followed the discussion. Hereabouts, freedom of programme choice, or of choosing no programme at all, was exercised. An evening of staggering diversity was completed by a quarter of an hour’s disciplined improvisation with the Benny Goodman Sextet. Not an evening for the délicate, hothouse ear, nor one to be repeated often, even by the most robust listener.