Programme for Canada

New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 538, 14 October 1949, Page 6

Programme for Canada

ROM time to time the Broadcasts to Schools Department of the NZBS is asked by other broadcasting services for programmes about New Zealand. Last year, for example, the Detroit Schools broadcasting system was supplied with a description of New Zealand school life, and early this year* a short programme of a similar type was sent on request to the Welsh Division of the BBC. Recently the department was asked by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for a 20 minutes’ session suitable for children of from nine to 11 years of age, and the staff compiled a dramatised programme, "A Day on a New Zealand Sheep Farm," presented by eight voices. Those taking part are announcer, narrator, father and mother, son and daughter and two Maori boys. The day is a Saturday, and with a day off from school, the children help on the farm with mustering and milking. Routine jobs about the homestead are described before the scene moves to the buStle of the shearing shed where four Maoris work stripped to the waist, while Maori girls sort the fleeces into bins. A conversational piece between two of the boys-one pakeha, one Maori-gives a picture of the ‘New Zealand bu&h and the attractions it holds for children, and the programme ends with darkness hiding farm, bush, creek and the mountains, the cry of a morepork, and the Southern Cross shining down on the land and its people.