THE PLEASURE OF THEIR COMPANY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 22, Issue 550, 6 January 1950, Page 6

THE PLEASURE OF THEIR COMPANY

---Mmportant People Who Will Visit N.Z. in 19350

HEN we want to excuse ourselves for not being anything we feel we ought to be; for not, say, being individuals of a cultured, urbane, wise and soft spoken race, acting always like the best type of moving picture diplomat, we plead our extreme _ isolation. We're so terribly cut off, we explain to the critic (or to ourselves) we have no access to the best chancellories, the best couteriers, the best chefs, the best wine lists; we never see Rita Hayworth in the flesh or the Aga Khan leading in a Derby winner, we are months and months behind Americans in following the eventful lives of soap opera heroines and comic strip heroes, But while we say this we have an uneasy feeling that it is no longer valid, and that soon we shall have to start looking for another excuse. In 1950, anyone who really wants to come to New Zealand, or whom we want to have here, can arrive in a few days from the far ends of the earth, and in 1950 there are many people coming who should make us, in one way or another, better off than we were before they came. MUSIC HE New Zealand pianist Colin Horsley is expected back here in June and arrangements have been made for him to broadcast during his stay in the Dominion. In July the Robert Masters Quartet will arrive on a six weeks’ visit under the auspices of the British Council and will be heard in a series of studio recitals from the National stations. This group was formed in 1939 under the auspices of the Arts Department, Dartington Hall, England, and consists of Robert Masters (violin), Nannie Jamieson (viola), Muriel Taylor (violoncello), and Kinloch Anderson (piano). Their foundation aim was to collaborate permanently, so that they could devote themselves to detailed study and constant rehearsal necessary for the type of music they wanted to play. After ten years they are still together. They have toured large and small towns in Britain, made regular London appearances at National Gallery Concerts, Gerald Cooper Concerts, and BBC Thursday Concerts, appeared at the Edinburgh Festivals of 1947 and 1948, and

made many broadcasts on the BBC Third Programme as well as the Home Service. In the last three years they have become well known) and well thought of on the Continent, particularly in Belgium and Holland. MEDICINE February 28, Sir Henry and Lady Dale arrive in Auckland. Sir Henry, who is a distinguished physician and member (and former President) of the Royal Society, will spend the bulk of his time in New Zealand at the Otago University Medical School, but will also visit Christchurch and Wellington, where he will have the opportunity of meeting and addressing New | Zealand branches of the Royal Society and members of the medical profession. There are few scientific or medical academies anywhere in the world of which he is not an honorary member. In 1944 he was decorated with the Order of Merit; he was Secretary of the Royal Society between 1925 and 1935, and President between 1940 and 1945; he shared the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1936, and from 1942 was Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Committee to the War Cabinet. Dame Katherine Watt will arrive in Auckland on March 3, and be in Wellington a day later. She has been Principal Matron to the British Ministry of Health since 1939, and Chief Nursing Officer since 1941. EXPATRIATES R, A. E, PORRITT, a Harley Street exile, will be returning to his native

country for a visit with the British Empire Games team, and late in March, the Camden Professor of Ancient History at Oxford University will arrive in New Zealand to spend two months under the Commonwealth Universities Exchange Scheme.

He is Ronald Syme, who was born at Eltham, and educated at New Plymouth Boys’ High School, Victoria University College, and Oxford. Professor Syme, who has not visited New Zealand

since 1934, did diplomatic work during the war in Belgrade and Ankara. He became widely known for his archaelogical work in Italy, and in 1948 was a member of the United Kingdom delegation at the third General Conference of Unesco in Beirut. THE CHURCH N December, 1950, The Most Reverend and Right Honourable Geofrey Francis Fisher, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Mrs. Fisher, will attend the Centennial celebrations of the only Anglican Church settlement in the British Commgnwealth — Canterbury. It is not yet definitely known, but it is hoped that Lieutenant Commander the Honourable John Godley, and. Dr. Lowe, Dean of Christ Church and Vice-Chan-cellor of Oxford University, will also be in Canterbury in December. OFFICIAL L_ATE in February the Governor General of Tasmania, Admiral Sir Hugh Binney, with Lady Binney, will be paying a delayed private visit | to New Zealand, and.

about. September...oFr = October nearly a hundred delegates of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association will be meeting in Wellington. A military official with New Zealand associations will be here early in 1950, He is General Sir Richard O’Connor, who commanded the Western Desert Forces in the successful Libyan campaign of 1940-41, and was taken prisoner in the retreat that followed. After spending some time as a prisoner of war in the same quarters as the late

General Hargest, he escaped in 1944, and was a Corps Commander in France. AMERICAN SCHOLARS «ROM America with the next group of Fulbright scholars in March, will come Professor John H. Davis, Jnr., a botany specialist at the University of Florida, who will work with Professor Chapman at Victoria University College, Miss Lois Breen, from Maine, will also be at Victoria, reading in social sciences and journalism. ’ Miriam Tompkins, Assistant Professor of Library Service at. Columbia University, and a member of a committee which made a survey of American Libraries to determine the general effectiveness of libraries in a democracy,: will be making a similar survey in New Zealand, sponsored by the New Zealand Library Association. This work wilt probably start in March. There will be many more important visitors, some unannounced, with no schedules, some attended every minute. On the whole, the more official they are, the easier it is to find out where they are at any given time. Writers are not usually "official." Any New Zealander who would like to talk to H. V. Morton, who is at present thought to be in Africa, may have the opportunity, of doing so when Mr. Morton arrives in New Zealand, according to present ad« vice, "sometime in 1950."