Open Microphone

New Zealand Listener, Volume 28, Issue 713, 13 March 1953, Page 24

Open Microphone

bi. NEWS OF BROADCASTERS, ON AND OFF THE RECORD,

By

Swarf

my life’s savings going round the world because I have the wanderlust,’ says Kathleen Hodgson, by way of explaining her presence in New Zealand. For ve | AM now recklessly blueing

several years an officer of the Grenfell Association (an international medical mission to Labrador founded by Dr. Wilfred Grenfell in 1892), Kathleen Hodgson recently recorded three talks for the NZBS about life in Labrador"Land and People," "The Grenfell Association" and "It’s a Cold Life." These have already been broadcast in 1YA’s Feminine Viewpoint, but they will be heard later from other stations. She ‘has also given three talks under the general title of "A Journey to the Straits of Magellan." These have yet to be scheduled. About seven years of her childhood were spent in Valparaiso, where her father was a chaplain for 14 years, and she then studied at an agricultural college in England. "After

that," she said, "I had a job near Strat-ford-upon-Avon, and used to go to the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre about five nights a week." Subsequently she went in for political organising and was Conservative Party Central Office Agent for the Northern Area. "I ‘planned two major conferences, neither of which took place. One involved such things as arranging for a liner to be anchored ‘in the Clyde to accommodate delegates who could not be housed ashore. But then came the war, the conference was cancelled and I never really found out whether my ‘arranging ability’ was any good," she said. During the war Miss Hodgson was Senior Regional Officer for the Women’s Land Army, in full charge of Land Army work in Wales and four counties of England. This work won for her the M.B.E., which, she says, really belongs to Wales. "I just happened to be the symbol for all their tremendous endeavour." Miss Hodgson started her world tour with a journey which took her through Canada, the Unitéd States, Chile, Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador. Incidentally, she owns a few shares in a sheep’ farm in Tierra del Fuego, "where it’s not a question of how many sheep to the acre, but actes to the sheep. This farm has 3,000,000 acres and 1,000,000 sheep." In New Zealand Miss Hodgson has spent a good deal of time visiting» farms and inspecting agricultural research stations. She plans to complete four and a half months here, then go on to Australia early in April for an indefinite stay. Later she will make her way through New Guinea, Indonesia, _ India and Pakistan. |

HANDLE-BARS RAMPANT

[-PWARDS, James Keith O'Neill, D.F.C., M.A., gets up before daylight. It is the belief of his friends that

no sane man would wear clothes like that if he could see what he was putting on.

The usual professorial ensemble is, a flat cap, ageing duffle-coat, drooping

check suit, and a mauve tie decorated with miniature handle-bar moustaches. The other Take It From Here people have christened this rig his "Farmer’s Set." Writing in the BBC Year Book, F.M. and D.N. say it has now been \grudgingly accepted that the Professor’s enthusiasm for farming is as strong and

deep-seated as the clothes , he wears. His farm in Sussex is a_ well ordered and. successful enterprise to which he applies himself with an unsuspected seriousness, shrugging off the inevitable references to "corn" and "laying eggs."

Nevertheless, the Comi¢ Muse is never far from one of her favourite protégés. So, of cgurse, the Professor’s longawaited igree Ayrshire herd, ordered from Scotland, went astray on the railroad and turned up at a Sheffield slaughterhouse. One of his farm horses was found to be an ex-circus. veteran and, when idle, still insists on rehearsing. It can be seen cantering round in stately circles, tossing its head to an invisible audience. "We can’t help feéeling that in 50 years’ time, .on his pleasant green acres, the Professor will, present a similar picture," add F.M. and D.N. : , *

POINT OF VIEW

""[ HE day affer I was married I was buying some evening shoes in one of the smartest shops in New York. and

I was served by a very nice young man, and I asked him if they’d go well with my _ evening

dress. He said, ‘Listen, Honey, when you get one of those strapless evening gowns on nobody ain’t going to look at your feet.’"-Monica Dickens, speaking in a BBC programme about her life in the United States.

WHERE'S THE BRAKE?

ESPITE the almost universal possession of wireless receivers in Britain there are still in existence guileless cus-

tomers who know nothing of the possi- _ bilities of radio, let alone television. A list-

ener writing to the Radio Times assured the editor that a friend installed a wireless set for a lady who, after he had explained the use of the knobs for tuning, volume, etc., asked, "Which knob do I turn to make it go slower?" *

CHARMING SHARMAN

"AY SHARMAN, announcer in the British Broadcasting Corporation’s Overseas Service, originally ‘intended to co on the stage. But alone with quite a

few other girls with similar ideas, she decided to take part in the 1939-45 war. Kav. who

was training at the London School of Drama, became an ambulance driver and then took a job in an office. She left this to join the BBC as a secretary and later became a studio manager in the European Service-a job she: held for several years. For a little more

than the last three years she has. been announcing. Her voice is well liked by \ British listeners, and by many New Zealand listeners to the Overseas Service

of the BBC, which gives good reception at certain times of the day. Last year several American sailors serving in Norwegian waters aboard U.S.S. Currituck A.V.7, wrote to her saying that they had adopted her as "Miss Radio I" for 1952. The reason? They considered her voice was "as charming as could be." *

SLOW GROWING

ANY New Zealander who worked with the Forestry Corps in the Scottish border country during the war, and who hears. a BBC programme called Portrait of a Forester, may recognise an old

friend in John F. MacIntyre, Head Forester of the

Forest of ‘Newcastleton. The programme, which is going the rounds of the National stations, is a professional portrait of a man who has spent his life in the service of the trees, turning bare hillsides into carefully tended forest. Maclntyre himself unfolds his story, while in the dramatised ~parts he is represented by a fellow clansman, Duncan MacIntyre the actor. A forest’s a slow-growing thing, says MacIntyre, so a forester’s life is a slow-growing thing, too. But as this feature shows, it is full and productive. When John MacIntyre went to Neweastleton from his native Highlands, 30 odd years ago, it was a countryside given over to the sheep, the grouse, and the curlew. There were 10 acres of timber which he worked with simple hand tools. Now, from a hilltop, you can look down on 3500 acres of evergreen conifers at Newcastleton. MaclIntyre’s three or four labourers have grown to a staff of 40, and the tools they use are tractors, bulldozers and ploughs. And those 30 years have brought changes for the Head Forester, too. A Highlander has settled down contentedly as an adopted Borderer, matchjng.the span of his life with the trees

he planted all those years ago. Portrait Of a Forester was recorded as a transcription from the BBC’s Edinburgh studios. It was written by Robert Kemp and produced by Robin Richardson. *

MODESTY

sy MY first appearance in the show 4 é — was with my _ sister, Dainty Baby June and her singing newsboys. I was one of the newsboys; the

others were real boys Mother picked up anywhere, and\if any of

them showed talent; Mother soon sent them packing. Needless to say, I stayed with the show from start to finish, having no talent at all_-Gipsy Rose Lee, American stage star, in a BBC programme. ee

LONE TRAVELLER

VICTORIA KINGSLEY, Britain’s globe-trotting singing guitarist, who visited New Zealand recently, and whose musical recordings will go the rounds of the NZBS stations in April, is a linguist and a collector of primitive

musical instruments. Every so often she sets off

with her travel-stained guitar to play and sing songs of ell nations to’ thte people of all nations. When I last saw her she told me that she thought her next move would be an encore tour of India, Pakistan and Ceylon. Victoria Kingsley, a slim blonde of medium height, travels alone, with little luggage but her guitar, and "on spec," fulfilling engagements as they come, and constantly gathering material for a book she is writing on her world travels. She has described incidents in her trips in many BBC broadcasts. She has told how in South American Indian territory she ate meat roasted over a fire in the open by holding the meat between her teeth and trimming off the protruding part with a knife. In India she sang in backwater villages and maharajahs’ palaces, and fort Pandit Nehru. In the tropics her guitar has to be protected against the ravages of white ants by DDT treatment. On her tours she must: be careful that her guitar-strumming fingers do not become too soft by too-

frequent immersion in water. Born in Lancashire, educated in Scotland, she won a B.A. degree at Oxford, then studied at the’ Royal Academy of Dramatic Art’ before becoming a repertory. actress. In her large house at Hampstead, London, she has several tom-toms and other native drums, queer flute-like native wind instruments and quaint stringed instruments-one with’an armadillo as its back, and recordings of native music and songs gathered on her voyages. *

SHOW NOTES

STAGE AND SCREEN FANFARE, " written and presented by Jim Thomson, gives 2XN listeners, each Wednesday, news of personalities and develop-

ments on the stage, screen, in television, radio and -the show

OUsSInNess generally. ine programme Nas been running since July of last year. It’ does not. review films, but rather

gives what Thomson feels to be interesting sidelights on all forms of entertainment, Stage and Screen Fanfare is meant to be more of a diversion than a dissertation, and is broadcast just after 9.0 p.m.