The Man Behind the Counter
who has been a week in broadcasting will tell you, is one of the most abused words in the dictionary. Torture it often enough and it will jam any selfrespecting typewriter. Yet how else would you describe the influence that gives Book Shep-the fortnightly book session from main National stationsits flavour? Since Book Skop first. went on the air late in 1951 listeners throughout the country have become familiar with the voice which introduces it and an attitude to life and letters which it expresses, but not everyone knows that the man behind the voice is Arnold Wall, Talks Officer at 3YA. "Arnold Wall-who (for the record) is a son of Professor Arnold Wall-has been in broadcasting only about two years. Before that he had a distinguished career in the R.A.F.. and when The Listener called recently to talk to him about Book Shop it asked him first about those years between leaving Christ’s College and coming back home in 1951. Mr. Wall said he went straight from school to the R.A.F. in 1926, and served in England, India, Iraq, France and Germany. Besides this he has seen something of Italy, Holland and Belgium. Flying operations over the NorthWest Frontier of India in 1931 won him mention in despatches. In the same operations he lost his right eye and has been "grounded" ever since. Mr. Wall’s wartime jobs included running a training school and starting the R.A.F. catering service. In Germany after the war he spent two years on equipment work, including the supply of spare parts during the Berlin airlift. After the airlift he was awarded the O.B.E. In his last year in Germany, at Second TactiEt tae as anyone
cal Air Force Headquarters, he worked on the re-establishment of the Air Forces of Occupation on a war footing. He retired from the R.A.F. in 1951 with the rank of Group Captain. With 25 years in the Air Force behind him, .Mr. Wall was still only in his early forties when he returned to New Zealand and joined the NZBS. Quite new to broadcasting, he finds it an endless adventure. Outside office hours Mr. Wall (who is married and has a young daughter) has as_ recreations "fenestration, cookery, Francophily, rehabilitating a Canterbury Plains farmhouse and ‘living-in New Zealand.’" His interest in his farmhouse is part of an interest in country life generally which shows in his preference for country programmes. He has also written talks, which have been heard in programmes for women from 3YA and other stations. and radio short stories. These latter were done "for ‘sheer amusement," though he will tell you seriously that he thinks the good short story told in the first person is the best form of spoken entertainment on the air. In Slightly Out cf True he has done his best to encourage it. Though Book Shop has in some respects become very much Mr. Wall’s programme, he was quick to give credit for it to Keith Hay, Senior Talks Officer at NZBS Head Office. It was Mr. Hay, he said, who devised the form which Book Shop took at the start, and which it has kept to, more or less, ever since. This form, as The Listener said in announcing the session, includes one review of about 10 minutes of a recent book likely to interest the general reader and one or two short talks on topics related to, books. Books and reviewers ate not selected by Mr. Wall; but he is responsible for the short talks which make up the rest of the "sandwich"
and in 44 editions of Book Shop has not yet used the same _ speaker twice. "Of course, I’m always glad to hear of new people for these short talks," he said, "but I think there's an endless wealth’ of talent. to be mined." Topics for the short talks may include any original approach to any subject directly or indirectly connected with the -written word, and a glance through a handful of scripts which Mr. Wall took from his files showed that Book Shop contributors had taken to heart the invitation to roam freely in this wide field. "One of our problems in Book Shop is to maintain a balance between men and women and North and South Island
contributors," said Mr. Wall. "This is sometimes difficult. Another problem is getting talks of just the right length to make up the programme." When we asked him about the age of his contributors he surprised us a little by saying that apart from some children who had broadcast there had been only one or two speakers under 30which wasn’t, he seemed to think, as good a state of affairs as it might be. "A few of the speakers are in their thirties," he said, "‘but they’re mainly in their forties and fifties." The use of children in the session had, he thought, been extremely successful, and he hoped to do it again. "I brought
them along mainly because you hear so many people saying what kids should read-I thought we should let them speak for themselves," Competitions of a more or less literary kind are another Book Shop innovation which listeners will remember. There have been about half a dozen of these, and entries have fluctuated .from six to 30. Verse competitions have been markedly more popular than prose competitions, though competitors have not by any means all been "literary" people. Another interesting fact about the competitions is that women competitors have outnumbered men _ by about four: to one. Getting down to cases, Mr. Wall said that competitions for verse "On. Contemplating the Ashes of Your Library" and "On the Discovery of a Live Moa," had been among the most successful from the point of view of numbers -each had
attracted between 20 and 30 entries. The most recent competition in which listeners were invited to write a letter to an author barely veiling their dislike of his work while seeming to congratulate him om the appearance of a new work had proved one of the most difficult. Book Shop, we suggested to Mr. Wall, .was the sort of programme that might Stimulate more response from listeners than most; but he said that in fact there had been little listener response. How- : ever, some of the letters that have come ; in have had interesting consequences. Mr.| Wall has formed several highlydiverting pen-friendships all over New Zealand as a result of the programme: and it was through Book Shop that Dennis McEldowney wrote to 3YC and made it possible for that station (and later others) to offer listeners his unusual series of talks The World Regained. Book Shop will be heard during the next few weeks as follows: 2YA, 8.35 p.m., this Friday (May 15); 2YZ, 5.57 p.m, this Sunday (May 17); 1YA, 8.28 p.m., Wednesday, May 20; 4YZ, 9.15 p-m., Wednesday, May 20; 1YZ, 5.0 p.m., Sunday, May 24; 3YZ, 9.30 p.m.,. Monday, May 25; 3YA, 8.0 p.m., Wednesday, May 27. Book Shop is also heard from 4YC.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 28, Issue 722, 15 May 1953, Page 6
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1,174The Man Behind the Counter New Zealand Listener, Volume 28, Issue 722, 15 May 1953, Page 6
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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