Open Microphone

New Zealand Listener, Volume 28, Issue 722, 15 May 1953, Page 24

Open Microphone

-_- -_ NEWS OF BROADCASTERS, ON AND OFF THE RECORD,

By |

Swarf

OHN PERCY CLAGUE, tenor trombonist (described in the National Band of New Zealand’s souvenir programme as "the _ star of the band"), owes his career _ as a bandsman partly to his father

but mostly to himself. Apart from a few lessons his father gave him on the baritone and a little more tuition he had from the late Captain George Buckley on the trombone, he is self-taught. Jack Clague was born in Woodville, in the same house as Alan Loveday, Sen., father of the violinist. He is a foundation member of the Matamata Silver Band, and played with the Papakura Camp Military Band during the war years, later joining the Auckland Water-

siders’ Band. In 1949 three Clague brothers were champions in their own right. Bill Clague won the B Flat Cornet Championship at the South Auckland Band Contest, Jack was New Zealand trombone champion in that year, as well as others, and Harold, who preferred pedalling to playing, won the Britannia Cup for a 100-miles cycle race round Mount Egmont. The father of the three boys, the late Robert Clague, was a champion B Flat cornet player in his day. Jack, the subject of this paragraph, has had success at many band contests. He lives at Manurewa. What’s his line? The noise you would hear him making at his job would keep you guessing. He’s a floor sander.

VOICE OF A VOYAGER

| LOOKED in the other morning at a Press conference where Wellington reporters were busy quizzing. a small party of Australian newspapermen about their impressions of the South Island of New Zealand, gathered during a fortnight’s tour. (To allay any alarm on the part of Northerners and to restrain

Southerners from going all cock a hoop, it should be mentioned that a similar party

"covered" the North Island in November of last year.) With the newspapermen was the chief announcer of Station 3KZ Melbourne, John Ford, and he was the member of the group who specially interested me. The tourists were invited here, by the way, by the Department of Tourist and Publicity on behalf of New Zealand travel interests which had contributed to a combined campaign designed to let Australia know more about the Dominion. John Ford told me that his voice was The

Voice of the Voyager, broadcast regularly by 3KZ. To collect material for this programme he sought out people arriving in Melbourne from all parts of the world and talked to them about their travels. "In this case I am the voyager myself," he said. During his stay in

the South Island John Ford interviewed several people on tape recorder and sent the tapes by air to Melbourne se that they could be broadcast while h was still in. New Zealand. "When I ge back," he explained, "another announc at 3KZ will interview me about wha

&= ie I've seen." As well as his voyaging sessions Mr. Ford conducts programmes of light classical music, comperes a motorcycling session, in which there are penny votes for competitors (the money goes to charities); runs.a ‘session called Juniér Information, a Melbourne counterpart of the New Zealand Quiz Kids; conducts Saturday musical matinees, and gives talks about the Australian winewor industry, and so on. New Zeaand listeners who would like "to hear John Ford’s voyaging voice should tune in to 3KZ Melbourne on.a Sunday evening at 9.30 (New Zealand time). The frequency is 1180: kilocycles, and the wavelength .254 metres.

SOUTHLAND PIPER .

n ‘THE beaming bagpiper you see here is Pipe-Major J. Allan Macgee, now giving a series of programmes, Pipes from Southland. broadcast by 4YZ at

8.40 p.m. on Thursdays. He was taught, from the age of nine, by Archie Macniell, known as the

"Blind Piper," of Glasgow. Mr.’ Macgee became a leading professional piper and

a member of both juvenile. and senior world’s champion pipe, bands-the 139th Glasgow Company Boys’ Brigade, and Clan Macrae and Glasgow Corporation Transport. In 1949 he came to New Zealand and in 1950 took over the Invercargill Caledonian Pipe Band, which won the selection championship — at Christchurch in 1951, the New Zealand championship in 1952, and this year the music medals in the quickstep display competitions at Napier, Pipe-Major ,, Masks: has been highly successful in solo piping competitions in New Zealand. *

THE QUEEN AT THE BBC

RECENTLY the Queen,, accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh, paid an official visit to, the BBC. They saw a special Variety’ programme in the concert hall, given by men and women from many of the most popular BBC Variety

shows, accompanied by the BBC Show Band. The rest of | the audience was composed

of BBC staff, many of them selected for long service and some having travelled from the various BBC regions for the

Royal occasion. After the performance the Queen and her husband met the artists and asked many questions about the technicalities of broadcasting. The Queen was also shown a model of the new premises planned for television at the White City, and a plan of the Coronation route with the commentary points shown on it. A large crowd collected to see the Royal party leave for the studigs at Maida Vale, where the Queen and Duke heard Sir Malcolm Sargent and the BBC Symphony Orchestra rehearsing a Rachmaninoff Symphony. After that they saw Lord Samuel, Bertrand Russell and Viscount Hailsham taking part in the series London Forum, which is broadcast: in the General Overseas Service and also rebroadcast by many stations in North America. The Queen went into the adjoining listening room and watched through the glass panel the speakers at the microphone; she also watched the programme engineer in the listening room working the studio control panel. She heard through a_loudspeaker an example of a European News Bulletin.. Next came a glimpse of an English by Radio programme, by which English is taught to listeners in other countries,‘ and last came ten minutes with producers, record players and’ announcers in another control cubicle, this time looking through a sound-proof window at a programme being recorded for listeners in South and South-East Asia. This was a meeting of "Asian Club," in which an audience of Asians in London puts questions to well-known people. "Asian Club" is broadcast every Sunday, in the BBC’s London Calling Asia programme. Only sound. broadcasting was’ covered in this Royal vigit, but the. Queen expressed a wish to see the teleVision studios "at hg date.

TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL

{OW can native forest be te-estab-lished on hill country faster than: by just shutting the country up? What is the best.method-and the most econ-omic-for. regenerating worn-out hill’ country previously in native grass? To

what ‘extent does vegetation on land = affect the run-off of water -after. rain: how does

this affect flooding and what can be done to help the position? How does the

contour system of farming fit into estab- | lished New Zealand practices? These and many other problems are being in- | vestigated by the staff of the Soil Con- | servation and Rivers Control Council. | Some are well on the way to solution; others are not quite so far advanced. On | May 14, D. R. Wilkie, District Soil Conservator at Blenheim, gave a talk from 2XN Nelson on "Practical Soil Conservation in Marlborough and the | South." This talk will be broadcast in 3YA’s Country Session on May 18. Mr. Wilkie’s talk, "The Story of the Wither Hills," heard from 2XN_ recently, will be broadcast by 4YA early in July. Station 4YZ will broadcast both talks in August. Mr. Wilkie, a native of Dunedin (photograph below), graduated from Otago University and Canterbury Agricultural College. After research work at Lincoln he joined the Department of Agriculture at Timaru as. Assistant Instructor in Agriculture. Shortly after the Soil Council was formed he was appointed District Soil Conservator for the Northern half of the South’ Island. While he was in this job a start was made with the contour system of farming in New Zealand, and experimental farms were established from Nelson to South Canterbury. New soil conservation methods are tried on these farms and the results, if successful, are passed on to farmers.