Special Broadcasts for Younger Listeners

New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 752, 11 December 1953, Page 21

Special Broadcasts for Younger Listeners

HILE the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh are travelling about New Zealand in the coming weeks, the Broadcasting Service’s younger listeners will be hearing their own special Royal Tour programmes. At 5:15 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays of each week, the children’s sessions. at all YA and YZ. stations will include °10minute broadcasts about events of the tour in which children will be specially

interested. The first of these broadcasts will be on Thursday, December 24. The organiser of these national@ children’s programmes will be Lesley Farrelly, who normally conducts the children’s session from 4YA Dunedin. She will be looking at all. the day-to-day

news of the tour with an alert eye for — that which appeals to the younger folk. Mrs. Farrelly. has been at 4YA now for 18 months, but for the period of the tour she'll be working in Wellington to be nearer the centre of all the rews that the NZBS will.be compiling. Before going to Dunedin, Mrs. Farrelly spent two years in the Broadcasts to Schools Department in Wellington. Before that again she taught music, English and socia] studies at a district high school. In addition to this she attended university lectures and music lessons, with the result that she holds the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and is a Licentiate of the Royal Schools of Music. Organising children’s sessions, she says, is fun. Children like taking part in the programmes so much that. their enjoyment is infectious. She regards the programmes as first and foremost for entertainment, but finds that many features: which could be considered educational are enjoyed as much as the others. There is a fortnightly "Information Bureau," for instance, where

children from various schools come to) the studio with a question to ask whose | answer they really want to know. There | is a panel of adults to answer the posers. Each day’s children’s sessions, says Mrs. Farrelly are. planned to : provide | something for the very small. listener, | followed by something for the older ones. The most popular’ entertainment with the tiny tots is still nursery rhymes, | so each month there is a nursery rhyme | request session in the children’s. pro- | gramme. For the older children there_ are such programmes as "Junior News- | reel," which may include interviews with visiting children from overseas, a visit | to a minesweeper, an orchard or aj} newspaper office. Outside of her job preparing the | children’s sessions, Mrs.’ Farrelly leads | the life of a busy housewife. She enjoys | cooking, but finds little time for her in- | terests, the piano, téfnis and golf. Christmas Play ) Following the first of the Royal Tour | programmes, on Christmas Eve, the YA | and YZ stations will broadcast a special | Christmas play for children. This wil! | be heard at approximately» 5.20 p.m. | Written by Antonia Ridge, the play is | entitled One Christmas Eve, and deals | with the Christmas Eve activities of a. shepherd boy, Benoit, a wolf named | Ysengrin, and a very intelligent lamb. | Together they pit themselves against Tibert, who is a deep-dyed villain and | proud of it.. The story is told by a juggler called Pierre-Paul of Carcasonne, who lived long, long ago, in the sunny | south of France. On all the warm days | of the year Pierre-Paul wanders from | market place to market place, playing | his’ flute, singing his ballads, juggling | with apples, and ‘turning double somer-saults-a dozen merry tricks to make people langh: and throw -.him an honest penny. But when the winds. blow cold and sharp,. Pierre-Paul of Carcasonne pulls his tattered cloak about him ‘and trudges from farm to farm, beating his drum and offering a story in return for a bed and a bite to eat. One Christmas Eve is his extra special story for Christ- | mas time.