Open Microphone

New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 775, 28 May 1954, Page 24

Open Microphone

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

By

Swarf

HE young man here at the gate alone is Ivan Tabor, who conducts 2ZA’s Country Digest programmes (Mondays, 12.34 p.m., and Fridays, 8.45 p.m.). When he was 12 he left school to go on the land, and now he is dairyfarming 120 acres at Whakarongo, near Palmerston North. Tabor, aged 29, takes a wide interest in local farming organisations; he was Dominion President of

Young ;Farmers’ Clubs in 1952-53. He is also a prominent athlete-district track and cross-country runner — and winner of several championships. Recordings made by him have been heard from the BBC, ABC and VOA, and from New Zealand stations other than 2ZA. His programmes, which, I’m told, are well received among Manawatu farmers, include speakers from Massey College, the D.S.LR.-Grasslands Division-and the Palmerston North branch of the Department of Agriculture. Coverage of local stock sales is also part of his radio work.

SINGER AND COMEDIENNE

J, ATHLEEN FERRIER, the singer, who died in October of last year, left estate "so far as can at present be | ascertained," valued at £15,134 (duty paid £1159), says The Times. She left

£1000 and her three-stone opal ring to

Bernadine M. Hammond, secretary. ITMA’s "Mona Lott"

("It’s being so cheerful . . ."), whose death also occurred recently, left £5305 (duty paid £62).

Her name in private life was Mrs. John Mayhew Morton, and she was the wife of Francis C. Morton, actor. She was also a sister of Philip Harben, the television cook. Before ITMA she had played only one comedy role. Py

WHISTLING DIVA

AILSA BOYES (Mt. * ’ Eden, Auckland): Not a great deal is known here about the young singer Mado Robin. I am told that she is now appearing at the Opera Comique, Paris, and that

she has just made a record-

ing of Lakme, by Delibes. It is only in the last two years or so that she has come into prominence. Patrice Munsel, of the Metropolitan Opera, made her debut in 1943 at the age of 18. She

was born at Spokane, Washington, in 1925, only child of Dr. Audley and Eunice Munsel. Her father is a dentist and her mother plays the piano. When she was 16 she went to New York for rigorous training, and at the beginning of this year she sang in La Bohéme at the Metropolitan. She received an ovation, and backstage in her dressing room, grinned happily, saying: "I love an audience." One critic said that her flashing ‘"‘Musetta’"-her first time in the role-proved that she has reached the top of her operatic class. Patrice Munsel studied whistling for seven years with a Spokane whistling teacher, Marjorie Clark Kennedy, to whom whistling was an art, not a parlour trick. But the teacher suggested that the girl, having a "God-given voice," should take up singing. A teacher

in New York sat her down for some straight advice. He said that she had a wonderful voice, but then so had lots of young people. The singing profession was a "nasty business in many ways," and unless she wanted to put in years of hard work she would get nowhere. Miss Munsel has to learn her roles thoroughly, and for a good reason. "I’m as blind as a bat," she says. Without her

glasses she can hardly see either the prompter or the conductor. In spite of her rise to diva level she is said to be "no prima donna in temperament." %

DIGGERS ALL

| NCREASINGLY large numbers of people in England are taking up archaeology as a hobby. Sylvia Gray, a BBC news reporter, said recently that members of the Worthing Archaeological Society had spent many evenings excavating a Neolithic flint mine just out-

side Cissbury Ring on top of the Sussex Downs. She went to

have a look at this mine, shinning down a rope ladder to the bottom. Holes like big rabbit warrens led off in all directions from the main shaft, and she wriggled through the biggest of them, which was about two feet high and of the same width. It was warm and damp inside and solid chalk walls still showed marks of Neolithic picks made of reindeer horn. Sylvia Gray, stretched flat

against the floor and smothered in chalk, asked John Pull, a Worthing postman ho has spent his spare time for the st 30 years in uncovering Sussex flint ‘mines, what Had been found lately. He shone his torch down to the far end of the tunnel,-where there was a little ledge on which they had found a group of flint tools; this had evidently been a sort of sitting-out place, rest room and repair shop combined. "The summer’s most interesting find,’ said Pull, "was a skeleton, found lying flat out at the entrance to the tunnel. It had a fractured shoulder and arm and a crushed pelvis. Its right arm was folded under its chest and crushed into the chest itself were fragments of carbon, the remains of a torch." It was thought that the skeleton had been a Neolithic thief, a

holding a burning torch, who had crept into the tunnel at night, probably to Steal flints. He had been caught by a fall of rock. As Miss Gray moved slowly backwards towards the shaft and the fresh air, Mr. Pull gave her a calm word of warning: "Don’t touch the roof," he said, "it might come down."

THE BROTHERS BRIGHT

Kx i "PLEASANT LISTENING" (Oxford, Canterbury): You’re not wrong, you’re right; Geraldo’s real name is Gerald Bright. He was born in London and adopted the name of Geraldo from his long association with continental music.

He is a member of a musical family; his elder brother, Sidney Bright. is a well-

known pianist, organist and choirmaster. Geraldo, a_ pianist for many years, formed his own light orchestra, and was engaged at one of England’s most popular seaside resorts. He came more notably to public favour when he took his Gaucho Orchestra to the Savoy Hotel, London, to replace the famous Varaldi Tango Band. After ‘many years with this orchestra he switched to modern dance music and showed that in this field he was as outstanding as with his tango rhythm. He became a regular broadcaster with the BBC. During the war years Geraldo was appointed Dance Music Director of ENSA. He still has with him one man who has been his adviser and pianist for many yearsbrother Sidney. "

SAME GIRL, DIFFERENT NAME

A HARD-WORKING young woman **" who sold hats to Modom by day and spent her evenings in the more useful occupation of learning foreign languages, bore the name of Rosealba Giuliana Maria Teresa Mostosi. There came a time when she attended a party

given by the London restaurateurs, the Quaglino brothers. In the

middle of the party all guests were asked to do a bit of entertaining, and Rosealba decided to sing one or two songs in the languages she had learned at night school. Out of that came a contract to sing at a London restaurant owned by the two brothers, and she became a professional singer. As is the curious custom, she had to choose for herself a professional name. That wasn’t hard. In Italian Rosealba means "rose of the dawn," and Giuliana is "Julie," so Rosealba Mostosi became Julie Dawn. She spent eight years with Eric Winstone and his band, and also ac-

quired another name still when she martied Eddie Mordew, the band’s saxophone player. *

PATRON SAINT OF RADIO?

~OUND radio and television will have their patron saint if a proposal made recently by the Bishop of Assisi, Mgr. Placido Nicolini, is accepted by the

Roman Catholic Church (according to The Times). The Bishop has indicated

St. Claire as the most suitable saint, recalling the narrative that when lying ill at St. Damian she saw in a vision a Christmas ceremony which was being held at the basilica of St. Francis.

MOTHERLESS

L GERARD (Christchurch): Sorry, I * haven’t been able to track down a

a photograph of Mum in the serial Dad and

Dave, but inquiries are , still being made. The part is played by Hope Suttor. ,

INFORMATION NOTE

""TENOR" (New Plymouth): Webster Booth and his wife Anne Ziegler visited New Zealand in 1948. Booth,

best known for his romantic duets with’ his

wife, began concert work in 1927, and he has sung oratorio in most of Britain’s concert halls. He began duo work with Anne Ziegler in 1940. Booth’s hobbies are keeping dogs «and cats, cooking (food) and riding (horses).