The World in Her Postbag

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 783, 23 July 1954, Page 28

The World in Her Postbag

| ETTERS and picture postcards from distant places pour into the London office ~ of Ines Brown, who spends her time in arranging Listeners’ Choice, the programme of gramophone records which the BBC broadcasts several times each week in its . External Services. Miss Brown’s postbag averages about two hundred letters a week. The greatest number come from West Africa and Malta, and. considerable quantities also. from India, Pakistan, Mauritius, the Seychelles, East Africa and the Middle East, As she also arranges Forces’ Favourites, the record programme for British Forces serving in the Far East, she gets a large number of. letters from Hong Kong, Malaya and all other places where British troops are stationed. Miss Brown has been arranging these request programmes since 1949, and is well used to reading appreciative letters from listeners who want their special

records played. The life of a popular song in Britain is short, but the listeners overseas are more faithful, and certain records remain popular for an astonishing time, and are played regularly, year after year, in Listeners’ Choice. Many people who write want a record played to celebrate some particular anniversary, and such letters are put into a special "anniversary file’ and brought out on the appropriate day or one near to it. A vast assortment of picture postcards on the walls of Miss Brown’s office come from listeners all over the world, who have been kind enough to send a greeting to Listeners’ Choice after their record has been played. The shelves behind her show programmes of selected records, with _ the listener’s name and address attached, which are ready for playing soon.