Memories of Old Britain

New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 813, 25 February 1955, Page 14

Memories of Old Britain

To many New Zealanders Britain was, not so long ago, home. Even to children of emigrants from the United Kingdom, or their children’s children, the sights and sounds, the loveliness and unusual customs of those small islands far across the sea have a significance greatly beyond those of any foreign country. For all these people, the BBC feature programme series called Postmark U.K, is intended. Arthur Bush, who wrote the programme, calls his series an essay in "audible nostalgia." Not that it is lachrymose or rosecoloured in its views of the past. All that he sets out to do is rescue for posterity little bits of a Britain which | is. passing away. In his first programme, "Some Annual Customs.’ to be heard from 4ZB on

Tuesday. March 1, and later from 1XH and 1ZB in their | Women's — Sessions, } : Arthur Bush _ tre- | cords the rhythms and chants of the Staffordshire Hobbyhorse Dance, which is believed to owe its origin to a Saxon scheme for frightening off the Danes. An old Somerset

man tells of the ponies which climbed Helvellyn at the end of last century with their passengers sitting in baskets. There are tracitional tunes played from the Isle of Skye, and a very old woman relates what it was like to be a scullerymaid in a stately home at the beginning of the Edwardian era. Arthur Bush also has something to say about John Peel, the famous huntsman of Caldbeck, who, it appears, never rode to hounds at all, but participated in the ancient Lake District custom of hunting on foot. Wandering about Britain, Arthur Bush visits Canterbury, the Tower of London, the Coastal Watering Places of Western England, Bath, the Clyde and Cornwall. He also has some interesting conversations with men and women of the

fair grounds and markets, and. goes on a musical tour of the highways and byways of Britain. As 2ZA, 2ZB and 3ZB have already played the first two talks in the series some months ago, they will begin with Arthur Bush's visit to some fairs and markets.