Open Microphone

New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 815, 11 March 1955, Page 28

Open Microphone

ATHLETICS EXPERT

KEEN interest in the administration of sport and an energetic manner mark out Auckland’s athletic commentator, Eric Horan, who gives the commentaries on the National Athletic Championships from 1YA this week. Eric. has had a long association with athletics, both as a participator, and since the age of 18 (when he suffered an injury) as an administrator. As a boy he

was encouraged by his father to practise hurdling and high jumping. Then he took up sprint-

ing and broke the local 100 yards record on the old Takapuna Racecourse at a Labour Day sports meeting. At Mount Albert Grammar School he established records for the 100 yards and 220 yards, and these records still stand. He was also a member of the school’s First Fifteen. Eric Horan has "had a go" at several other sports. At nine he was cox of a rowing. crew at Mercer. Later he became interested in boxing, fought as a welterweight and managed two. professional boxing champions — the light-heavy-weight Roy Stevens and the welterweight Clarrie Gordon. He was, for some years, a member of the Auckland Rugby League Board of Control; served as secretary, then as president of the Otahuhu Rugby League Club; and he managed teams which played against the English

tobrists gin 1946. He has been League commentator at Carlaw Park fdr the past six years. Erie is now president of the Avebland Centre of the New Zealand .- Amateur Athletic "Association. He did the radio commentaries at the national’ championships held at Eden Park in 1952, At the British Empire Games in 1950 he was in charge of the results board. He once covered the World 18-Footer Yachting Championships for radio stations in New Zealand, Australia and Suva. His commentaries are unhurried and comprehensive. He knows many athletic competitors personally, can tell their past history and future hopes. He knows faces and figures and will quickly say whether a winning time beats an old record and by how much. +

COMMONWEALTH OF SONG

ECENTLY the BBC produced a series of programmes of music from the Commonwealth countries. The NZBS contributed songs specially recorded in Auckland and Christchurch which were flown to London. The other day Irene M. Elford, Overseas Liaison Officer of the BBC, wrote to us saying that the

series Nad gone om well in Britain, and added that "there was great

interest in the Maori songs, and especially in the singing of ‘Now Is the Hour’ by the Canterbury University College Madrigal Group." New Zealand listeners may hear the series in the BBC’s General Overseas Service, starting on Wednesday, March 16, and following for four consecutive weeks. The New Zealand selections are included in the first programme which will be broadcast at 2.15 a.m. (N.Z. time) on March 16, and repeated at 2.30 p.m. and 6.30 p.m. on Thursday, March 17. *

SCOTTISH TENOR

."QOME people think farming’s a quiet life where you sit around and watch the grass grow,’ Robin Gordon told us the other day. "But I was brought up on an Otago sheep farm, so I know what it’s all about." The Wellington tenor, who

sang in the Proms last week. but is probably better known to listeners for his

Wednesday night singing in 2YA’s Scottish session, The Gathering of the Clans, said that he was

looking round for a small farm to buy somewhere near Wellington. "I like country life," he said. "But as I’ve got a wife and two small children to consider, I have to be careful what I do." Robin Gordon said he began broadcasting in Dunedin, and came to Well-

ington in 1952. He started to learn singing with Ernest Drake about five years ago, and his first memorable performance was in Bach’s Magnificat with the Otago University Choral Union. He has also sung in Messiah and other oratorios in Christchurch, Invercargill and Dunedin. In 1953 he went to Korea with the Fifth Korea Concert Party. "My job on the tour was to sing duets with Dorothy Hopkins, the Auckland. soprano," he said. At the Auckland Festival in May he will take’ the solo part in a performance of Gerald Finzi’s Intimations of Immortality for tenor, symphony_orchestra -end-chorus; which tre; wilt -siregwith

the National Orchestra and the Auckland Festival Choir. He will also be broadcasting shortly. with Harry Botham's. Orchestra from 2YA, a

TEST > COMMENTATORS

bia) "| WO former Otago wicket-keepers will be describing play in the first Test between England and New Zealand at Carisbrook from March 11 to 16. They are Iain Gallaway .and Noel Lawson. Noel Lawson first played for Otago in 1936 and a year later won a.New Zealand University "Blue" for cricket. He

kept. wickets for Otago during 194445, and during the 190490.50 > ‘hn. +ha

De 1950-51 seasons he was a member of the Otago Cricket Association’s selection panel. His voice has been heard in cricket commentaries from Carisbrook during the last two Plunket Shield seasons, and in 1949 he described play in the threeday unofficial Test between New Zealand and Australia. Iain Gallaway played -against Walter Hammond’s M.C.C. team in 1947. For some time he was a topranked Rugby .Union referee, wearing the white jersey at Invercargill in 1949 when Southland played Trevor Allen’s Australian XV, and a year later at Greymouth when Karl Mullen’s British Isles team played the West Coast. His close knowledge of the laws of the game stand him in good stead for his Rugby Union commentaries during the winter. season, and last summer he was associated with Noel Lawson in describing the Plunket Shield matches from Carisbrook. Before Christmas Iain Gallaway flew to Australia and witnessed the ‘second Test and Davis Cup at Sydney and the third (Tyson's) Test at Melbourne. He has a igh regard for the younger brigade in M.C.C. team and believes that Cowdrey and May will delight New Zealand spectators if they can get going. As we go to press it has been announced that Lankford Smith will also give commentaries on the Test. ©

MOTHER, MUSICIAN AND MODEL

Lal "| HERE'S never too little time to look smart," says Gwen Ralph, who plays the violin with the Auckland Radio Orchestra and the Auckland Studio

Players. Gwen is a full-time musician and full-time mother (she has a daughter Megan, aged four), but it was in her part-time role as a model that she was

speaking. Tall and slender, with blue eyes and an engaging smile.

Gwen Ralph has travelled a long way since she appeared in Auckland’s Children’s Hours at the age of five as Gwen Morris, one of Thea’s Little Sunbeams at 1ZB, and in Cinderella’s session at 1YA. After two years as a violinist with the National Orchestra, from its inception, she spent another two years in England, fashion modelling for Harper's Bazaar and Vogue, both the English and French publications, and as a mannequin for leading fashion houses. At the other end of the scale, as it were, she hitchhiked from Land’s End to John. 0’

Groats. Maker of clothes. as well as model, Gwen designed and made the clothes which she and her daughter Megan are wearing in the photograph. She also designed and made up the costumes for the recent Auckland amateur stage presentation of Carissima. When Gwen’s hairdresser. saw tne hair style which she is wearing in the photograph, she clucked at the Italian fashion. "It makes you look too severe," she said. "Sit down and I'll fix it for you." Gwen stood up with her hair cut shorter and waved forward in a youthfully becoming movement. Heigh-ho for the day when the Radio Orchestra plays on Television! +

FOR HARP AND QUARTET

F-RIC FOGG’S Ode to a Nightingale, a work for the ensemble combination of baritone, string quartet and harp,

which will be broadcast from linked YC stations on Wednesday evening, is the

third in the series of new and unusual works chosen by Don-

ald Munro and. the Alex Lindsay Quartet. They are accompanied by Lesley Comber, harpist to the National Orchestra. The song cycle was composed in 1939, the year of Eric Fogg’s. death. This brilliant young composer was born in Manchester in

1903 and aroused considerable attention with his fluent compositions at an early age. At 17 he appeared at a Queen’s Hall Promenade Concert to conduct his Ballet Suite. For more than 16 years he was a member of the BBC, and was its first Empire Musi€ Director and Conductor of the BBC Empire Orchestra, Ode to a Nightingale is written in an idiom quite modern even by today’s standards, and the harp gives the work a colour which the piano couldn't give, Mr. Munro. told us. recently when. describing the proposed broadcast.

NEWS OF BROADCASTE ERS, ON AND OFF THE RECORD