Open Microphone

New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 887, 3 August 1956, Page 18

Open Microphone

~~~ | NEWS OF ON AND OFF THE RECORD

THE MONEYS

in France was the discovery of a really firstclass French landlady, who didn’t speak English but did listen to us speaking French," said Meredith Money when we talked with him about his visit to France, discussed in the talks series To Live in France, being se best piece of sheer luck

heard from 3YA (Tuesdays), and 2YA (Sundays), and later to be

broadcast from other YA _ stations. "Our landlady, at least 70, but an extraordinary youthful 70, wasn’t given to telling sensational stories of the Occupation, but we knew beyond a doubt that she must always have behaved as a patriotic Frenchwoman," Mr. Money said. "It was evident that she had seen illusions shattered without becoming cynical." Margaret and Meredith Money graduated in the same year from neem gen University College, she in history, in French, and for a time after ae were: married they worked together at the Temuka District High School. "We PR 8 oh ee Oe s ,. 2 2S Fre ae ee VS SS Pee

had in mind going to France on a teaching exchange, which carried some £20 a month at that time," Mr. Money told us. "When Margaret was granted a French Government bursary we were on top of the world." Besides teaching in France, Mr. Money. did a year’s course’ in phonetics, a shorter course in French pronunciation, and a section of a doctorate course in French composition. Until she went down with mumps-for which part of the treatment was champagne, thoughtfully prescribed by a French

doctor-Mrs. Money worked on research into the French interest in New Zealand. Mr. Money thinks it a pity that the superficial and strictly limited picture of Parisian frivolity is the one most widely circulated by films and the Press. "The essential tough vitality of the French has been rarely described successfully in English," he said, "The combination of virility and ideas seems often to sound unrealistic- and, after all, most people won’t wait to be told." Back from, France, Mr. and Mrs. Money both joined the staff of Avonside Girls’ High School, "where our joint efforts eatned some money to pay off our debts." Now Mr. Money is on the staff of Christchurch Boys’ High School, and they have a daughter, Jocelyn, whom they are not teaching French, "because we know it doesn’t really last." Mr. Money has been heard in. other broadcasts, about France and about phonetics, and he has done adult education work in French and produced pronunciation lessons for French Broad-

casts to Schools. "If you feel we should have a hobby," he added, "gardening isn’t it, perhaps because we have a new section to break in." 2

MONICA

"TI AM of Scottish parentage and Manchester birth and upbringing," says Beryl Reid, whose creation, Monica, the girl friend of Archie Andrews, will be heard again in Archie’s the Boy, a BBC Variety Parade programme to be broadcast from YA stations, 1YZ, 3YZ

and 4Y2Z this paturday (August 4). Beryl says that Monica is a relic of her

later days at high school, and the Monica frock and hat which she still uses in her turn with Peter Brough are actually the gym-slip and straw boater which link her with her last two years there. Declaring in the Radio Times that Monica is one of the most distinctive characters in radio, George A. Greenwood said that "Beryl Reid is a genius in her way, in the sense that Marie

Lloyd was. She does not merely impersonate a character, as so many of her colleagues so brilliantly do, or even

wears. She has a tremendous zest for life, and loves her friends. *

act one. She creates one, and lives it." Mr. Greenwood says that off stage and in _ relaxation Beryl looks little more than a girl herself, with her full smiling face, roses andcream complexion, and the simple but attractive frocks she

ONCERT-GOERS who noticed how intently Paul Badura-Skoda followed the conductor and listened to the National Orchestra in his concerts with them will be interested to hear that those who’ saw more of him remarked on the same thing. "He was very conscious of the orchestra, knew the score backwards, and brought a copy of it to rehearsals-he had a tremendous knowledge of the whole thing," we have been told. Members of the wind group who played the Mozart quintet with him were similarly impressed and said that at rehearsal as they corrected mistakes in the printed score he would ask them to try a phrase first of this version and then of the original. On his part, Mr. Badura-Skoda said after his last Wellington orchestral concert that he was very satisfied with the orchestra and wished he could\.havye thanked every member personally.

FROM LONDON

* UTT VALLEY music lovers who remember the young pianist Nan Gibson, and many in the Wellington district and elsewhere who knew her at Chilton St. James as pupil or teacher,

have had a welcome chance recently to hear her in the third of the new series of programmes from the New Zealand Music Society in London. It will be broadcast next from 1XN on August 12. Nan was born in Hawera, but left there when she was three, and going

later to Chilton St. James as a _ boarder has really spent a

good part of her life there. Her most recent association with the school was as a member of the- music staff. Nan won a Royal Schools of Music scholarship in 1954, and will be at the Royal College of Music for three _ years. Primarily a pianist, she is making the viola her second instrument. She is a member of the College orchestra and is on the committee of the New Zealand Music Society in London. The item she plays in the programme being heard in New Zealand was played first at one of the Society’s concerts.