Open Microphone

New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 895, 28 September 1956, Page 20

Open Microphone

NEWS OF BROADCASTERS ON AND OFF THE RECORD

HISTORIAN OF LABOUR

YOUNG New Zealanders who have grown up since Labour first became the Government party generally know little of its early struggles or of the colourful figures of the past, so it’s not

surprising that there has been wide interest in the talks on three New Zea-

land agitators heard trom several YC stations. Herbert Roth (below), who wrote these talks, has made the history of the Labour movement in New Zealand from the 1890s to 1920 his

special study and is certainly one of the few authorities on the period. Oddly enough, Mr. Roth is not himself New Zealand-born but started off as a chemistry student in pre-Hitler Vienna. "IT left there in 1938," he told us, "and spent a couple of years in France before coming to New Zealand." Like many other European refugees, Mr. Roth worked for a start at a variety of jobs and from 1944 to 1946 was in the Air Force as a meteorologist. This included

a year in the Pacific islands and was followed by six months as a met. officer at Rongotai. At the same time he had been working extra-mur-ally for a B.A. which he took in history. This made it possible for him to enter the Library School not long after it was established. He has been in library work ever since, and for several years has been Head of the Reference Section of the National Library Service. How did the come to make a special study of the early history of Labour in New Zealand? Well, he had always been interested in the Labour movement, Mr. Roth said. Then he married a New Zealand girl, Margot Hogben-they now have three children-and ‘had become specially interested in Labour in New Zealand up to the 1920s when writing a biography of her grandfather, George Hogben. "‘Going through the newspapers for the period I realised that nothing had been

written about it and I took notes of things I ¢ame across," he said. Since then, for about four years, Mr, Roth has been collecting material-books, pamphlets, newspapers and so on-and he has written to just about everyone he has heard of who has knowledge of the period "Pretty well everyone has been most helpful," he said, "but, yes, I would still be interested to hear from other people, unknown to me, who may have material or who could talk from personal experience of those days." The outcome of all this is the first draft of a book-"I haven’t got a publisher yet"-a good many articles in various journals and some broadcast talks. One interesting result of an earlier series of talks, Three Reformers Visit New Zealand, which included one on Michael Flurscheim, was a letter from a daughter of Flurscheim now living in Auckland. "I didn’t know any of the family was in New Zealand," Mr. Roth said, "as Flurscheim himself was here for only about five years." Mr. Roth’s talk on three New Zealand agitators will start with one on Arthur Desmond from 4YC and 4YZ on Friday, October 5, and from 1YC the next week. Child labour and old age pensions in New Zealand will be discussed in other talks he is writing.

HUMPH

a DOG with an ear for music is the audience for Britain’s noted Jazz trumpeter Humphrey Lyttelton in the picture below. Lyttelton — "Humph" to

the jazz world--is an old Etonian, a former Grenadier Guards Officer and the

grandson of a viscount. His father was for 50 years a master at Eton College and a cousin, the Rt. Hon. Viscount Chandos (better known as Mr. Oliver (continued on next page)

Lyttelton) has been prominent in British politics: Humph himself was at one time a@ cartoonist for one of Britain’s national daily newspapers. In his autobiography, J Play as I Please, Humph says that he did not take up: the trumpet-the trumpet took up him. It all began in 1936--he was then 15--when he slipped away from the Eton and Harrow match at Lord’s to go in search of his first trumpet in London’s Charing Cross Road. He followed this up by founding the Eton Jazz Club and by then was well started on the life through which-to quote Nancy Spain -‘‘he has sailed as if it were a Trumpet Involuntary." Once described as "Britain’s Louis Armstrong," he and his group opened Armstrong’s concerts when the great American trumpeter visited Britain earlier this year. Humph, who will be heard from 1YD on October 1 and featured in Jazz Rhythm and Blues from 2ZB on October 5 is especially well known as a BBC broadcaster-as a soloist and with his band and as an expert speaker on Jazz. He runs London’s largest jazz club in an Oxford Street basement and has done much to make jazz more popular in Britain. Eight years ago he formed his own band-heard recently in BBC Jazz Club-and at about the same time married Patricia Mary Braithwaite, whom he had met at a jazz club-she shares his enthusiasm. The Lytteltons have one son, Stephen, who will be a year old next month. Brandy and Snuff, two Lucas terriers, make up the household, and the picture shows Humph trying out a few notes on Snuff. ok

SCOT

OR a young Scot not long settled in New Zealand a move from Whangarei to anywhere south of the Waitaki is the next best thing to going home. Nan Dobson, who has lately been in charge of Women’s Hour at 1XN, went the whole hog when she changed her job recently: she takes over the Women’s Hour at 4ZA Invercargill. Nan came to New Zealand

about 18 months ago and almost immediately found use for her wide experience in

the little theatre by taking the lead in the Wellington Repertory Society’s production of Charley’s Aunt. Repertory circles in the Capital were sorry when, after a spell as a free-lance broadcaster, she moved to Christchurch as an announcer at 3ZB. Since then she has also spent some time relieving at 2XN. Edinburgh born, Nan Dobson was educated in her home town, joined the British Civil Service on an open examination basis and worked in the Scot-

tish Department of Health. A Wren

during the war, she was serving in Ceylon when the fighting came to an end. Her experience in amateur drama _ in Britain included both acting and producing, and she was one of the = few amateurs chosen to appear in a Royal Command perform-

ance during a Coronation year State visit to Edinburgh by the Queen.

MEAT FOR MANY

* "HOSE who learnt at their mother’s knee that one man’s stout and oysters is another’s cyanide won’t be surprised to hear that a recent broadcast talk that got a chilly look down the nose in a certain High Place was received quite

otherwise in many parts of the country. From "common" and "amateur" gar-

deners to "commercial growers,’ from the young to the relatively aged, listeners wrote in to say how much _they’d enjoyed Dr. T. Mz Morri-

son’s talk on South Pole Salad and to | ask for more information. Altogother something like 200 letters were received. Oddly enough none of these people wrote from the South Pole, but, sensible and practical-minded to a man and a woman, they saw ways in which the techniques Dr. Morrison described could help with their own gardening problems. As if to prove that hope springs eternal, one man even thought it might help him to grow potatoes "experimentally" in a barrel. *

WE like this story told by Elsa _ Maxwell about the violinist and | composer Fritz Kreisler which we came | across the other day. : Once a wealthy American woman invited Kreisler to a party. "Of course you'll bring your violin," she said. "In that case, my fee will be 50,000 francs," said Kreisler. "In that case, I'll have to ask you not to mingle with my guests," the woman said haughtily. "In that case, replied Kreisler with a smile, "my fee will be only ~ 10,000 francs." Kreisler played at the party-and he didn’t mingle with the guests.