Open Microphone

New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 917, 8 March 1957, Page 18

Open Microphone

NEWS OF BROADCASTERS ON AND OFF THE RECORD

FAMILY MAN

| A FAMILY man whose children will be a critical audience for his work for at least another 12 years, Keith Hay could not be happier at finding himself the new NZBS Supervisor of Broadcasts to Schools and Children’s Programmes. "It’s a very exciting job, very stimulating, very rewarding," he tells us. "We have a_ ready-made audience, and we can see and know it

n the schooiroom, which is valuable and also quite humbling. And I find there’s an enormous amount of goodwill for anyone who does anything for children." Taihape born, educated at the District High School there, and at Nelson College and Victoria University College-where he had the senior history scholarship and graduated M.A.Mr. Hay started at the bottom in the NZBS, as a cadet. That was in 1940. "I was on the programme staff at 2YD," ‘he says, "then went on to the Talks Section.

At that time Alan Mulgan ran it with only a typist to help him." War service as a transport pilot in the

R.N.Z.A.F. in the Pacific gave Mr. Hay an interest in aviation which he still has. and which he showed

in a practical way as a territorial squadron pilot from 1949 to 1952. When his war service ended, Mr, Hay went back to the Talks Section, and in 1948 became the first district Talks Officer at Auckland. A change of job came during the next year, when he went to Head Office as Staff Training Officer. Looking for wider experience in the talks field, he set off for Eng-land-on leave and "on his own steam" -in 1950. Away for a year, he worked for the BBC as a Talks Producer in the Overseas Service, and on Radio Newsreel. On his return he was appointed Senior Talks Officer at Head Office Talks Section. That was his last job before he went to "Schools," but between the two he was at university for another two years, taking a Diploma in Public Administration. As a fourth generation New Zealander who had one great-grandfather at Gabriel’s Gully and another in the Taranaki Militia at the Battle of Waireka, Mr. Hay is very interested in New Zealand history and indeed in political and social histogy generally. He reads widely in these subjects and in international affairs, biography and travel; and he is a member of the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs and the New Zealand Institute of Public Administration. He is very fond of music, too. In summer, when he can find time, he likes to swim and play tennis; but, like so many other New Zealanders a_ do-it-yourself handyman, he finds a good deal of his out-of-office hours taken up with odd jobs about his house in the bush at Day’s Bay, across the harbour from Wellington. Mr. Hay tells us that his three child-ren-the’ eldest, aged four, is already

an avid listener to Kindergarten of the Air-will not only be a critical audience for many years to come for the programmes he’s concerned with-they’re

also a test audience for nursery rhymes when he wants to try them out at his own piano. And as if that were not enough in the way of professional help from his family, his wife is a _ trained librarian who is very interested in children’s books. She has worked in the university libraries at Canterbury and Auckland, and in the General Assembly Library. Mr. Hay finds it a great experience to follow Jean Combs as Supervisor of Schools Broadcasts, and he spoke warmly of the work she had done in building it

up and of the interest she still showed in it. He is pleased, too, with the team he has with him at "Schools," and paid a special tribute to Don Allan, who carried on as head of the section from the time Mr. Hay was appointed in March, 1956, till he was able to take over at the end of the university year. oy

RESTING LION

ILBERT HARDING, the benevolentlooking BBC lion, may not be roaring for several months (writes J. W. Goodwin from London). When he re-

turned home after a month in _ hospital, he revealed that he has tuberculosis. Although he is well on the way to recovery, his doctors have ordered the usual "strict rest and quiet" -to neither of which he is addicted. Asked about the inevitable cigar-

ette drooping from beneath the bristling moustache, he sighed: "Oh, I know, I know. I must give up smoking, I must, but it’s very

difficult." His plansr "ihe BBC told me it would depend on how I felt after a holiday abroad." What about

Jamaica, so popular these days? "I don’t know whether I can afford it,’ replied the man with the several-thousand-a-year radio and television contract and the regular Sunday newspaper feature-and whose face and approval are hired by several national advertisers. *

F you were to ask Diana Sutherland to tell you her favourite singersone vocalist’s view on another always being interesting-she would name without hesitation Doris Day and Frank Sinatra. She told us this recently and mentioned also that her favourite type

DIANA

(continued from previous page) of song was the slow standard sort. Diana, who is a well-known vocalist in Dunedin, where she has been heard recently with Calder Prescott’s Orchestra in the 4YA programme Accent on Swing,

started singing professionally eight years ago-she made her bow at the Dunedin

Town Hall. She’s no newcomer to the microphone, for many will remember her first broadcasts in 4ZB’s For the Children and, later, her songs in the Services’ Session from the same station. Though she has won a big public for her work with dance bands, Diana doesn’t confine herself to this, She’s a member of the newly-formed Gilbert and Sullivan Company, and last year played a leading role with them. Her hobby, by the way, is collecting records.