Holiday Programmes for Young People

New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 926, 10 May 1957, Page 8

Holiday Programmes for Young People

MOTHERS who have just coped with young families over what seemed a longer than usual Easter breakschool breaks inevitably seem longer to mothers-will again be steeling their nefves against the impact of the term holidays and the raising of the familiar cry. "What can we do now?"

To help answer that one, Broadcasts to Schools have arranged a holiday programme which will provide at least one occupation to begin the day, as well as some that will carry on through later hours. The session has now been extended to 45 minutes, and will be heard at 9.4 a.m. each week day from May

13 to 24, from the YAs and YZs. The first 15 minutes is designed mainly for younger children, and the last 15 minutes for the 10-12-year-olds. The middle part should interest some of both sections. Noeline Pritchard, who is "Gay" of the Children’s Hour at IYA, will conduct the programme. She will read the stories, inttfoduce the talks, and ask the questions in the six quizzes; two for each age group. The answers will be given at the end of the session. Noeline will also remind children of the things they will need for activities such as the Scientific Stunts, described in past sessions. Since no one wants to work in the holidays, the emphasis is on _ entertainment. Two of the BBC pro-

grammes to be heard deal with knights and their adventures. Saint George was a knight in shining armour who went to fight a dragon. But in the tale young listeners will hear, it was a very nice dragon, or so thought the boy who had discovered him. But the rules said that a dtagon meant a battle, and the story of the fight can be heard in Kenneth Grahame’s The Reluctant Dragon. Everyone, however, lived happily ever afterwards. The other knight wore very rusty armour, and rode an old nag of a horse. But Don Quixote thought he was a t knight, and his adventures end with him tilting at a very active enemy indeed. For all the stay-at-homes, the progtammes include stories of travel to far away places, One traveller who visits foreign lands is a boy who joins a merchant ship going to the East. We follow him as he learns the work, and the danger, in the sea-life that he loves. Other travellers in foreign partsreal life ones-have been Lyell Boyes, Brian Salkeld, and Bruce Broadhead. Lyell and Bria: went to the Chatham Islands when the Duke of Edinburgh wag there. They will tell children of the things they found on these islanus, which are so close to New Zealand and yet so little known to most people.

Bruce Broadhead has been further north, and he will describe the daily life of the children in Samoa, letting us hear them singing and talking in their own language. Nina Epton, another traveller, visited the Sahara, where travel by air, railway and motor services is lessening the caravan traffic which crosses from oasis to oasis. She tells of life in two of these oases one small and isolated, the other large and prosperous. And there will be a play about three Dutch children who visit their grandmother in Amsterdam. On their way they see many of the sights which make Amsterdam like no other city-the canals, the bicycles everywhere, the tall old houses, the barges laden with flowers for sale. Finally Mina, Piet and Henk go for a ride round the canals with their grandfather. : Water, in canals or ponds, did not quite satisfy one frog as a means of travel, as children will discover in another holiday programme. He wanted to fly, and boasted to the water rat that he had. In The Flying Frog, he has to justify this boast, Finally, since the football season will be in full swing after the holidays, Ron Jarden is to start boys off in the proper spirit with a talk on sport in general and Rugby in particular. This session will probably rate tops with boys, but girls should find it interesting, too.