The Rising Generation

New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 928, 24 May 1957, Page 3

The Rising Generation

/OU’VE seen them, of course. ‘he girls in matador pants, off-the-shoulder blouses and flatties; the boys in narrow trousers, blue suede shoes, and odd hair styles. They laugh and giggle a lot, and crowd the local milk bars. "Rock and Roll’ sends ’em, and staid adults probably congratulate themselves that their children are different. But what do we know of these youngsters. Who are they? What are their views on living? Have they any views? Arthur E. Jones, of 1YA, decided to find out, and he asked Noeline Pritchard to help him. Noeline runs the popular 1YD Hit Parade session, and it was felt the youngsters might rise to the lure of meeting her, and would talk ar agg Mr Jones admits he cheated a little. "I wanted them to forget the microphone," he said. "Noeline and I were just a couple of adults who pushed our way into a group of the youngsters. We plied them with soft drinks and questions. Part of the time they didn’t know they were being recorded. And it was quite a session. It lasted four hours, and two and a half hours of that was recorded on tape. What did we talk about? Everything, I think. Their homes, their jobs and how they spent their time. We probed into the mysteries of bodgies and widgies and why those types dress the way they do. We discussed books

and films and radio programmes. We asked them their views on marriage, and what their ambitions were. Some of them talked more freely than others, of course. We had three boys and four girls. I would emphasise that they were not especially picked. We hadn’t. even met until we all got together, and there were no rehearsals." The headaches arrived when Mr Jones came to edit the programme. He had to cut the two and a half hours’ dialogue to thirty minutes. A lot of it was useless, of course. Just idle chatter, and noise and everyone speaking at once. It was a slow process of hacking out uninteresting material and putting it together piece by piece. Milne Collis, the Recording Studio’s technician, eliminated the extraneous noises, and on occasion put the tape together word by word where hesitation and unfinished sentences would have» made it incomprehensible to the listener. "Record any unrehearsed discussion," Mr Jones says, "and the playback sounds terrible. Everyone talks on top of each other, or says something quite absurd, and the result ig just a jumble. We had to make this programme simple and straightforward, and that is why there was such a lot of editing to do." And the resilt? Miss Pritchard and Mr Jones had only a few.comments to make on their reactions to. meeting the youngsters. Mr Jones said that The

Rising. Generation was an_ interesting experiment, even though the youngsters had been difficult to draw out. Some listeners could well find’ it a little difficult to attune their ears and minds to the youngsters’ ways of speaking and thinking and, in fact, the programme did Tequire a fair degree of concentration. "But," he added, "we think we have succeeded in giving an aspect of living that may be new to most people and, if so, we consider the programme to be worth while. We don’t say all these young people think the same way but, like all youths, they are adventurous and find the more conservative forms of entertainment on the dull side. If we accept this viewpoint as a permissable one then, perhaps, we should not be | too hard on the views expressed in this programme."

"Listen to the programme and make your Own assessment," said Miss. Pritchard. "Just remember that there was no rehearsal, and that the views and comments expressed are entirely spontaneous. In fact, meet the youngsters for yourselves. It’s quite an experience." The Rising Generation will be broadcast from 1YA at 8.30 p.m. on May 3 and later from the other YA 3 stations.