"MY POOR BOY..."

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 933, 28 June 1957, Page 7

"MY POOR BOY..."

LL of us, or almost all, like to talk about our jobs, and if it comes to giving advice-well, we're generally pretty ready with that, too. But we can’t all be witty or amusing about it, and these are among the qualities that listeners will discover in My _ Poor Boy .. ., four talks to be heard from 3YC-the first at 10.15 pm. this

coming Saturday, June 29. The talks will be heard from other YC stations. "T’m determined to play this radio parlour-game according to the rules," says Ray Copland in the first talk, a word of advice to those who want to be teachers. "I’m going to pretend my audience is not in fact composed of Anxious Mother, Constant Listener, Radio Reviewer and stern old men who ought to be playing cribbage. Not Ladies and Gentlemen, then, but Young Man, Young Woman: eager, credulous, anxious, on the tiptoe of critical decisions. . ." Mr Copland has something to say to (and about) those who are good at everything, and those who are good at nothing, those who are born teachers because they’re in-

terested in children or love their subject, and those for whom teaching is a job which they do "willingly, faithfully and without excessive enthusi-asm"-the sort of typical New Zealanders in the climate of whose teaching 90 per cent of other New Zealanders grow up.

Those who would like to be ministers of religion will hear frem a minister, the Rev. G. A. Naylor, in the second talk. There are some thingssuch as marriage-which can be known only through personal experience, Mr Naylor points out; and though you may feel certain you have a fair idea of what a minister’s life is like your knowledge is still "outside" knowledge, and the peculiar.dangers and frustrations as well as the rewards and satisfactions are only hearsay. Cotsford Burdon will give advice to the prospective farmer in the third talk, In his opinion the young farmer can learn something from books and lectures and professors; he can look over the boundary fence to see what his neighbour is doing and listen to saleyard gossip. But his principal teacher will be his own farm. My Poor Boy ... will end with a talk by Ngaio Marsh. If. you want to become an author because you feel you can write better than you can do anything else, she says, then go ahead and do it without frills or flourishes. Write simply and re-write and write again. And don’t entertain for a moment the idea that there is no drudgery in writing-for there’s a great ceal in even the most inspired, the most noble, the most distinguished.