Open Microphone

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 945, 20 September 1957, Page 20

Open Microphone

NEWS OF BROADCASTERS ON AND OFF THE RECORD

SONG-WRITER

FATHER of eight children would not, you’d think, have much peace for writing music, but 46-year-old Bert Arthur, who has a family of eight, has.

in fact, written hundreds of popular songs. Mr Arthur,

whose interest in music goes back as far as he can remember, has had one

song accepted by a London publishing house and _ two others recorded in New Zealand. Many others have been sung on the concert platform, and his work is now included in the Wednesday night National light music programme, New Zealanders Wrote These. Mr Arthur has also had light verse accepted in England, America, Australia and New Zealand, and in "The Awkward Age," one of his most successful numbers, he combines a gay lyric with a_ tuneful melody. Like Phil Pomery, mentioned

in "Open Microphone" last week, Bert Arthur is a New Zealander only by adoption. Born in London in 1911, he came to this country when he was 20 and has never regretted it. He had a spell as a farmer, but for a good many years now has been a picture framer. Although he plays no instrument, Mr Arthur can strum on the piano, and he has a good knowledge of the theory of music.

VIOLIST

ONCERTGOERS who remember Gavin Saunders from a few years back as one of the second violins in the National Orchestra, will be as interested as we were to hear that he has joined the Radio Luxemburg Symphony Orchestra. Gavin was due to

take up his appointment early this month. Writing home, he says that Luxem-

burg is a beautiful city and that facilities at Radio Luxemburg are excellent. Gavin, who is only 23, studied the violin here under Miss V. Ross in New Plymouth, and under Francis Rosner in Wellington, and went overseas two years ago on a Government bursary. He took a year of this bursary in Rome and a year in London. Until about seven months ago the violin was his main instrument, though he also played the viola. Now he is concentrating on the viola, and according to Cecil Aronowitz (who has a considerable reputation as a violist in’ England) he "obviously has a natural aptitude" for the instrument. Gavin was introduced

to Aronowitz by Denis Vaughan, Sir Thomas Beecham’s deputy conductor. Another noted musician who thinks highly of his playing is Max Rostal, who spoke for him when M. Pensis, conductor of the Luxemburg Orchestra, asked Rostal to recommend a violist. Gavin has lately been at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena, Italy, where at the final concert of the music school he. _ played first viola in the Mozart Quintet, K.593, in one quartet with a brilliant young American pianist

Raymond Lewenthal, and in another with the leader of the Belgrade Phil-

harmonic Orchestra. * N INETY-TWO-YEAR-OLD William Meldrum has been so much a part of Greymouth for so long that most West Coasters of the present generation are surprised when they hear that he was born in the Far North. "The Brig," as he is known to so many people, has a varied life to look back on, and from 3YZ on September 24 he will be heard in a halfhour of reminiscences. These will cover his experiences as an Auckland rep. cricketer and Rugby player-61 years ago he was also New Zealand chess champion -his early career as a barrister and solicitor, and his later career as a magistrate, and his war

service in Gallipoli, Egypt and Palestine, when he rose to the rank of Brigadier-General, and ‘among other decorations was awarded the Serbian Order of the White Eagle. *

STAND-IN

4 HEN Alex McDowell, 1XN’s Station Manager (who is seen below), found at nine o’clock on a recent Friday morning that no stand-in had been discovered for Pamela Johnston, of the Women’s Hour, who had been

stricken with fu, he went into tthe studio and did the job himself.

Among other topics, he took baby foodstuffs, children’s books, ladies’ bucket hats and ladies’ finery in his stride, It was one of Mr McDowell’s last jobs before he left for London by way of the Arctic Circle as NZBS representative on the inaugural flight of a new Pan American Airways service, Listeners will expect to hear his impressions of the trip soon after he comes back.

MIGHTY ATOM

[TIMMY WILDE is a name which may not mean much to people who don’t follow the fight game, but Jimmy, whose story has been dramatised for radio in a BBC programme going the rounds of YA stations (2YA, Septem-

ber 24), was a small, sickly Welsh boy who con-

founded all his critics to become known as the "Mighty Atom" and "The Ghost with the Hammer in his Hand." Fighter after fighter-from flyweights to featherweights — went down before his flying fists. Even the late James Agate seems to have been carried away by-him, for he summed up Jimmy Wilde’s genius with these words: "You can match Shaw with Voltaire . .. Bernhardt with Rachel . . . Hobbs with Grace... but no other boxer has ever given away two stone and been uniquely superior to all others in his class. . . No other man... but William Shakespeare." a :

()SBERT SITWELL, who will be. heard reading his own poetry from) YC stations at 7.30 p.m. on Wednesday, September 25, has been described (in Who’s Who) as having conducted, in conjunction. with his brother and sister, "a series of skirmishes and hand-to-hand battles against the Philistine." We have the same authority for saying that, though outnumbered, he has occasionally succeeded in denting the line, though not without damage to himself. Sir Osbert-he’s the fifth Baronethas described his recreations as "thinking for himself, and not receiving, or answering, unnecessary correspondence on at least one day in the week."

Spencer Digby photograph GAVIN SAUNDERS Appointment at Luxemburg

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[?] [?] photograph WILLIAM MELDRUM West Coaster by adoption

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Art Studios photo ALEX McDOWELL Journey across the Arctic

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N.P.S. photograph NZBS Children's Session Organisers from five centres met in Wellington for two days recently to share with Keith Hay, Supervisor of School Broadcasts and Children's Programmes, and other officers of the section, their experience in providing programmes for children. Seen here, from left, are: John Pike (Announcer-in-Charge, 3YZ), Margaret Josling (3YA), Colleen Rea (2YA), Marie Redshaw (4YA) and, at back, Noeline Pritchard (1YA)