Country Appreciation

Radio Record, Volume II, Issue 53, 19 July 1929, Page 7

Country Appreciation

The Great Joy of Radio ‘ e readers. of the "Radio Record" are aware, Mr. J, Ball, editorannouncer of the Broadcasting Company, has recently made a tour of the Dominion for the purpose, primarily, of meeting listeners in the provincial districts, and, incidentally, of conducting relay ‘broadcasts from Invercargill, Timaru,. Hamilton and Whangarei. Mr. Ball reports that one of the most pleasing and outstanding features of a most interesting tour has been the almost innumerable expressions of ‘warm ap"preciation of the service rendered by pr company. Country listeners every"where, he says, have expressed to him in glowing terms what many of them >have not hesitated to describe as their great indebtedness to radio. "I don’t think you can possibly realise alk that our set has meant to us." "Radio has given us a new and wider interest in life." "We should feel utterly lost without our receiving set." "The very last thing we should think of parting with." me, radio in our home is regarded as just as much a necessity as our daily food-it’s one of the very last things we should care to do without." And, in the vernacular of a wayback .shepherd at, whose one-roomed 's shack the service car.pulled up, "Too right! I’ll tell the world: I tune in before I put the billy on and let ’er go till I turn in, and it’s great!" "These are but a few of the gems of appreciation culled. from my notebook," said;Mr. Ball, "and every one of them is an inspiration. The man who could hear thesé country people talk about. what radio means to them, and not feel thrilled by the knowledge that he is permitted to assist, eyen in the smallest degree, inthe rendering of that ‘service, would be sadly lacking in imagination and sentiment. Let me, in conelusion, cite just one other instance of this widespread appreciation. At the meeting of the Taumarunui Radio Society, which I addressed recently, Mr. D. H. Hall said that he had been asked by a Hikimutu settler to convey a message to me, as the representative of the Radio Broadcasting Company. Thé settler had had his set for two years, during which time he had been completely satisfied with the service rendered by the.company. Moreover, he was of the opinion that, could the residents of the towns realise the immense benefit the country people deived from .the broadcast service, they wuld make fewer complaints. "