Balclutha Celebrates Jubilee Anniversary Concert Broadcast

Radio Record, Volume IV, Issue 15, 24 October 1930, Page 6

Balclutha Celebrates Jubilee Anniversary Concert Broadcast

ROM Balclutha, which is celebrating its Diamond Jubilee this month, a Jubilee concert will be relayed to 4YA on Tuesday, October 28. An excellent programme has been arranged. In addition to the musical numbers, there will be speeches by a Minister of the Crown, and by the Mayor of Balelutha, Mr. S. V. White, who will be presented with a mayoral chain by Mr. A. B. Russell, on behalf of the .citizens. The Jubilee celebrations Wil

be spread over several days and will include many varieties of sport and entertainments, and such novel events as a children’s dress parade, trade displays, cricket match (old councillors versus present councillors), fireworks display, street dancing, jubilee services in the churches, sacred concerts by Balclutha Male Choir, cutting the Jubilee birthday cake, citizens’ ball, children’s sports, planting of Jubilee memorial oaks, and Diamond Jubilee concert. In the broadcast of the concert the old identities of Balclutha who will be unable to attend the celebrations, will have an opportunity of listening to at least one of the events held on this occasion. Once noted for the devastation wrought in the town by the frequent floods in the Molyneux River, Balclutha, on the main railway line, 53 miles south of Dunedin, has during the past decade made remarkable progress. While other towns and districts still suffer from the unfortunate visitations of floods, Balclutha has been enjoying wonderful immunity. To a large extent this has been due

to the very strong embankment with which the ratepayers fortified the town after the last serious flood about eleven years ago. To-day, Balclutha is the thriving centre of one of the most prosperous agricultural and pastoral districts in the Dominion, and its reputation as a sound business town ranks very high with commercial interests. Including its suburbs of Rosebank, Toshvale and North Balclutha, it has a population of well over 2,000 people.

It is sixty years this year since Balclutha was constituted a borough, and the citizens have therefore deemed it right that the occasion should be marked by appropriate jubilee celebrations. These are to take place during the Labour Day week-end, and will commence on Saturday, October 25. The present Mayor of Balclutha, Mr. S. V. White, is the seventeenth on the list. "Sid," as he is popularly known, is a-real live wire. An enthusiastic sport, he was well known on _ the athletic field in his earlier days. During the eleven years that he has been on the Council, for seven of which he has occupied the mayoral chair, he has had the best interests of his town enthusiastically at heart. The motto of the’ town, selected by its chief citizens in far away 1870, is: "Let Balclutha Flourish," and ex-resi-dents of the Clutha now living in other parts of the Dominion will be able to obtain through 4YA on the night of October 28, an idea of how the town has flourished and progressed during the past sixty years.