Five Days a Week Arthur Collyns is on the Air, Solving Other Folks' Problems

Radio Record, Volume XII, Issue 25, 2 December 1938, Page 7

Five Days a Week Arthur Collyns is on the Air, Solving Other Folks' Problems

By

J. GIFFORD

MALE

¢¢ EAR ANNE,-I am only 19 years of age, and | am keeping company with a D young man who says he loves me and wants to marry me when we are old enough. Now, we have been seeing each other every week for three years, and we were both very happy. But lately I have noticed he has changed a lot, and does not pay me the same attention. I have also heard that he was seen at the pictures one night with somebody else. What do you think I should do? Should I go on just as if nothing has happened, or should I ask him straight out why he has changed, end what is the matter? Please, Dorothy, teli me what to do, because | am heart-broken."

HE sort of letter you might find on the ** Advice to the Lovef lorn’’ page of any news- ) paper, isn’t it? " And while sophisticated folk. would have you believe that. both question . and answer originate in the fertile brain of some spinster pounding a-type-writer in a newspaper office, the fact is there are thousands of young folk who turn io problem pages for advice. And what would you dao, gentle reader, if you yourself were very young, very lonely, very much in love and had no friend to turn to? Particularly if you were at that interesting stage of life

when one spends secret: hours writing ballads to .eycbrows; when the rest of the world seems very self-assured and very intolerant of love’s young troubles. You are anonymous, your. heart-ery known only to one person. ADIO, too, has its personal problem sessions, has found that many a love-lorn lass prefers to have her worries alleviated per medium of a soothing voice over the air. One of the most popular of such sessions in New Zealand radio-in fact, the only one of its kind-is conducted from 1ZB, Auckland, by Arthur Collyns. .

Mr. Collyns is a young man who has earved a unique little niche for himself in commercial radio. His session ‘‘Between Our-. selves’’ has been going for @.g00d while now, originally from 228 and latterly from i258, and its popu. larity doesn’t seem to be waning in the slightest, Thirty minutes five afternoons a week, Mr. Collyns is on the air attending to other people’s worries. Problems, problems, problems. Letters by the dozen every week. Those ‘who are inclined to be sceptical about personal .problem sessions should see Mr. Collyns’s mail-bag. He receives enough ‘‘exies from the heart’? to keep him going six afternoons a week if he had the time. Tt isn’t only love that correspondents write him about. Does the Fair Rents Act prevent my landlord from raising the rent 10/- a week? Can you advise me of a simple cure for asthma? My son has had to leave Technical School to find a job. What sort of position would you advise, and could you help find him one? © ~~ Simple Theme UT by and large, ‘‘ Between Ourselves’"’ is ultimately a matter of infinite variations on a very simple theme-tlove. It’s almost enough to convert one to the Freudian theory that sex is one of the few basic experiences in lite, and influences and conditions our every action. ’ Mr. Collyns is an experienced practical psychologist. Difficult problems he hands on_ to trained experts, people who know their psychoses, neuroses, complexes and fixations; but everyday psychological problems he attends to himselfwith a good deal of success. Sex, of course, is an extremely difficult subject to handle over the air, and while Arthur Collyns is ° entirely in favour of com- — ~ plete frankness, and would: even like to see something in the nature of an open | forum on the question, he realises the limitations of radio, and how impossible it would be to conduct frank discussion of sex problems over the air. And so some questions he answers in everyday language ad a oe a i ve

that is meaningless except to the person to whom his reply is directed, and other more intimate problems he answers by letter. , RTHUR COLLYNS. devotes much time to selection of the recordings he uses during his session. Music, as is well known, has an appreciable emotional effect. But what many. people do not know is that jazz depresses rather than lifts up. The musie best suited to a session like ‘‘Between Ourselves’’ is tuneful and soothing -Toscelli’s ‘‘Serenade,’’ "Softly Awakes My Heart, »" ‘Mendelssohn’s ‘‘Spring Song"’ and other popular classies. But ‘"‘Between Ourselves’’ is not the only interest Mr. Collyns has at 1ZB; he edits the Children’s Magazine, one of the Commercial Service’s most intelligently conducted children’s sessions, and looks after oecasional special sessions. "International" LAST Christmas, for instance, he endeavoured to help along the eause of international amity with an ‘‘International ‘Session’? during which music of all nations was played, and spokesmen for various peoples broadcast messages of peace and goodwill. Representatives of a dozen or so countries turned up, all, incidentally, undertaking to avoid anything controversial. Everything -went well until the German’s turn came. His talk was red-hot Nazi propaganda, full of ‘‘Heil . Hitlers"’ ‘and sabre-rattling. He was stopped as soon as possible. Mr. Collyns had intended broadcasting the Horst Wessel song, but after that he decided it would be in better taste to represent German music with the . Comedy Harmonists singing " elige Nicht." . mt) sia eOUL Go tetdt cer fescse

Similarly with the spokesman for China. A mild, pleasant little Chinese, he was no sooner in front of the microphone than he, launched an excited tirade against Japan and everything Japanese, He, too, was removed with all speed. Mr. Collyns isn’t sure whether he’ll risk an ‘‘International Session’’ this Christmas or not. hi R, COLLYNS applies his knowledge of psychology to his children’s session no less than to ‘*Between Ourselves."’ For one thine, he doesn’t believe in talking down to children. More important, the word ‘‘fear’’ is absolutely barred. ° Here is his bulletin of instructions to participants in the children’s session. ‘it is the policy of this session that there must on ne account be any mention of fear in any story or seript which may be breadeast. Particular care must be taken to omit such words as ‘frightened,’ and ‘seared.’ The idea is that the children’s session must be psychologically right... ."’ A distinct contrast to American children’s sessions, if one ean judge by a tale told by that alert New York paper, the ‘"‘New Yorker.’? A eorrespondent of the ‘‘New Yorker’ was" being conducted through one of the city’s largest broadeasting stations. . Arrived at the studios devoted to the presentation of the children’s session, the visitor noticed among the devices used’ for producing sound effects a large apple and a hammer. Intrigued, he asked what sound an apple and 8 hammer could simulate. ‘*Man’s head being bashed in,’’ replied. the guide. : ghoesrph rgactys ope agpegr ae ‘ ae |