12-Day N.Z. Tour British TV Prize

Press, Volume C, Issue 29415, 18 January 1961, Page 14

12-Day N.Z. Tour British TV Prize

‘The Press” Special Service

WELLINGTON, January 17. When Mr Bernard Darby stepped off the Sydney plane at Wellington this week he confessed that his only experience of the outdoors was at a scout camp during his Manchester boyhood. It is an important point, for Mr Darby, a Londoner, is faced with a whirlwind television prize tour of New Zealand, doing all sorts of athletic things from goldpanning to water-ski-ing. Mr Darby won a goldpan on an English television show. Michael Miles, a New Zealander, the show’s compere, told him: “Go find your gold in New Zealand.”

There is a formidable 12-day itinerary for the engineering sales representative who is in his early thirties with a wife and four-year-old daughter waiting for him at home. Although he can skate on icq and wooden wheels, his "huntin’, shootin’, flshin’ ” tour has Mr Darby panning for gold, picking fruit and mustering sheep around Nelson, flying through the Southern Alps, milling timber at Taumarunui, ski-ing at The Chateau, water ski-ing and fishing at Tauranga. The National Film Unit will track Mr Darby through New Zealand and the film will be flown to England to be shown to Michael Miles’s estimated 13 million viewers on February 1. Looking forward to the fun

of “having a go” at most of what New Zealand can offer. Mr Darby said: "It’s one of those things you can’t quite believe till you’re here. I’m still pinching myself.”

How did he win such a glamour prize? “Well, you answer three simple questions. Then you are given the choice of a key to one of a number of boxes.” “I chose box 13.”