A Broadcaster’s Reminiscences

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31653, 13 April 1968, Page 4

A Broadcaster’s Reminiscences

Broadcasting Grave and Gay. By Ken G. Collins. The Carton Press. 196 pp. Ken Collins belongs to the pioneers of New Zealand broadcasting. He joined the technical staff of 2YA as early as 1929. As technician, ant' later announcer, he took par' in a number of historic broad casting events. These in eluded Admiral Byrd's two way conversation with New York from 4YA Dunedin aftei his return from the firsl South Polar expedition; Kings ford Smith’s crossing of the Tasman; the funeral cortege of Michael Savage; the Roya Tour of 1953. He was also actively associated with Par liamentary broadcasts and with establishing the Fijian Broadcasting Commission More recently he was given the task of establishing the Hawke's Bay commercial sta tion of 2ZC. He is thus well qualified to write about th>past 40 years of broadcasting There is, however, no flavour of the archives in his book, which is concerned as much with the personalities of broadcasting as with events A number of well-known radio people, and som» not so wellknown, come briefly to life in these pages. Many will no doubt read with nostalgia Mr Collins’s accounts of the personalities of a more leisurely era when it was not untoward for an announcer to interrupt a programme in order to answer a telephone call. It is this era. the era of Clive Drummond (2YA’s “Mr Announcer”), Aunt Molly, Professor Shelley, “Professor" Cecil Sweet Allen and many others, which Mr Collins evokes so well.