Ron Walton never short of subjects

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33791, 13 March 1975, Page 4

Ron Walton never short of subjects

(By

KEN COATES)

“I never run out of subjects.” says the Christchurch man, Ron Walton, at present working - on the eleventh series of the popular programme. “In the Nature of Things,’’ to be shown on TV-2.

Mr Walton, a former Rangiora High School and Christchurch Boys' High School teacher, finds the world around him offers constant fascination. “My new series will be much the same mixture,” he said. “One programme will deal with armour plating in animals and will bring in armour of humans.” To emphasise the point, Ron says he will appear in a suit of armour, specially made in the studio of lightweight materials. Another programme will deal with processes involved in learning to see. “Experiments have been carried out with kittens only three weeks old,” he said. “If their vision is restricted to horizontal lines they; never see vertical lines — they bump into chairs, but have no trouble jumping up to another horizontal level.” ; Another subject Ron Walton will deal with is why your car corrodes. This should interest a wide range of viewers. Cob houses in Canterbury is another keen interest, and methods of building them will form the subject of another programme. COB COTTAGES “Little is known about our cob cottages which are fast disappearing,” Mr Walton says. “I have become so interested I have undertaken:

restoration of one at Hororata." All should be interested in another subject to be dealt with by Mr Walton — animals which live in houses. This will not be a programme on household pets, but will deal with spiders, houseflies — “even the teeming life there is in water left in a vase on the mantelpiece.” The science man has been making television programmes for almost 12 years. For some time he ran a science shop in Christchurch but has closed it because he has become too busy writing books and making television programmes.