ENGLISH BY WIRELESS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20964, 1 March 1930, Page 5

ENGLISH BY WIRELESS.

PROFESSOR’S DISTINCTION. The honour of being the first person in the world for whom a broadcast medal was struck has fallen to the lot of a British subject. The Austrian sculptor, Herr Taglands, has just designed a fine portrait medal, ’which the Austrian national mint is striking of Professor T. W, MacCullum, the popular teacher of English by broadcasting, and the man who is jokingly accused of teaching all Austria to speak English with a Scottish accent. Professor MacCullum, who was a professor at the University before the war, lived in Vienna unmolested throughout the war fsays the London Daily Telegraph). He has been teaching English by wireless for three years, and every day regularly receives a mailbag of 50 letters. He was the cause of at least one tragedy. A Viennese cook, after writing an anonymous love letter to the unknown owner of the voice, placed the earphones to her head, turned on the gas, and died during a broadcast lesson. The medal bears a fine portrait of Professor MacCullum. and on the reverse of it are an aerial and microphone, with the spire of Vienna Cathedral and the signature of the professor encircled by his famous regular broadcast greeting to hig hearers; “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, girls and bovg. in Vienna, Graz, and all the other beautiful places of Austria.”