1953-12-19 — Page 6

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> THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1958. |

CHRISTMAS

Turkeys

and, of course

Dairy Farm Stuffings...,

Sage & Qnion

Chestnut

Pork Sausage

FARE

Cheese

Leyden Stilton

Dairy Farm Geese

Cheddar

Kraft

Edam

Sweets

Emmenthal

Grand

Danish Blue

National

Long Island Ducklings Australian: Ducks

Broad Beans

Australian &

Dairy Farm

Chickens

Toffees

Biscuits X'mas Puddings

Mincemeat

Glace Fruite Cranberry Sauce

Nuts

Gorgonzola

Gouda Steppe

Bel Pacse

Gruyere Esrom

BIRDS CYE ›

“BIRDSEYE”

FRESH FROZEN

VEGETABLES.

for that finishing touch to a meal:!

Sliced Beans

Brussel Sprouts Green Peas

Delicious

Chocolates, and

Party Crackers give a

festive note to your

Christmas Table

To

The

Dairy Farms

RAGE CO. IND

CAPTAIN T. B. STONEY, DFC, PILOT OF A BOAC COMET AIRLINER IN ACTUAL FLIGHT, WYNFORD VAUGHAN INTRODUCED THE QUEEN IN LAST YEAR'S CHRISTMAS DAY BROADCAST. THOMAS (LEFT) AND CAPTAIN STONEY PICTURED ON THE FLIGHT DECK. (COURTESY BBC)

The✩✩✩

CHRISTMAS BROADCAST COMES OF AGE

N

Christmas

Day

one of the Com- monwealth's

youngest traditions

comes of age. Twenty-one

ALLAN MURRAY

When the Queen facca the But unlike his broadcasts

docker, where he was begin-

ning a new life.

or

years ago King George V made his

first Christmas microphone in Auckland's Gov- message last year was entirely ernment House at nine o'clock unrehearsed. broadcast.

on Christmas night, Big Ben will be striking nine on Christ-

She has become an

Then over to Belgium and Switzerland, and on across the world to Ceylon, India, Pakis- tan, Malaya, Korea, Hongkong.

From Nigeria came the volco

of Africa, from Sydney's Bondi Australlen accom- Bouch an

greeting Since then the custom has mas morning. For BBC sagineers plished broadcaster since, aged from a lifesaver lolling in the

the been broken only twice-in this is a new zero hour. Their 4, che first faced

micro- hot summer night. A bucking BBC Children's Hour North Sea trawler sent her 1936, year. of Edward's ab- sharpest problem is to

capture phone in

But sto the Queen's voice Programme.

takes cheery message. And from the dication, and again two and record

with her scripts, lec-cold mid-Atlantic came good great pains for London's years later, for reasons

afternoon pro- fistens intently when the Duke wishes from the glant Queen given by George VI in his gramme.

plays back her voice to her on Mary. first, 1937 broadcast.

his own tape recording machine

and offers suggestions.

Her grandfather, George V,

"I cannot aspire,” he said, then, "to take my father's

NLY

before have had spoken by radio long before CANADA'S • message was place. Nor do I think that once

listeners heard a recording his first Christmas broadcast in spoken after breakfast on you would wish me to carry of the royal message. Like al 1932. First ever royal broad- Christmas morning, Now Zea

cast was in

1024. With the land's before dawn',on Boxing on, unvaried, a tradition so most every speaker in the pro-

gramme, the Sovereign has Duke of Windsor, then Prince Day. All were timed to the personal to him."

always broadenst “live” except of Wales, the King used the second, linked in London with In 1951.

microphone to open the Empire music and narration, sent out Exhibition at Wembley.

agnin round the world in a pattern of sound.

Both assumptions were prompted by characteristic modesty. And both wero dis proved by events.

r

Our Patrons & Friends

Season's Greetings

and

Best Wishes for a very Happy New Year.

KEENSEN CO

CHINA BUILDING"

from

VANSEN CO.

33 QUEEN'S ROAD, C.

our history."

In that year the late King, tired and ill after his operation, As early as 1898 he had used found a live broadcast beyond Marconi's apparatus to speak to his strength.

Queen Victoria,

Last thread in the pattern was the volee of a Comet pifot introducing the Queen,

4.3

But lavariably the Christmas broadcast has been 20 percent "Avo". Mio experts have.

had Fanxious moments, but never

real hitch.

Urged to delegate the micro- His father, later King Edward,

In such a programme the loss phono to Princess Elizabeth, he lay 11 in the royal yacht, which

moared-off-the--Isle-of-of-only-a-fow--seconds.would 1939 the late King resumed replied: "My daughter may have was

her chance next year. I want Wight, is grandmother, Queen mean chaos. So in the London his broadensta "from home

Victoria, was living at nearby studios

many items 03 to speak to my people myself." and heart" with an inspiring

arc Orbome. And for 10 days the possible

pro recorded. message at what he called "per- He had his wish. In the few young Prince George sent her Shadowing each, with needlo haps the most fateful hour in days - before Christmas his progress reports from ship to poised, stands an alert engineer,

message was recorded in a series shore-by wireless. And last year the Queen in of short passages, as much herited a

a time. firmly established he could manage at tradition. Like her father and Joined together, they made tho grandfather before her, sho recording which was broadcast made her first Christmas broad- to the listening world.

NO 21 years ago, when George cast from the quiet, cream-and- It was the ailing King's last V spoke for the first-time Responsible for their massivo gold study at Sandringham, broadcast, as he

himself had from Sandringham, at the same or work is burly, 46-year-old. royal homestead in rural Nor- surmised in his prophetic words desk as his son

and grand-Laurenco Gillam, Head of HBC And it was the only time that daughter, he was no radio novice, Features. He has produced the This was its familiar setting. he listened to his own voice as But never before had any broad programme since it began.

cast found so wide en audience.

In the studio with him 19 "I have a house in London," her it came over the air.

Never had

one man's words father once remarked, "but

ru engineer Charles Ladbroko, face, At Sandringham he had Sandringham is my home.” And

reached so

people to ing the control panel with tho many for royalty, as for most of us, habit. Leaving his family

always followed his father's quickly. A fraction of a second world at his fingertips.

in before the King's resonant voice Christmas Day has meant when the drawing room, where they reached the walls of his study it ever possible a family reunion had assembled after the midday had travelled, round the world.

Christmas dinner, ho went alone to his study...

folk.

at home,

It has not always

been possible. During the war the Iate King spoko "from a houso in the

country,"

security phrase that concealed the identity of Windsor Castle. And

0

•

Į

For the BBC, that was a big day. It marked the birth not only of the Christmas broad-

NOTHER, æxpert with long cast but of all its overseas experience is Mr R. H. services,

Wood, 50-your-old engineer who installs the royal microphone British broadcasting was ten and soon that ita -messago in 1048

Nita wide, polished desir the years old. In May the BBC reaches the London studio. ho broadcast from ·0% Buckingham Palace, where

family photographs had been had begun an experimental TV ho

and moved from its For Mr Wood this has usually was spending Christmas, for the replaced by twin microphones service,

and

studios to meant Christmas Day at Band- red cuc-light, As the first, improvised first Ume as Sovereign. But always till now the royal mes eccond by second towards its Day crowned a bumper year.

moved Broadcasting House, Christmas ringham, checking his installa- greetings programme

tions and discussing do's and sago has come from Engiand.

don'ts with the royal speaker, climax, the King pulled up his Lord Reith, then BBC This year the Queen greets favourite chair, fingered

Director-General, tells in his This year Mr Wood will not

0

his

her-peoples from New Zealand, script, and waited for his cue. memoirs how he first put up the be at Sandringham. The Queen

And the 21-year-old tradition takes a new twist.

idea of a royal Christmas broad- speaks from her heart, but not For him the broadcast meant.

Tho cart.

King's privato her home. a nervous ordeal für more try- ing than "microphone fright" secretary was dubious, the King

Yet the BBC has its respon But his slammer was a handicap Reith: "It

himself enthusiastic. Says Lord

sibilities in this twenty-first your was tho most which he fought ruthlessly -- and '

traditional broadcast, spectacular success Wo

of the achlovod so far,!!

The pattern has been woven in now way. But its shape is the some.

TECHNICALLY its pattern triumphantly mastered.

alters. Till now the hour-

His first Christmas broadcast- long exchango of round-world in 1937 was a feat of determina greetings that precedes the royal tion. It leated four minutes, mcongo has been marshallød in London. This year it is being hours with a voice specialist.

and was the result of patient assembled in Sydney.

had

As Big Ben strikes two o'clock on the afternoon of Christmas Day, an underground studio CINCE then the programme has below the placid white cliff of gione · from strength to London's Broadcasting House

Sharing the BBC's responsibi→ In 1940 ho spoloco for 13 lity for radia's most ambitious minutes, and dispensed for the strength. Matching the eare becomes once more the l' norve programme are the broadcasting first time with the specialist. taken by three generations of centre of the world's greatest systems of Australia and New Each day for a week he had royal broadcasters, radio's ex radio link-up,

rehearsed his message..

On ports spend three months build-

Zealand.

Eve ho gave it six ing up an hour-long progmumano The resonant strokes boom |·}{But the BBC will transmit the readings, timed by the Queen unique in its complexity. *** through the rudlo, sota of per-

fall programumo as usual, begia- with a stop watch.

haps two hundred million ning at the traditional hour, of

Typical of its make-up was listeners. In the studio their echoes die in a taut silence From a Grooks boy, malmed The producer nods. A red light. and blinded by a stray bomb in glows. A kilob Like her father, the Queen his country's; guerilia war, came usThis is "London,”” says the, gether becomes a bigger Jobs writes her own scripts, often the first greeting. He spoke announder, And, analber Christ- than ever..

Bet vainulaj alterations, from the hòma, of a Welsh mal broadcast: 19 en the air.

2 pm. GMP when short-wRVO Firat to congratulate him on last year's broadenst. rocoption is at its best in most its delivery was Sir Winston parts of the world.

Churchill

Knitting the programme" to-"