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IT is not a long way back to the days when animal labour in the collieries was pursued under such conditions that no one with the least imagination could call them satisfactory. But the horse and the pony are rapidly vanishing before the development of the more adequate mechanical means of getting and transporting coal. Moreover, this development, together with the electrification of the collieries and the application of machinery to the preparation of coal for the market, has effected a vast enhancement of the standard of comfort of the workmen and of their wage-earning capacity.

Conducted by Hugh S. Roberton
Relayed from St. Andrew's Hall
S.B. from Glasgow

For several generations Glasgow has very justly been proud of its choral singing, particularly of its smaller choirs. The Orpheus Choir has sung in many parts of the world, and has won golden opinions.
Its conductor, Hugh S. Roberton, is one of those who have in a very high degree the knack of imparting their own zeal, and a large part of the secret of his Choir's success is that every member is keen to do his utmost as a member of the team and not as an individual.

In Sherlock Holmes, Conan Doyle has created one of the few characters in modern fiction who have become a byword and a figure of speech. But, as the lynx-eyed Holmes passes into our folklore, gaunt and impressive in his Inverness Cape and his deerstalker cap, he still cannot shake off the obtuse and innocent Watson. Watson of the intermittent practice and the brown moustache, with his never-failing bewilderment and his misdirected zeal, is, indeed, considered by many critics to be as much to Holmes as Boswell was to Johnson. Certainly, few writers of detective stories since Conan Doyle have ventured to dispense with some similar foil to the brilliance of their hero. And in any case (in all their cases, in fact) Watson supplies the human note. The rooms in Baker Street seem real because of his bovine Victorian humanity; he counteracts the super-humanity of the chilly Holmes. In taking him as the subject of tonight's "Miniature Biography," Mr. Desmond MacCarthy is paying a fitting tribute to the homeliest character in all the literature of crime.

Contributors

Speaker:
Desmond MacCarthy

2LO London

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About this data

This data is drawn from the Radio Times magazine between 1923 and 2009. It shows what was scheduled to be broadcast, meaning it was subject to change and may not be accurate. More