Programme Index

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Interlude
2.5 Round the Countryside
'Dragonflies'
C. C. GADDUM
Mr. Gaddum will deal with the two main types of dragonflies-the stout-bodied variety and the slender-bodied kind. The stout-bodied kind with very powerful wings, sometimes called the horse-stinger, and the thin-bodied kind with very delicate wings. He will describe the life-history of the dragon-fly, how the eggs are laid by the female on some water-plant, how they hatch out into ferocious-looking aquatic larvae, how they stalk and hunt their prey on the bottom of ponds and ditches. And he will speak of how they change from the unsightly larvae into dazzling replicas of their parent.
Teachers could with advantage have drawings or specimens of the two kinds of dragonflies to show their classes.
2.25 Interlude
2.30 English Literature-2
Famous Writers-Lewis Carroll
STEPHEN POTTER
2.55 Interlude
3.0 Concert Lesson
(a) Variations—1 (a) 'The Horn*
THOMAS ARMSTRONG , D.Mus.
3.30 Interlude
3.35 Early Stages in French
E. M. STÉPHAN

Contributors

Unknown:
C. C. Gaddum
Unknown:
Writers-Lewis Carroll
Unknown:
Stephen Potter
Horn:
Thomas Armstrong

' April to June' a series of talks about the countryside
' The Dawn Chorus '
Eric Parker
By mid-May all the migrants that sing have arrived, and all the birds in England, migrants and residents, are nesting. The nesting period is the period' of full song, and the full chorus of song is to be heard at dawn. No one who has not heard it can imagine what is the volume of sound of the dawn chorus ; it is almost a shout. As a rule it starts in the dark, with the lark ; and it ends suddenly, almost as if a conductor's baton had fallen. Then the birds start feeding. But they always sing before they feed..... This will give listeners an outline of Eric Parker 's talk.

Contributors

Unknown:
Eric Parker
Unknown:
Eric Parker

(Section B)
Leader, Paul Beard
Conducted by Albert Coates
Suite from King Arthur (for Strings)
Purcell, arr. Herbage
King Arthur, or The British Worthy was produced at the Queen's Theatre, Dorset Garden, in 1691. In addition to the music occurring during the course of the play, Purcell wrote instrumental music to be played before the rise of the curtain (called ' first music ', ' second music ', and ' curtain tune '), and the ' act tunes ', or interludes. The present suite is selected from this instrumental music. As far as can be ascertained, the Overture and First Aire formed the ' second music ', the Hornpipe and Second Aire were probably ' act tunes and the Song Tune is a transcription of the well-known ' Fairest Isle '. The Chaconne has generally been held to be the ' Grand Dance ' at the end of the opera, but there is evidence to show that it was probably the ' first music '.
Many readers of Radio Times must have seen the film Turksib a pictorial record of the making of the Turkestan-Siberian Railway (completed in 1931). This symphony by Rimsky-Korsakov's pupil and son-in-law, Maximilian Steinberg , commemorates the same feat of engineering.
A note prefaced to the score explains that ' in his " Turksib " Symphony the composer has attempted, as far as is possible by instrumental means, to convey the fundamental idea of the struggle with the forces of nature, with the vast expanses of desert and wild mountain ranges, amid the peoples of a once backward and oppressed land. ... Besides statistical documents, the composer has used as literary material poems by S. Kirsanov (" The Song of Turksib") and Demyan Bedny (" Shaitan-arba ") '.

Contributors

Leader:
Paul Beard
Conducted By:
Albert Coates
Unknown:
Maximilian Steinberg
Unknown:
S. Kirsanov
Unknown:
Demyan Bedny

Sir James Jeans
The ' White Dwarfs ', about which Sir James Jeans is to speak this evening, have figured largely in the astronomy of the last few years. They are extreme in many ways. If we are asked which is the smallest of known stars, the hottest, or the most densely packed, the answer is in each case a white dwarf. A few years ago these, small, hot, dense stars were believed to be rare freaks, but it now seems quite possible that if we were asked which is the commonest type of star in the sky the answer ought again to be—'The White Dwarfs '.

Contributors

Unknown:
Sir James Jeans

A Cabaret Entertainment
Presented by Archie Campbell with Joan Stevenson and Lorna Tarbat
Those New Girls
Hildegarde Paris-London -New York and the one and only
Douglas Byng
The Well-known Revue and Cabaret Star
Compere, Eric Barker
The Orchestra conducted by Mark H. Lubbock

Contributors

Presented By:
Archie Campbell
Unknown:
Joan Stevenson
Unknown:
Lorna Tarbat
Unknown:
Hildegarde Paris-London
Unknown:
Douglas Byng
Unknown:
Eric Barker
Conducted By:
Mark H. Lubbock

National Programme Daventry

About National Programme

National Programme is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 9th March 1930 and ended on the 9th September 1939. It was replaced by BBC Home Service.

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