2 DECEMBER 1932, Page 36

One of the most disheartening experiences that listening can offer

was mine the other day when I " toured the various stations during the Children's Hour. On one wave- length a singer was lugubriously singing some ballads ; on another someone was giving a Nature Talk (aided by a Zummerzet rustic of the music-hall type) ; coy patter intro- duced some animal songs on another • and on yet another a version of the story of Aladdin's Lamp was being acted with all the naivete of a charade. Such amateurish enter- tainment was all very well in the early days, but it is surely time that even the Children's Hour grew up a little For- tunately, there are exceptions : the Toytown adventures, for example, and Commander Stephen King-Hall's lucid summary (on Fridays) of the week's news.

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