Australian Women's Weekly (1933 - 1982), Wednesday 24 April 1957, page 8


TELEVISION PARADE

By NAN MUSGROVE

• I would like to see the television programmes that appear in the daily newspapers given in greater detail. At present, finding good programmes is as easy as winning a lottery.

HERE'S an instance.

Three of Sydney's top naturalists have sessions on TV. They are interesting and educating to viewers of all ages. But

no mention of them is

made in the daily pro-

grammes.

All the programmes list are

children's sessions without indication that the naturalists appear in them.

THE naturalist at Channel

9, TCN, is Dr. Allen Keast, 33-year-old Curator of Birds and Reptiles at the Aus-

tralian Museum.

His talks on Thursdays to the Channel Ninepins between 6 and 6.15 are illustrated by live specimens, films, slides, and pictures, and are lively,

animated affairs.

At the moment, and for the next few weeks, he is dealing with the insects, frogs, spiders, and general wild life that you find in your garden.

A fascinating fact about Dr. Keast is that he was once a guest at a cocktail party on a big Northern Territory property where they served goanna savories. He is really keen about eating goanna and rather fancies goanna mornay.

Dr. Keast, who is red-headed, and says he is "not married, engaged, or hopeful," is just back from America, where he took his doctorate of philosophy at Harvard University.

"TOM the Naturalist," who

is Alan Colefax, a senior lecturer in zoology at Sydney University, is heard on Chan-nel 2, ABN.

To illustrate his talks he uses live specimens or models which he makes himself.

One of the mechanical models which he made was

of a bee sting, three feet long.

It takes him a minimum of two days to prepare and col-lect or make the "props" for a 10-minute show, heard some time after 5 p.m. every second Monday.

Mr. Colefax is going abroad for 12 months, and is handing over his session to two of his colleagues. He will introduce them on his final session on ABN on April 29.

Both the new naturalists, Mr. W. H. Dawbin and Mr.

N. G. Stephenson, are New Zealanders, who are also senior lecturers in zoology at Sydney University.

Mr. Dawbin will start his sessions by showing and talk-ing about a New Zealand tua-tara, a rare reptile, like a miniature dragon, which is

almost extinct.

Mr. Dawbin has a way with tuatara, and is the only person in the world who has been able to persuade them to breed in captivity.

For this reason he has a dis-

pensation from the N.Z. Gov-

ernment to have tuatara in Australia.

MR. J. R. KINGHORN,

who was assistant direc-tor of the Australian Museum until his retirement last year, has a spot, twice a week, in the Captain Fortune Show on Channel 7, ATN.

The children love him, and he loves the children, who compete fiercely to appear on his session with their pets.

"TOM the Naturalist" of

ABN.

He uses live specimens and the preserved variety as well as pictures to answer the children's questions.

Mr. Kinghorn, at 65, is a person who really loves his job.

"TV has brought me a new life and career, built on the foundations of my old one,"

he said.

THE Quiz Kids' debut on

Channel 7, ATN, is still vague. Most mentioned date so far is May 12. But prepara-tion of the show, to be filmed and recorded so that it may be seen and heard simul-

taneously on TV and radio, is causing trouble.

The show is to be enlivened by guests, but seven guests recently enlivened it far be-yond what was anticipated.

The guests were famous cartoonist Eric Jolliffe and his six phalangers (tiny, grey, gliding possums). Loosed among the Kids, one glider, basking on the guest Quiz Kid's mortar-board, disgraced itself entirely.

DR. ALLEN KEAST, TCN's naturalist, is our technical ad-visor on the popular picture series "These are Australian."

The anxiety of Mr. Dease, the mortification of Mr. Jol-liffe, the poise of the young contestant, and the general scurry that went on was ap-parently wonderful TV stuff. But it had an unhappy sequel.

The film was faulty and can't be used; Mr. Jolliffe has banished his gliders from pub-lic appearances until they are completely groomed for star-dom and well behaved, and there has been general un-happiness all round.

ABOUT neon signs on TV

towers:

Claude Neon Ltd., through Mr. K. Yiend, tells me that maintenance at the height re-quired is one of the difficulties. He put it succinctly: "We have steeplejacks and engineers, but we haven't a steeplejack who is an engineer, or an engineer who is a steeplejack."

I'm told that the ABN tower is to have a lift inside that

goes up to a height of 300ft.

and has been installed for the maintenance of aerials and

associated equipment, but this doesn't necessarily make a sign possible.

For a start, the Postmaster-

General mightn't want one.

Then stresses and strains on

the structure have to be con-

sidered, as well as voltage and wind-resistance problems. All

the towers are designed to resist a wind of 120 m.p.h. (the greatest wind strength ever recorded in Sydney is 95 m.p.h.) and it is possible that the signs could increase the

total pressure of the wind be-yond the safety margin.

MR. J. R. KINGHORN, of ATN, photographed on TV with an American eared owl.