In the days of improvised sound effects

Frans H. Said, in his recent letter Broadcasters Of Yore, is perfectly right when he says that the pioneers of Maltese broadcasting are dwindling and soon there will be no one left. They certainly worked hard without the technical assistance and modern technology available today, in those early days.

We, the RadjoMuskettieri, who introduced the sit-com on Rediffusion, of which the PBS is the direct descendant, worked for a long time by broadcasting live programmes, (as recording programmes was still far away), with the ever-present tension of the impossibility of righting an error, as with re-takes in recording nowadays.

Besides, for a long time we had no effects discs (F/X) and we had to improvise the necessary effects ourselves. For example, a cigarette lighter flick did for an electric switch. Once I even cut my fingers when breaking a glass pane doubling for a broken window. In another broadcast, a half-filled basin with water and a wooden ladle moved slowly in the water (under a hanging microphone), was supposed to be the rowing of oars of a lifeboat, while roughly thumbing a big balloon made up for the noise of firecrackers (musketterija) at a Maltese festa!

So we were very happy when one fine day Graham Binns, an executive at Rediffusion, announced the good news that a stock of sound effects on discs had arrived. All was then plain sailing with farmyard noises (dogs barking, cows mooing, birds singing, cars running, glass breaking, thunder etc.) ready on tap, on discs.

Yes, certainly Mr Said, we must remember people such as Gala Caruana, Armando Urso, Johnnny Catania, Gemma Portelli, Nosi Ghirlando, Ziju Frans (Mr Said himself) Nannu Peppu, Ziju Salv, Karmenu Gruppetta and many others.

Surely, they really deserved to have been born some years later; they definitely would have been real stars today!