Radio days – the early ‘influencers’ who made learning English fun and relatable
Remembering Constance Haslem and the heyday of English-language radio in Malaysia
THE essence of a physical presence is a person’s words, actions and deeds. A familiar voice and acts of kindness once shown to us – these are what we miss when we lose someone, as seen this week in the outpouring of tributes to the late veteran radio and TV presenter, Constance Haslem.
With the announcement of her demise, came heartfelt remembrance. She is at once remembered for her exuberance, for the feel-good factor that she generated on air, and for the lessons she taught us in all the ways that count.
There were plenty of such glowing reminders of Constance’s contributions to her audiences nationwide. We were transported to the glorious days of Constance the deejay, the radio and TV host, the agony aunt and above all, the national media icon of a bygone era.
Constance Haslam Behr, known to friends as Connie, was a staple on Malaysian radio, specifically RTM, during the 70s and 80s. – Facebook pic
A world of learning and discovery
If today wasn’t the age of social media, radio and TV stations would have been jammed up with callers wanting to honour her memory on air. “A whole generation of us have listened to her golden voice, reading the news, answering requests, and spinning the top hits of the day,” wrote her ex-colleague and friend Patrick Yeoh on his social media page.
So much of our memories of Connie, as she was affectionately known, are intertwined in our own individual history of growing up in the golden era of radio and TV, with RTM at the helm of broadcasting. During the 70s and 80s, Constance sparkled in the good company of her legendary colleagues at RTM’s popular English radio station.
With talents such as Patrick Teoh, Allan Zechariah, Neubert Ambrose, George Abraham Faridah Merican, A. Radha Krishnan and many others, the passion and professionalism that these larger-than-life media personalities dispensed, for a time, kept us company. They enticed us into a world full of the richness of learning and discovering and kept us there throughout the 70s and 80s. And all this, while we ourselves were physically, mentally and emotionally developing and nursing ambitions of our own!
The most enjoyable form of English language learning
The radio days that marked the rise and burgeoning of pop culture in the 60s, 70s and 80s, are engraved in our hearts for a number of reasons. Radio was the well-spring of knowledge and entertainment and for generations growing up, it fed minds, encouraged self-expression and most of all, propelled the development of the English language in Malaysia.
Notably, these were also the decades that exuded harmony. Youngsters and their elders thrived in an open and vibrant Malaysia, a multi-racial nation which genuinely upheld the principles of respect, tolerance and peaceful co-existence.
During this period, there was very little, if any, display of distaste towards different or other norms and cultures, including the English language. Learning and using the international language was certainly not discouraged and was considered an essential tool for future-building.
Not surprisingly, the country went with the global flow and embraced English, the currency of international trade, commerce and cross-border relationships.
Radio became one of the most significant ways in which droves of Malaysians began to take a deeper interest in the English language. The programme contents of RTM’s English service were not just educational and informative but exciting and relatable, drawing audiences from across the board.
RTM headquarters. – Wikimedia pic
More importantly, the presenters brought their own brand of wit and humour, impressing audiences with their command of English. They were the ‘influencers’ of the time – what they said was equally important as how they said it and also, what values they represented.
The presenters of the era carried a healthy respect for diversity and opened the doors wide to self-expression, encouraging listeners to communicate in English. RTM’s English service was often flooded with letters, song requests and personal messages, as well as queries and call-ins seeking advice.
As youngsters, we listened diligently to a delightful array of radio offerings in the English language, absorbing the words and nuances like a sponge to spilled Milo. Pop music, request programmes, quizzes and talent shows would fill our days and as our world expanded beyond classroom Maths and English, so too did our command of the language.
We were mesmerised and subconsciously, reproduced the expressions, sounds and linguistic rhythms on a daily basis. We were effortlessly learning to express ourselves better in an international language that was to prove central to our personal and professional growth. It was by far, the most enjoyable form of English language learning and assimilation.
Learning to listen well
Radio encouraged us to be engaged listeners. We learned to communicate and express ourselves through numerous forms of audience participation which was an integral part of the broadcasts during the 70s and 80s.
Those were the early days of pop culture and radio gave us the platform to appreciate the appeal of creative writing from understanding and memorising English song lyrics.
We could request and dedicate songs. The experience of hearing our names and that of loved ones on air was exhilarating to say the least. We were hooked. We scribbled sweet notes to the recipients of our request assiduously, minding our grammar, as we submitted sometimes creative and other times bog- standard greetings. Afterwards, we would enjoy the deejay’s comments, delivered in perfect English.
Through the radio, words, either spoken or sung, had a power to unite, educate, and entertain. – Pixabay pic
Indeed, the RTM English radio service made us sit up and listen to words. Anything from song lyrics to quizzes received our attention. We listened religiously, copied and fashioned our communication after the presenters’ impeccable delivery. This encouraged some of us to adopt reading and writing as a hobby, inspired by the potency of the words wafting along the Sunday afternoon breeze.
A particularly popular Sunday conundrum was the one presented on the Kee Huat Radio’s Fantastic Facts and Fancies programme. Just as its name suggests, the programme entertained audiences to a compelling story containing a hotchpotch of facts.
Read by the deejay, the stories were wonderfully written, vivid and rich in style, depicting people’s extraordinary experiences. We were never sure of the authenticity of the tales as some of the facts were indeed fanciful.
Nevertheless, there was certainly a whole gamut of language learning taking place there, especially since competitors had to pay close attention to the lyrics of seven songs played after the storytelling as part of the competition.
To win the coveted prize of a transistor radio, listeners had to submit a list of the seven songs, arranged according to their order of relevance to the story, the first song being the most closely related to the facts and fancies. The programme, hosted by Alan Zackariah initially, and followed by Patrick Teoh, was a hit with listeners across generations. One winner, Robest Yong, still has the winning trophy to this day, a Toshiba RH-432 transistor radio.
“I was twelve years old. To win a radio was a big thing those days. We had only one radio in our family of nine brothers and two sisters. Everybody had to share the radio and not everyone liked listening to the same station. Then suddenly, I have my own radio – just imagine that!”
Yong, a known inventor, innovator and entrepreneur who has received numerous national and international awards in different fields and technologies since the 90s, remembers the days when the only real entertainment indoor was listening to radio. TV programmes, he recalls, started after 5pm, while radio ran from 12pm to 12am.
The Toshiba RH-432 transistor radio Robest Yong won from The Kee Huat Radio’s ‘Fantastic Facts and Fancies’ programme when he was 12 years ago. – Pics from Robest Yong’s blogspot
Linking his love of radio with his career path in engineering, Yong notes that he has always been fascinated by how things work, and radio was certainly one technological puzzle he had longed to solve from a very young age.
“I was always wondering how sound can come out of the box, so much so I did open up the radio cover a few times to see if there were little men inside! I think that might have triggered my inventive senses. Listening to the radio was a big part of growing up.”
Radio was seductive. But, it did not turn us into captives, nor did it make us anti-social. There was always a healthy balance between listening to your favourite programme and sprinting off to play outdoors afterwards. Those were the decades of the great outdoors and invaluable indoors!
Radio was mostly (but not exclusively) an indoor enjoyment but it never stopped us from pursuing activities in the open air. Even though the transistor radio was light enough to tuck into our schoolbags, we never lugged them around like we do the mobile phone today! In school, we only had ears for our friends and teachers!
As 60s children, touching our teenage years in the 70s, we always knew when to listen, when to stop, when to play and sometimes, when to regurgitate what we heard on the radio. We exchanged views on our favourite deejays, talked at length about our shared fascination with many radio programmes and signed autographs at the end of school term, sometimes using phrases, jingles and words we took from the airwaves.
Indeed, radio was our obsession, but a healthy obsession at that. It was, quite possibly, the ‘social media’ of a distant past, one that really got us talking to one another and encouraged us to listen attentively.
soource – The Vibes
