OUT OF THIN AIR He would end with a jolly "Ho.. .Ho.. .Ho.. .Ho.. .Ho.. .Ho..." and as his voice was coming from the , we faded it out and only the wind kept blowing. The children loved him and he in turn loved all of his listeners. He became the authentic grand old man of the and his voice was the finest for that important role that I have ever heard. I was away at school for a couple of years and my sister Marianne produced the Sleepy Town Express program with the kind of panache only a teenager can manage. She remembers one lovely spring night strolling slowly toward the studio not thinking about time when to her horror she heard the theme of the program drifting out through an open window. Down the street she flew, coat flapping behind her, and just managed to get in a breathless "Hello boys and girls, this is the Story Book Lady" as the theme finished. Later when Bob Large and I were married in 1939 and we moved to Sackville , New Brunswick , The Story Book Lady went on the air again. This time it was an "all stops out" production with the help of a young announcer Ira Stewart . Marianne brought her ability as a writer to the expanded half-hour and thousands of children listened raptly to the program. Ira, who later became a Variety Producer for the CBC's ninety minute "County Roads" program from Halifax , spent hours researching music for this early childrens' program. After I came back I remember that I created characters at will. There were many throughout the forty-five years the program was on the air. Mickey the elf was George Scantlebury for five or six years until one day he grew up and had a voice change. George's voice was so distinctive that we had to give the elf a new name. We called him "Little Nose". Lloyd Shaw was then the Superintendent of City Schools and we found out that playing one of the discs he had made at a different speed pro¬ duced the right tone of voice and string of chatter that suited the little elf. We used this for a time, but it was too risky. We were afraid that someone might put the recording on at the right speed and the disguise would be disclosed. I don't believe Dr. Shaw ever knew he was on the Sleepy Town Express Program. Many of the sound effects and much of the music chosen were the work of Loman McAulay . It was Loman who finally recorded the voice of Bev Hatton Murphy as belonging to "Little Nose", the four-inch elf who hid in desk drawers, curled up for a nap in ash trays and spoke a very strange language that very few people could understand. Little 136