Short Skirts Surprised Her

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31115, 19 July 1966, Page 2

Short Skirts Surprised Her

WeDington fashions amazed Mrs Emmy Temianka, wife of the visiting American violinist, Henri Temianka.

“I saw more short skirts in Wellington than I did in Los Angeles. More long hair, too. “Is it the British influence?” she asked in Christchurch yesterday. Her son, David aged nine, who is accompanying the couple, is a Beatle enthusiast and approves of the longhair trend. Mrs Temianka said he had been caught up in the current American passion “for all things British.” When he heard he would go to Britain he grew his hair very long so that he could be “very British” and thoroughly acceptable in the birthplace of his idols. Told by British waiters that long hair was “thoroughly passe,” he consulted a barber and tried the Beau Brummel haircut for the family’s tour of Europe. The decision to bring their younger son on tour had been

most rewarding, said Mrs Temianka. None of the exaitement and pleasure of travelling had been allowed to escape them. “We’ve climbed everything that needed to be climbed, eaten everything that must be eaten and have run round like maniacs taking pictures of everything,” she said. "David collects rocks, and when we add these to the rest of our luggage we arrive at hotels looking like refugees." Like her elder son, Daniel, aged 18, Mrs Temianka loves music. Neither are performers. He is a good language student and is studying at the University of California in Los Angeles.

“Some musicians put a fiddle into a child’s hand as soon as he can hold it, but my husband isn’t like that,” said Mrs Temianka. Before her marriage she studied sculpture at the California School of Fine Arts and continued for a year after her marriage. Now she has a studio in her own home, has decided to resume sculpture

seriously and has lessons once a week. Mrs Temianka said she was very glad that her husband had to stay in Los Angeles to look after his interests there and that his tours had become less frequent in recent years. “While he is at home we have very many artists and musicians dropping in, and there is plenty of live music in the house, but when he goes there really is a silence,” she said. David did not travel to Christchurch with his parents because their hosts in Wellington decided it would be a wonderful experience to have an American companion for their two young daughters. His mother bought him short pants, a grey shirt and a cap and he went to school with his New Zealand companions. When his parents telephoned him yesterday, he said he had found a school “where they play Rugby and Beetle’s records.”