TIRED BUT VERY HAPPY

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 56, 30 November 1926, Page 10

TIRED BUT VERY HAPPY

BEAUTY CONTESTANTS RETURN AUCKLAND’S HOSPITALITY PRAISED “Miss New Zealand” (Miss Thelma McMillan), with her maid of honour (Miss Isobel Wilson), Miss Marie Osteu, of Dunedin, and Miss Doreen McCubbin, returned yesterday from Auckland. All, though very tired, were very happy, and have had an extremely pleasant time everywhere they have been. “Everyone has been so kind to us,” they say. “It will be something to remember all our lives. We've made such a lot of friends in each city.” “I don’t know what to say when people ask me what it feels like to be ‘Miss New Zealand,’ ” Miss McMillan said yesterday. “I don’t feel any different. I know I’m very lucky, and very pleased to be able to take the title of ‘Miss New Zealand’ back to Dunedin, but I didn’t really expect to win, although, of course, I hoped I would. All the girls in the contest have been so nice to me, it’s almost as if they had won themselves. The Auckland people took us to their hearts and made even more fuss of us than they did of their own girls. Miss Sutherland (‘Miss Auckland’) is a very pretty girl, with beautiful hair, and we think it must have been a disappointment when she was not chosen.” Miss Wilson said she was very surprised when it was decided that she should be “Miss New Zealand’s” maid of honour. “I honestly didn’t think that I would be chosen,” she said, “and it was a great surprise I felt as though it were not true, and I tried to say something but couldn’t.” Miss Wilson was not well all the time she was in Auckland, and has not quite recovered yet. “I’m afraid I haven’t realised yet that I am ‘Miss Zealand’s’ maid of honour,” she said. “I don’t feel any different, and I should! It’s been such a wonderful time, and although it’s been so real, now it’s over it seems as though it must have been a dream.” Miss Doreen McCubbin and Miss Marie Osten also had nothing but regrets that the contest was over. “I hated leaving Auckland,” said Miss McCnbbinl “I made very many friends there; everyone was so good to us. We were all tired by the time the contest was finished, although I think we are pleased that things are back to normal. It was wonderfully exciting while it lasted, but we were nearly killed With kindness. It seemed to make no difference that we were strangers to the Auckland people. I am glad that second honours, nt any rate, have come to Wellington.” Miss Osten, too, said that a rest was badly needed. “I could sleep for a week,” she said, “and so could all the others. Not that we wouldn’t go through it all again. It was like a fairy tale, and it couldn’t last for ever. We were a happy family, there were no petty jealousies to mar our pleasure. I didn’t know that eight strange girls could get on so well together. We’re gathering together again some day,” she added, laughingly; “when Thelma is married we’ve decided that we’ll be her bridesmaids.”

Mrs. McMillan, who has been with her daughter all through, also says that it has been a remarkable trip, and a revelation of the kindness of the people they met everywhere. Mr. Edston, of J. C. Williamson Ltd., added his praise of the girls. “They were a happy family,” he said. “I had always heard that girls quarrelled when thev got together, but. these girls were always unfailingly interested in each other and their surroundings,/ and although one or two felt the strain at times it was only to be expected.”.