HER SHIP BLEW UP

New Zealand Listener, Volume 1, Issue 10, 1 September 1939, Page 15

HER SHIP BLEW UP

Mavis Edmonds’ Adventu:ous Journey Home

O most people from New Zealand, the BBC is about as inaccessible as the inner sanctuary of an Indian temple. Many would-be musicians have left these shores in high hope, only to realise that nothing less than a charge of dynamite would open the home of English broadcasting for them. Mavis Edmonds, who comes from Christchurch, needed no dynamite — though she was blown up on,the way home! Instead she used an attractive contralto voice and a large slice of that elusive commodity, personality. Now she is back in New Zealand to see her ‘parents and re-visit the places she left five years ago to carve out a career. _ The culmination of an exciting five years came on the journey back. She was fast asleep in bed on the Narkunda when the ship called at Colombo early one morning. There was a sudden violent explosion, and she found herself thrown to the floor of her cabin. She seized a sheet and rushed out on deck. It was a narrow escape. The explosion, reports of which appeared in the newspapers recently, killed four men and injured many more.

She caused her friends some anxiety when, earlier in the trip, at Alexandria, she hired a car and left at 4.30 a.m. to drive across the desert to Cairo and back. On the desert road she passed the camps of Arabs before anyone was awake. Beating the bedouin at early rising is surely a feather in her cap! But that was on the journey back. Behind her, Miss Edmonds has already five years of work with such famous organisations as Charlie Kunz and his band, Jack Hylton’s band, Carrol Gibbons and his Boy Friends, Billy Reid and his accordion band, Geraldo’s orchestra, Joe Loss, and Eddie Carroll, who specialises in " swing." She sang over the BBC many times, and beside that, did much stage work, which she prefers to _ broadcasting, although she readily admits that it can be very hard work, especially with a five-shows-a-day programme. She did film work too. Miss-Edmonds is now to be heard from 2YA on Monday and Friday evenings. ;