The Girl On Our Cover

New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 216, 13 August 1943, Page 17

The Girl On Our Cover

HE’S under 30, but she looks 18, in fact when you see her going down the street, hatless, with her hair loose and shoulder length, in a simple jumper and pleated skirt, she might be 14. But she is holding down one of the big jobs at the BBC." This is what Arthur Towsey, who had recently returned to New Zealand from England, told The Listener about Noni Wright. Noni Wright, of Auckland, was one of J. A. Montague’s star pupils. In 1937 she went to England to get work if she could, for the BBC. But the BBC was not enthusiastic. "We are not a training school," they said. But Miss Wright was not to be put off. She got odd jobs. She watched classes for announcers, Little by little, she got more work, and she would not let herself be daunted. At any rate, in 1941, she was given a job as talks producer in the Empire section. It is an important job, and Mr. Towsey, who at one time prepared scripts for her department, had many opportunities to see her at work, Her job now is to produce five 15-minute talks a week, Anyone who knows how much work is involved will realise that this is no easy business. She also has to arrange for the speakers, edit the scripts, and sometimes write them, work out programmes of subjects, give auditions, and even train speakers. . In addition to all this, Miss Wright arranges for the production of the messages from New Zealand servicemen in England to their homes. She takes as much trouble with this as with everything else, and she has a wonderful knack (Mr. Towsey says), of handling the men and making them feel at their ease and so give good broadcasts, "I’ve often watched her dealing with rows of sailors or airmen and taking the awkwardness out of them." Mr. Towsey went to England with the second echelon, but was invalided home, and discharged from the army. "I wanted to go back to England and do anything I could. I had no idea of doing any special work, but I wanted to do. something that would bring me in touch with our fellows at home. We New Zealanders all like England. I haven’t met one who didn’t. Some of us went over with the idea of converting a conserva- tive and snobbish country to our way of thinking. But England did some converting, too."