WHAT AMERICA THINKS OF AUNT DAISY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 275, 29 September 1944, Page 14

WHAT AMERICA THINKS OF AUNT DAISY

UNT DAISY has now been on a visit to the United States for some months. This "close-up" of her, written by Mary Braggiotti, appeared under the heading of "The Lady from Down Under’ in a recent issue of the "New York Post’:

ae OU always cook extra potatoes in New Zealand, because you never know how many American boys there’ll be for dinner! "You'll be out in your garden and two American sailors will be passing and they’ll say, ‘My, you’ve got a pretty garden! What's that flower over there? We have a garden like this in America.’ And then you say, ‘Have you had dinner? You must have dinner with us.’ And they say, ‘Oh, no; really, thank you — we couldn’t impose on you like that!’ And you say, ‘Why, of course you'll come in.’ And they do. We love them, and judging from their behaviour, they love us, too." Aunt Daisy Basham didn’t really take a breath after all that. In fact, the four-foot-eleven-and-a-half dynamo ("the same height as Queen Victoria" she reminds you) from Down Under hardly

took a breath for a solid hour during an interview in one of the Columbia Broadcasting System’s palatial sittingrooms the other day. "First Lady of New Zealand Radio" She is-from the housewife’s angle, at least-the First Lady of New Zealand radio. From 9 to 9.30 a.m. five days a week for the past 13 years, Aunt Daisy has talked cosily all by herself (she never has guests) to New Zealanders over the Commercial division of the Government directed National Broadcasting Service of New Zealand. Her thousands of. regular listeners on 20 stations from one end of the country to the other call themselves the Daisy Chain. Through bright-eyed, brightvoiced little Aunt Daisy in Wellington, they swap recipes (very important in New Zealand’s strict wartime rationing programme); furniture-polishing suggestions; ways and means of mending (continued on next page)

"You Wonder When She Relaxes"

(continued from previous page) things; and such ideas as how to waterproof cloth with a concoction of sugar of lead and linseed oil; what to serve for a bridge supper, or how to stop the fireplace from smoking when your house is set in such-and-such a position in the hills. It has been roughly estimated that her air audience includes all the women and half the men in New Zealand. Every Morning at Nine Her 14 commercial sponsors are quite happy if she says "a word or two" about their products at each broadcast. Her selling powers- are terrific. A half-hour after one programme on which Aunt Daisy described a particularly succulent way of preparing liver (an unrationed meat), every butcher in New Zealand was sold out of liver. "It’s like this,’ said Aunt Daisy, closing her forget-me-not blue eyes and tipping back her blonde head a bit to bring the picture of life in the faraway land, to which she will soon return, more vividly before her. "At nine o’clock they turn on the radio. Suddenly they hear ‘Daisy, Daisy, Give me your, answer true, (boom, boom)’ " she sang. "Then ‘Good MORNing, Everybody! This is Aunt Daisy!’ "It’s a great joining of all the women in. New Zealand," she said, spiritedly. "Remember, many of them don’t even get to the nearest small town more than once a month. No benzine. And at 9 o’clock every morning they are all in touch with each other. It’s a session-or prégramme, as you call it here-of helpfulness. The subject matter is devised by the women themselves through théir ‘letters to me. I find that that is the great difference between the Aunt Daisy programme and the corresponding type. of programme here. In a country, the size of this you can’t have such a direct, personal session. Tea with Mrs. Roosevelt Aunt Daisy left New Zealand for California last April on a goodwill trip -unofficial, but with the, sanction of the New. Zealand Government. Since her arrival'in the United States she has appeared as guest on about 20 radio programmes, spoken in person before numerous groups and — definitely a highspot of her visit — had tea with Mrs. Roosevelt at the White House and attended, on D-Day, the First Lady’s Press conference. She first met Mrs. Roosevelt last year in New Zealand where, she says with enthusiasm, the President’s wife "charmed everyone with her graciousness." "I was able to tell Mrs. Roosevelt in Washington," said Aunt Daisy, "that American nurses in New Zealand told me that her visit was the greatest uplift they’d had since they got there. She seemed so pleased to hear it-because I think people here jump on her a good bit." Since the day she gave her first talks in America (during three different lunch hours at the Kaiser plant in California), she has been running into Aunt Daisy fans from home. "After I Was on a programme at CBS a while ago," she said, "I had a longdistance. call from It was a New Zealand girl-a war bride, who’s only ‘been here four months. She said my voice was like a little piece of home,

and she couldn’t resist calling me up. She said she loves Michigan, and has a wonderful husband." "All Americans As Neighbours" After 10 minutes with Aunt Daisy, you begin to wonder how and when she relaxes. You learn that she relaxes by going to church on Sundays, working in her garden when she can, and every evening after the dishes are washed (she does her own cooking, of course), listening to the radio or reading magazines until her bed time at 10 p.m. Recently she has given up tennis. She wakes up early, and by 5 o'clock is drinking her morning tea in bed. Then she works on programmes and answers mail for a while before getting up in time to get to her office in Wellington by 8. She goes there by cable car, for she lives high on a hill in the suburb of Kelburn. "We want all the Americans to come and settle in New Zealand," she bubbled. "We’d rather have Americans than anybody, because they’re more like us-full of energy and go." A less sweeping wish of Aunt Daisy’s is to wear a clean pair of gloves every time she goes out. bd "T’ve never done it," she said, gaily, "and I see no prospect of ever doing it."