CHILDHOOD OF EILEEN JOYCE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 18, Issue 464, 14 May 1948, Page 12

CHILDHOOD OF EILEEN JOYCE

PRELUDE. By C. H. Abrahall; illustrated by Anna Zinkeisen. Oxford University Press. (Geoffrey Cumberlege). ‘THIs account of Eileen Joyce’s childhood was written in the hope "that it will prove an inspiration to many youthful musicians and young people interested in the arts." Certainly the story of Eileen Joyce’s early success and brilliant achievements is a subject well chosen for a vocational story, The emphasis through athe whole book is placed on Eileen Joyce’s tenacity of purpose: her determination, even as a child, not to be sidetracked from making music. Deprived of the advantages of schooling in her earliest childhood, without even the company of any children other than one cousin, she seemed to sense her handicap right from the first. The day when she was given a mouth-organ, which she used to imitate the calls of the birds, was the opening of her new vistas of experience. From this beginning of solitary music-making in Tasmania, to the old and racketty piano in the miners’ hotel in Boulder City, through ‘schooling and careful instruction in a Perth convent, the story proceeds to the Conservatorium in Leipzig and finishes with her first public concert in England. Mrs. Clare Hoskyns-Abrahall apparently had the close co-operation of Eileen Joyce in writing Prelude. The story hangs together well, the generous supply of pink and black illustrations by Anna Zinkeisen suit the text, and the pleasant format fits in happily with the subject and does credit to the publishers. It will appeal to young people between the ages of 11 and 16, and it will be particularly welcomed by girls, Like the fictional biographies written for adults, however, it has certain drawbacks, some of them serious. It is éven doubtful whether a straight biography, written with equal competence and with just the minimum of sentimentality which the author allows herself, would not have been better. It is irritating, for instance, not to be told the name of the district in Tasmania where the child lived with her mother; I should also have liked to have had some dates put in for guidance. Mrs. Abrahall admits in her foreword that she has drawn upon her own imagination where Eileen Joyce’s memory seemed to her inadequate, and that she has conjured up a few fictitious characters. The result of this, of course, is that we find ourselves suspecting the existence of the gallant and romantic Daniel. We confirm our suspicions that the account of the school

in Perth, with its highlight on juniorsports captain relations is coloured by the school stories which the author read in her own youth, and wish that Mrs. Abrahall had eontented herself with an account of one narrow escape from death in childhood, and one only. With these reservations, however, it can be said that the book succeeds in drawing a consistent picture of Eileen Joyce as a sensitive and thoroughly lovable child, one who realised that she had a gift given to few, and one who was destined to give unaccountable pleasure to her intimates in Australia, and to music-lovers the world over.

P.

T.