Miss New Zealand Welcomed Home
ISS WOOTTON, after we had sung "For She’s a Jolly Good Fel"low" for the second time, said that "it was rather like a wedding reception." The remark was perceptive and apt, and explained why, although one was not in the habit of taking morning tea with Mr. Fraser and Miss New Zealand, there was an echo of familiarity about the proceedings. However distinguished the guests may be, a wedding reception is a family affair, and the State reception to Mary Wootton was above all a family affair. From the moment when you lost yourself in the crowd moving patiently and politely along the corridor-Aunt Daisy to the left falking about sago~custard, a group from some women’s organisation holding an extempore committee meeting in front, a whisper of "That’s her young man over there" from behind, and everybody so preoccupied that the host and the guest of honour slipped through with scarcely a glance-you felt that these people were not here out of curiosity, or to do a formal duty, but to let someone they were proud and fond
of know how they felt. The conviction was confirmed when it came to the -speeches-they were essentially the same speeches that are made whenever a girl marries or a boy graduates. There were the family jokes about the North and South, the Empire Games, the fact that as an ambassador Miss Wootton takes precedence over Sir Patrick Duff who is merely a High Commissioner. And the Important People making the speeches were as genuinely affectionate, as possessively proud and as thoroughly unoriginal as the uncles and godparents who usually make speeches on such occasions usually are, Then there was Miss Wootton herself (her parents in the background, selfeffacing, smiling when somebody said, as somebody often said, "You must be very proud of her’) replying in the same tone, thanking everyone simply and gracefully returning the compliments. It was all. as personal, as friendly, as transparently sincere as that, and it left one with a nice feel-ing--about Miss New Zealand and the
people she represents.
~SP
McL:
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 483, 24 September 1948, Page 11
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349Miss New Zealand Welcomed Home New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 483, 24 September 1948, Page 11
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