The AUNT DAISY story

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 938, 2 August 1957, Page 12

The AUNT DAISY story

"The Listener" presents a serial biography. This first instalment describes-

WICKED northerly gust whined across Wellington Harbour one morning and butted into Kelburn hill. It caught the tiny figure awaiting the cablecar off balance and slapped her against the wall. Aunt Daisy stood stunned for a moment, a great bruise swelling round her eye. But fellow Passengers assisted her to the car; technicians at the studio made a reviving cup of tea; and, punctually at nine o’clock, she was telling her listeners that although there was a dangerous wind, a wind liable to knock small people about, it was nonetheless quite certainly a good morning. For twenty-seven years-twenty-one of them for the NZBS-Aunt Daisy has brought her invincible optimism into the homes of commercial station listeners, Her half-hour morning session opens with what is perhaps the most hopeful, probably the best-known, and certainly the most cheerful Good Morning in the world. It is, she says, the most natural thing to say to people in the morning. For her, all mornings are good, though some are occasionally better than others.

To reinforce the effect, Aunt Daisy follows with a weather report that would bu¢kle any forecaster’s isobars. It is factually accurate for the weather above Courtenay Place, Wellington, at five minutes to nine on weekdays. It is emotionally right for a legion of discouraged housewives facing the breakfast dishes. It carries Aunt Daisy’s own personal conviction that the day is good i will get better. Further outlook: ine. The breakfast blues disposed of, Aunt Daisy warms to her work. Winston Churchill is said to speak at a rate of 111 words a minute, Roosevelt spoke at 100, Lloyd George at 87, and George V at 79. Wynford Vaughan Thomas’s descriptive commentary reaches listeners at 165 words a minute, but 130 is Tegarded as nearer the New Zealand ideal. Aunt Daisy knows no such rules. She speaks at a speed ranging from 202 words a minute at the beginning of her session down to 175 or so as she feels ‘her way toward the end. It is her speed, and there is evidence to show that it is at least as good as any other. After the morning comes the day, and efter the weather report the Thought for the Day. Never quite the same one twice, but always positive, upwardlooking, optimistic. "The soul that gives is the soul that lives," she may declare, "and in bearing another’s load we lighten our own, and shorten the way and brighten the homeward road." Aunt Daisy belongs to the Bible Reading Fellowship, and its influence on her Thoughts is clear. There is a pause before she again takes up the relentless narrative. UNT DAISY has made a highly successful career of being absolutely nobody but her natural self. She assumes-often rightly-that whatever interests her will interest those to whom she talks. Her session therefore may continue with the information than men of the cruiser Royalist have requested