“MISS AUSTRALIA” ON VISIT TO N.Z.

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28541, 21 March 1958, Page 2

“MISS AUSTRALIA” ON VISIT TO N.Z.

“Miss Australia,” Miss Helen Wood, arrived in Christchurch yesterday and will stay till next week. Miss Woo<i is, travelling with Miss Jessica Sutherland, a leading fashion consultant in Australia. i Miss Wood said that most important on her round-the-world ! tour were the people she had met. /‘Even it I had saved up for a I tour I could not have met them lif I had not been a V.1.P.”

Miss Wood will give fashion parades in Christchurch. She will show the dresses she chose to go on her tour from a firm on Fifth Avenue. New York. At the week-end she hopes to do i some horse-riding. Of medium height, Miss Wood has naturally curly dark brown hair, grey-green eyes and a zest for life. She looks forward to Easter at home at Tinaroo Falls, in the far north of Queensland, where she is a schoolteacher. Her father is the headmaster of the only school in the temporary settlement where a dam is being built for irrigation purposes. Busy Days

Most of Miss Wood’s days on tour have been so crowded that she has not a moment to herself I She hopes to have some free time jin which to relax this week-end. I Miss Wood began her New Zealand tour in Auckland early in March and when she arrived she was given a Maori welcome. At Sydney she had received a tiki and a grass skirt, which she wore on to the plane. She was given a Mayoral reception and spoke at the Honouring Age party in the Town Hall for the old people of the city. At all the large centres she has visited in New Zealand, Miss Wood has shown the beautiful wardrobe which was part of her prize as Miss Australia. While she • was in Auckland she did some water ski-ing at Orakei Basin. At Rotorua Miss Wood spoke to a meeting of the Business and Professional Women’s Club. She and her party visited the thermal regions and they were guests at la Maori concert. | In Wellington Miss Wood was ; entertained by Admiral Sir John Collins, the Australian High Commissioner to New Zealand. Home For Easter

Miss Wood’s South Island tour has been cut short because she

wishes to spend a few days at home with her family during the Easter holidays. Then she will tour Australia, giving talks on her world tour. Speaking of her wardrobe, she said it was wonderful to be able to choose the whole outfit with all the matching accessories. She used to make a lot of her own clothes. Miss Wood’s interests include music, golf, swimming, reading.

and crayon sketching. She sometimes finds a moment to give New Australian workers in Tinaroo dam construction works, Queensland’s biggest project, English lessons.

Miss Wood, who celebrated her twentieth birthday on her way to New York, has visited such cities as Rome, Naples, Vienna, Nice, Paris, Brussels, London, Miami, Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Honolulu.

In Christchurch last evening a cocktail party was given for Miss Wood by the directors of the New Zealand sponsoring firm. The “Miss Australia” quest is run each year to aid spastic children ,of the six Australian States. '