"Aunt Daisy" is On The Air Again: Brief Illness

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23270, 3 June 1950, Page 6

"Aunt Daisy" is On The Air Again: Brief Illness

The return of “Aunt Daisy” to her accustomed place in the weekly schedule of station 2XM, Gisborne, sole survivor of the B class stations which prior to 1935 were fairly strongly represented throughout New Zealand, was an event of this week marked by lively interest on the part of radio listeners.

In private life Mrs. A. L. Elliott. “Aunt Daisy" has for years conducted a children's session which for homely interest can have few rivals. It consists mainly of contributions from juvenile performers, ranging in age from tiny tots to adolescents, and "Aunt Daisy's" compering has a strictly individual style. It has none of the clipped speech and intensive organisational background which characterises profession-ally-supervised sessions for children. It is sprinkled with personal endearments and other forms of encouragement to the performers and perfectly unselfconscious comments upon the performances.

“Aunt Daisy" on the air is a motherly personality whose equanimity is undisturbed bv the most harassing of contingencies, and whose standing with performers and listeners alike is indisputable.

Her First Illness

Recently the session had to be conducted without her personal contributions. for the reason that "Aunt Daisy" was under medical orders to remain at home. Her indisposition was fleeting, however, and this week she was back on the air in an atmosphere of relief and happiness which pervaded her session, and which struck strong chords of response in her extensive radio audience. It was an occasion, indeed. For “Aunt Daisy” was able to use the experiences of her lay-off in building up listener goodwill in a way that must have left any professional green with envy. In her characteristic homely way, she mentioned that this was the first occasion in her life when she had required a doctor’s attendance, thanked scores of her juvenile team for personal calls, gifts of flowers, and stints on housework in her home.

There was no art in this process of acknowledgement. It developed as the session went on, until listeners had spread before them an unconscious revelation of the fruits of affection built up over the years. And almost every mention of a kindly act—from that of the little girl who came daily to arrange flowers in “Aunt Daisy’s” bedroom to that of a pharmacist who sent a complimentary phial of medicine—“that big. children!” —was rounded off with the remark: "Now, wasn't that nice!”

A Labour of Love

Radio listeners who willy-nilly have been drawn into the orbit of “Aunt Daisy’s’’ radio activities through the interest of their children found themselves echoing the enthusiastic applause with which each casual acknowledgment was made.

For it has long been established that Gisborne’s B station children's session is a labour of love for its compere, and that the affectionate regard of “Aunt Daisy” for her young helpers is returned a hundredfold. Radio in New Zealand would suffer a heavy loss if through anv circumstance “Aunt Daisy” was obliged to forego for good her regular children’s sessions.