{"id":142,"date":"2015-05-24T03:41:11","date_gmt":"2015-05-24T02:41:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.dnwfriends.nzl.org\/?p=142"},"modified":"2015-06-21T09:52:01","modified_gmt":"2015-06-20T21:52:01","slug":"nba2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dnwfriends.nzl.org\/index.php\/2015\/05\/24\/nba2\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Friends of the Dorothy Neal White Collection
\nNotes Books Authors
\n1989<\/h1>\n
\n

NOTES BOOKS AUTHORS
\nNumber two
\n1989<\/h3>\n

NOTES \u2011 BOOKS \u2011 AUTHORS
\nis edited by Bruce Morris and published by the Friends of the
\nDorothy Neal White Collection
\nWellington
\nNew Zealand<\/p>\n

Copyright July 1989
\nISSN 0114\u20115428<\/p>\n

Welcome to the second issue of Notes \u2011Books \u2011 Authors. It gives me great
\npersonal pleasure to be involved in this issue as it is devoted to New
\nZealander Winifred (McQuilkan) Hall, who as Clare Mallory wrote some superior
\nschool stories published in the late nineteen forties and early fifties.<\/p>\n

I first met Clare Mallory and Merry, when, at the age of thirteen, I was
\ngiven a hand\u2011me\u2011down, much loved copy of Merry begins<\/em>. I was
\ncaptured immediately by the story, the characters and the setting. When I was a
\nchild my family used to make the pilgrimage by ferry and train from Wellington
\nto Dunedin, to visit my Grandmother. Merry begins<\/em> brought back many
\nhappy memories of the train trip and of Dunedin.<\/p>\n

I remember being disappointed that the public library had no more books by
\nClare Mallory. I was delighted, years later, to discover that there were more
\nbooks by this author. They worked their magic with me still and made me more of
\na fan of Clare Mallory than I already was.<\/p>\n

” I still need three titles to complete my collection, so if anybody has
\nspare copies a good home is assured.<\/p>\n

Bruce Morris<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/a><\/p>\n

Clare Mallory<\/p>\n

CLARE MALLORY
\nA personal memoir
\nJanet Maconie<\/h3>\n

Winnie was born Winifred Constance McQuilkan and I first met her in 1924
\nwhen my parents moved to Invercargill and I was sent to Middle School. We were
\nboth ten and in standard five, our teacher the
\nalmost\u2011never\u2011to\u2011be\u2011forgotten Miss Murphy, our headmaster the dignified
\nMr Featherstone. ‘A pupil head and shoulders above the rest of the school’ he
\nwas to say of her.<\/p>\n

We became friends. We were both only children (though some years later my
\nmother was to have another child who insisted that Winnie, too, was her sister)
\nand we were both devoted to books and reading, especially of school stories.
\nEach week we bought the schoolgirls’ paper, the School friend<\/em> and I
\nthink the pupils of Cliff House, Babs, Mabs, Bessie Bunter et al were more real
\nto us than our own classmates.<\/p>\n

We liked to write. In those days the Invercargill Competitions included
\nessays and stories and we both competed with some success. We both wrote for
\nCousin Betty’s page in the Southland Times<\/em>. Later The pen and
\npencil girls<\/em> owed something to our activities and is of course dedicated
\nto the ” writers and artists of Cousin Betty’s page, Southland Times<\/em>,
\nInvercargill, New Zealand”.<\/p>\n

At the end of my standard six year my parents moved to Dunedin and for the
\nnext five years I saw Winnie only when she visited us in the school holidays.
\nEarly in her third form year at Southland Girls’ High School her mother died
\nand a little later, her father. Winnie spent the next nine years of her life in
\nprivate board. Her only experience of home life was in holiday time with her
\naunt, uncle and cousin, and occasionally with friends. This, I think, is
\nimportant in the light of the criticism of her first school story.<\/p>\n

We came more permanently together again at Otago University. Winnie had been
\ndux of Southland Girls’ and had won a university entrance scholarship. She was
\nprobably the brightest woman student of her year. Her great love was the
\nClassics, her great rival in that department, Dan Davin, also from
\nInvercargill. Winnie also became well known in the university for her disarming
\ncontributions to the Critic<\/em> as Susie Schnozzletippet.<\/p>\n

She left with two Master’s degrees, First Class Honours in English, the
\nMacmillan Brown prize and Second Class Honours in Classics. She had won a
\npost\u2011graduate scholarship and was off to Oxford and Lady Margaret Hall. For
\nmany years afterwards it seemed that I had only to mention a contemporary woman
\nwriter for Winnie to remark casually that she had known her at Oxford, and to
\nprovide some background information. I well remember once when I had a group of
\nwomen friends to lunch and we were discussing the role of women in India \u2011the
\nstunned silence that followed her quiet observation that the only Indian woman
\nshe knew was Indira Ghandi!<\/p>\n

Back in Dunedin with more First Class honours, Winnie taught for a time at
\nOtago Girls’ High School before becoming the very young Headmistress of Columba
\nCollege. This appointment, with that of the even younger Margaret Dalziel at
\nSaint Hilda’s created considerable interest in the city and I think that Winnie
\nfelt for some time that the eyes of Dunedin were upon her; however, Frank, she
\nwrote, was being a great help.<\/p>\n

Frank was Dr Frank Hall. A brilliant, unassuming scholar, he had graduated
\nMaster of Arts at the same time as Winnie, after which he had studied medicine.
\nWhen the war ended they were to marry.<\/p>\n

It was while she was at Columba College that Winnie wrote Merry
\nbegins<\/em>. Each week the boarders spent time packing parcels for Britain.
\nThese had to be encased in unbleached calico and sewn up with red wool. The
\njuniors found the work tedious and so she read to them. But she could never
\nfind a story that some had not already read and so she made one up. This became
\nthe first Merry<\/em> book.<\/p>\n

Her friend and secretary, Marjory Taverner suggested she send it to a
\npublisher and to that end typed it for her. She sent it to Oxford University
\nPress and there were no problems about its acceptance; it was published in
\n1947. A little later, Winnie followed it with Merry again<\/em> which is
\ndedicated to ‘Marjory for her help and interest’.<\/p>\n

Oxford University Press sent Merry begins<\/em> to the New Zealand
\nListener<\/em> to review. What happened next is a mystery. The editor, Oliver
\nDuff, told my husband, John, at the time a sub\u2011editor, that he had sent the
\nbook to a librarian in the National Library Service (as it was then). He had
\nreceived the review, was unhappy about it and was debating returning it for
\nreconsideration \u2011 something he had never done, he added. John read the review
\nand was told the name of the writer. We were both interested because she was
\nthe sister of one of our friends (both have now been dead for many years).<\/p>\n

The review, I understand, was returned unaltered and Oliver Duff published
\nit. In those days most, if not all, Listener<\/em> contributions were signed
\nwith initials and, possibly for that reason, I did not notice that they were
\nnot those of the librarian. It was only when I unearthed the review for this
\nmemoir that I began to wonder who actually had written it: and I have recently
\nbeen told that the editors of the early volumes of the Index to New Zealand
\nperiodicals, who also had the unenviable task of identifying the owners of all
\nthese initials, were also baffled by D.R.<\/p>\n

The review is important because Winnie always blamed it for the
\ncomparatively little recognition given to her books in this country. ‘It killed
\nmy books’, she always maintained. She always believed that because of its
\nauthor’s status as a librarian with the National Library Service (Oxford had
\ntold her that much \u2011 and, it must be remembered, that in those days there
\nwere few professional librarians) that her books were rejected by public
\nlibraries. I think too that this experience made her more tolerant for many
\nyears of the works of Enid Blyton.<\/p>\n

Frank came back from the war, they were married and immediately left for
\nEngland where he was to continue his studies. Winnie continued to write. They
\nreturned to New Zealand in 1952 and Frank began to practise in Wellington.
\nWinnie taught for a time at Wellington Girl’s College and Samuel Marsden
\nCollegiate and tutored in English on a part\u2011time basis at Victoria
\nUniversity. In 1966 she became a member of the permanent staff. In between she
\ncontinued to travel whenever possible, to Australia, to Europe (especially to
\nGreece and Rome) and to the United States with always a visit to the Huntingdon
\nLibrary in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

She retired from Victoria University at the end of 1978. None of my children
\nhad been fortunate enough to be students in her tutorials though she always
\nkept an eye on them. I am told she was an excellent tutor, considerate,
\nthorough, generous with her time and hospitable.<\/p>\n

Frank was far from well in 1978. Shortly after Christmas Winnie phoned to
\nsay he had been taken to hospital. He died in March, 1979. With hindsight I now
\nbelieve that Winnie’s own health had by then begun to deteriorate. It continued
\nto do so slowly and relentlessly. Eventually Alzheimer’s disease was diagnosed
\nand in 1986 it became necessary for her to be permanently hospitalised. For
\nsome time she remembered Miss Murphy and our schooldays when all else had gone;
\nnow, sadly, there is nothing.<\/p>\n

Winnie wrote of the world she knew; indeed that was the advice given to the
\nyoung would\u2011be\u2011writers in The pen and pencil girls<\/em>. She knew
\nnothing of ‘the kids down the street\u00b4 of the Merry begins<\/em> review and,
\nI doubt whether Oxford in the 1940s, with overseas sales to consider, would
\nhave been interested in such a background. I am told too, by former pupils,
\nthat the the private schools of the time were just as she described them.<\/p>\n

I was very pleased by Betty Gilderdale’s much more reasoned assessment of
\nher books in A sea change; 145 years of, New Zealand junior fiction<\/em>
\n(Auckland:Longman Paul, 1982). It was almost too late. I read it to Winnie and
\nshe was able to appreciate, albeit briefly, Mrs Gilderdale’s tribute.<\/p>\n

\u00b4Our years in London were very full and very rich\u00b4 said Mrs Hall, on her
\nreturn to New Zealand with her husband, Dr G F Hall, after
\nthree\u2011and\u2011a\u2011half years abroad. Headquarters in London was a flat in
\nEaling. \u00b4We were within five minutes’ walk of Ealing Studios, and it was not
\nuncommon while out shopping to find oneself in the middle of a shooting of a
\nfilm.\u00b4<\/p>\n

Mrs Hall gave a large number of talks over the BBC. On one occasion,
\nfollowing a talk on aspects of New Zealand school life, she received among
\nher “fan mail”, a letter from a former prefect at Columba College, Betty
\nSmith, who was staying in Edinburgh. Mrs Hall also met a number of authors of
\nchildren’s books. She herself was invited to speak at library functions in
\nmany parts of Britain.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

New Zealand Freelance. 17 Sept. 1953.<\/em><\/p>\n

THE REVIEW
\nGIRLS AT SCHOOL<\/h3>\n

MERRY BEGINS.<\/em> By Clare Mallory.
\nGeoffrey Cumberlege, for the Oxford University Press.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Clare Mallory was lucky in getting the Oxford University Press to take her
\nbook \u2011 a boarding school story set in New Zealand about supposedly New
\nZealand girls. The school is at Dunedin (where the sun shines more often than
\nnot), Auckland and Wellington are mentioned, there is a visit to a sheep
\nstation in Canterbury (sheep aren’t mentioned), and the school year starts in
\nFebruary. But that is about all there is of New Zealand in it. There is the
\nfamiliar plot of the unpopular prefect Winning Through with the help of the new
\ngirl. But there are far too many House points, too much House pride and House
\nHonour. When perhaps eighty per cent of New Zealand children attend day and
\nmixed high schools, it is unfortunate that overseas readers are receiving such
\na strange impression of the school life of our girls. Clare Mallory can write,
\nbut I would like to see her talents used in a school story that will be about
\nthe kind of school you and I went to, and about children like the kids down the
\nstreet.<\/p>\n

New Zealand Listener. 24 Oct. 1947. P15.<\/em><\/p>\n

BIBLIOGRAPHY<\/h3>\n

Merry begins.<\/em> Melbourne: Geoffrey Cumberlege, Oxford University
\nPress, 1947.<\/p>\n

Merry again.<\/em> Melbourne: Geoffrey Cumberlege, Oxford University
\nPress, 1947.<\/p>\n

Merry marches on.<\/em> Melbourne: Geoffrey Cumberlege, Oxford University
\nPress, 1947.<\/p>\n

The pen and pencil girls.<\/em> Melbourne: Geoffrey Cumberlege,Oxford
\nUniversity Press, [1947].<\/p>\n

The new house at Winwood.<\/em> Melbourne: Geoffrey Cumberlege, Oxford
\nUniversity Press, 1949.<\/p>\n

Juliet overseas. <\/em>Melbourne: Geoffrey Cumberlege, Oxford University
\nPress, 1949.<\/p>\n

-Another edition. Illustrated by Margaret Horder. London: Geoffrey
\nCumberlege, Oxford University Press, 1949.<\/p>\n

Tony against the prefects.<\/em> Melbourne: Geoffrey Cumberlege, Oxford
\nUniversity Press, 1949.<\/p>\n

Leith and friends.<\/em> Illustrated by Kathleen Gell. London: Geoffrey
\nCumberlege, Oxford University Press, 1950.<\/p>\n

The two Linties.<\/em> Melbourne: Geoffrey Cumberlege, Oxford University
\nPress, 1950.<\/p>\n

The league of the smallest.<\/em> Melbourne, Wellington: Geoffrey
\nCumberlege, Oxford University Press, 1951.<\/p>\n

Janet Maconie is retired and lives in Wellington. She is a librarian who has
\nworked for Lower Hutt Public Library, School Library Service and, since
\nretiring from SLS, various school libraries. For many years she was on the
\nmanagement committee of the New Zealand Book Council and still contributes
\nregularly to its newsletter.<\/p>\n

FRIENDS OF THE DOROTHY NEAL WHITE COLLECTION
\n1988\u20111989<\/h3>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Patron:<\/td>\nDorothy Ballantyne<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
President:<\/td>\nMary Hutton<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Secretary:<\/td>\nMary Atwool<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Treasurer:<\/td>\nTrevor Mowbray<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Committee:<\/td>\nAudrey Cooper<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\nLorraine Crozier<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\nAlison Grant<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\nCarmel.Jones<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\nBruce Morris<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

The Friends of the Dorothy Neal White Collection,
\nDorothy Neal White Room
\nNational Library of New Zealand,
\nTe Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa,
\nMolesworth Street,
\nP.O.Box 1467
\nWellington<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Friends of the Dorothy Neal White Collection Notes Books Authors 1989 NOTES BOOKS AUTHORS Number…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dnwfriends.nzl.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dnwfriends.nzl.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dnwfriends.nzl.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dnwfriends.nzl.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dnwfriends.nzl.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/dnwfriends.nzl.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":813,"href":"https:\/\/dnwfriends.nzl.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142\/revisions\/813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dnwfriends.nzl.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dnwfriends.nzl.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dnwfriends.nzl.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}