Happy 70th Birthday New Zealand Listener

Saturday 30 June 1939 -

Who was 'Aunt Daisy'?
What was the name of the actor who gave New Zealand 'Fred Dagg' a 1970's icon?
Which New Zealander won 'Miss Universe' and married All Black Murray Mexted?

Join Waitakere Library & Information Services in celebrating 70 years of the New Zealand Listener magazine. The Listener is New Zealand's only national, weekly current affairs and entertainment magazine. It covers the political, cultural and literary life of the country, as well as carrying television and radio programme listings for the main national broadcasters.

Celebrations at Waitakere Library & Information Services

Visit the Reference Department at the Waitakere Central Library to view our newly bound New Zealand Listener collection, the New Zealand Listener 70th Birthday display and books about the New Zealand Listener.

View Listener displays and recent issues of the Listener  at your local library.

Milestones in the History of the New Zealand Listener

For information on the history of the New Zealand Listener go to the "New Zealand Listener" a new radio magazine.

Who was 'Aunt Daisy'?

Radio broadcaster

Maud Ruby Basham (30 August 1879 - 1963) also known as 'Aunt Daisy' was a radio broadcaster and a national institution whose career spanned more than forty years. From 1933 - 1963 at 9am every morning on IZB her signature tune of 'Daisy, Daisy' chimed out around the country followed by a hearty "Good morning, everybody." New Zealand radio has had nothing more distinctive than Aunt Daisy recommending products, dispensing recipes and household hints all at 200 words per minute.

Browse 'Aunt Daisy's' biography The Aunt Daisy Story by A.S Fry.

Listener food columnist

Maud Basham wrote for the Auckland Weekly News and the Radio Record & Home Journal which was absorbed by the Listener. 'Aunt Daisy' was the cookery and household hints expert for the New Zealand Listener from (Sept 1942 - 1963) During her days with the Listener her food columns included : Eat more fish, Malt in Cookery, Cakes for Holidays, Fruit Season Begins, Picking up a Snack, Blackberry Picnic and Enjoyable Recipes for Lent. In the From the Mailbag section she advised readers on Keeping kid gloves, Real Irish Stew, Rancid butter, Blunt pinking shears, Paint splashes, Mending vulcanite, Pickled Capers, Dyeing material, Preserving nasturtium seeds, Musty Apricot Jam and Storing wedding cake.

Author

Aunt Daisy published at least twelve Aunt Daisy recipe and handy hint books that covered everything from cleaning a lead hospital floor, from knitting tartan socks to waterproofing tents.

Browse Aunt Daisy's' recipes and household hints at the Reference Department of the Waitakere Central Library.

Homework help in the New Zealand Listener!

Search the Listener online from home or visit your local library to search on a Learning Centre computer to search online for information for your homework assignments on the Springbok Tour 1981, Genetic Engineering in New Zealand, Opossum Eradication in New Zealand and other topics.

There are THREE search options.

1. View the New Zealand Listener home page to search for feature articles in the current issue and the previous issue.
2. Browse the New Zealand Listener archives of past issues - Only articles published from 2003 are located on this website.
3. Click down on E-resources on the library catalogue took bar, click on View our Available E-Resources, click on Index New Zealand and click on the Search option on the left hand side of the screen.

How to search INNZ for Listener articles

Simple searches (in keyword relevance)
Tips :
Sort result set : Your choices are - In Relevant Order (depicted by the number of RED dots next to an entry), by Article Title, with Earliest Year First and Latest Year First.
Look for : On the library catalogue records click on the GREEN LINK which may link you with a full text online article or the home page of an issue of a journal/magazine for an article on that subject.
Quick limit : Use the drop down menu to narrow the field to online (possible full text articles) or journal / magazine to locate the Listener.

Simple Search
Subject as Keyword Relevance with Quick Limit on Journal
Topic: Springbok Tour 1981
Search: South Africa rugby football
Results: Jock Phillips (and others) "1981 : the battle for the nation's soul." Listener, 8 Jul 2006; v.203 n.3452:p.12-19
Link to:
A nation of two halves (HTML)
Into the blue (HTML)
The remains of the day (HTML)
Another country (HTML)
Also: A K Grant. "Tour de farce". Listener, 11 Jun 1994; v.144 n2826:p.24-25
Reid, Tony. "The days of rage 10 years after". Listener, 22 Jul 1991; v.130 n.2678:p. 22-29

Advanced Searches
Tip: Remember that the coloured dots which locate the most relevant entries in the Simple Search DO NOT appear in Advanced Search results. All Subjects as Keywords with Quick Limit on Journal
Topic: Springbok Tour 1981
Search: Demonstrations + Rugby Football + Apartheid
Results: Jock Phillips (and others) "1981 : the battle for the nation's soul." Listener, 8 Jul 2006; v.203 n.3452:p.12-19
Link to:
A nation of two halves (HTML)
Into the blue (HTML)
The remains of the day (HTML)
Another country (HTML)
Also: Reid, Tony. "The days of rage 10 years after". Listener, 22 Jul 1991; v.130 n.2678:p.22-29

Highlights from the Listener Archives

Listener Staff

A.K. Grant (Satirist, Columnist, Screenwriter, Lawyer)
"The biters bit". New Zealand Listener, 30 July 1988, v.121 no2525, 41.
Looks at the New Zealand Listener, the Metro (Auckland) and North and South. Mentions Warwick Roger, Sandra Coney, Murray McLaughlin.

Geoff Baylis (Listener Editor and Chief Executive 1989 - 1990)
"Change for the Listener". New Zealand Listener, 19 Nov 1990; v.128 n.2644 : 7.
Covers the journal's ownership to the new New Zealand Listener 1990 Ltd, with Wilson & Horton as majority shareholders.

Finlay Macdonald (Listener Editor 1998 - 2003)
"How to say Sorry in Samoan." Listener, 22 Jun 2002; v.184 n.3241: 26 - 30.
Finlay MacDonald visits Samoa for the celebration of 40 years of independence, focusing on the apology by New Zealand Prime Minister for two incidents that occurred under colonial administration by New Zealand - the failure in 1918 to quarantine Samoa to protect its inhabitants from the global influenza epidemic, and the murder of unarmed protesters from the Mau independence movement by New Zealand police in 1929.

Pamela Stirling (Listener editor since 2003)
"Who wins" Listener, Apr 23 -29 2005 v.198 n.3389
The best part of the Listener being named 2005 Magazine of the Year Supreme Winner by the Magazine Publishers Association has been the response from the readers.

Listener People

Charles Fleming (1916 - 1987)
Sir Charles Fleming was one of New Zealand's last naturalists who worked across a range of natural sciences. Read an excerpt from "Mammon on the Mamaku" by Charles Fleming, an editorial he was invited to write for the New Zealand Listener, following his address to the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science, 14 November 1969.

Rachel Hunter
Listener, Aug 28 - Sep 3 2004; v.195, n.3355 : 70.
Rachel Hunter : reluctant celebrity of just a tabloid headline-seeker? Read "Model behaviour" by Diana Wichtel

Gary McCormick and David Lange
Listener, Aug 27 - Sep 2005; v.200, n.3407 : 14 - 15.
They toured New Zealand as the Two Kiwi Musketeers, sharing laughs, quips and boiled eggs. Gary McCormick remembers his sparring partner the right Honourable David Russell Lange (4 Aug 1942 - 13 Aug 2005)

John Clarke alias 'Fred Dagg'
Listener, Mar 4 2006; v.202, n.3434 : 12 - 13.
In "Fiona Rae talks to John Clarke [writer, director, actor and a bit of a dagg] television presence John Clarke discuses
his iconic 'Fred Dagg' character from the 1970's and about some of his more current work.

Sir Edmund Hillary
Listener, Jan 26 - Feb 1 2008; v.212, n.3533 : 12 - 17.
In "I do sort of, like to succeed" Maggie Barry interviews Sir Edmund and Lady Hillary when Sir Edmund was in declining health.

Helen Clark
Listener, Apr 18 2009; v.218, n.3597 : 16 - 20.
In the "Five Billion Dollar Woman" Ruth Laugesen talks to Helen Clark about her new United Nations job, tackling poverty, and leaving Parliament after 27 years.

Online Blogs from Former Listener Journalists

Read the views of social and political commentators who have left the Listener who now have their own forums on the internet.

http://gordoncampbell.scoop.co.nz Gordon Campbell

www.publicaddress.net Russell Brown

http://pundit.co.nz
Jane Young, David Young, David Beatson, Rebecca Priestly and Tim Watkins (all former Listener staffers) offer the viewer a New Zealand source of news analysis, commentary and viewpoints.

Books about the Listener

636.3 DUF NZ DUFF, Oliver. - Shepherd's Calendar. Hamilton, Auckland : Paul's Book Arcade, 1961.

641.5 ASK NZ BASHAM, Barbara. (ed.) Ask Aunt Daisy : the cook's companion. Auckland, N.Z. : Random House, 1988.

641.5 BAS NZ Aunt Daisy's cookery book of 1,150 selected recipes / broadcast by Aunt Daisy. Christchurch : Whitcombe & Tombs, [1942]

641.5 BAS NZ BASHAM, Barbara (ed.) The Aunt Daisy Cookbook, with household hints. [Auckland, N.Z.] : Hodder & Stoughton, [1968]

920 BAS NZ FRY, A.S. - The Aunt Daisy Story. Wellington, N.Z. : A.H. & A.W. Reed, 1957.

920 CRO NZ CROSS, Ian. - The unlikely bureaucrat : my years in broadcasting. Wellington, N.Z. : Allen & Unwin; Port Nicholson Press. 1988.

919.3 DUF NZ DUFF, Oliver. - New Zealand Now. London : G. Allen & Unwin; Hamilton, N.Z. : Paul's Book Arcade, 1956.

920 HOL NZ HOLCROFT, M.H. (Montague Harry) (1986) A sea of words : volume two of an autobiography. Whatamongo Bay, N.Z. : Cape Cately Ltd.

920 HOL NZ HOLCROFT, M.H. (Montague Harry) (1989) A voice in the village : the Listener editorials of M.H. Holcroft. Hamilton [New Zealand] : Silver Fern Echoes.

920 HOL NZ HOLCROFT, M.H. (Montague Harry) 1984. The way of a writer. Whatamongo Bay, N.Z. : Cape Catley.

920.093 PEO NZ PEOPLE : profiles from the pages of the New Zealand Listener. Auckland, N.Z. : Random House, 2004.

928.21 CRO NZ CROSS, Ian. - Such absolute beginners : a memoir. Auckland, N.Z. : David Ling, 2007.

993 PLA NZ Places : from the pages of the New Zealand Listener. Auckland, N.Z. : Random House New Zealand, 2005.

Websites

New Zealand Listener

New Zealand Listener Archive of Past Issues

APN Media

Research Publications in the New Zealand Listener.
The database includes commerce, social science, business, agriculture, horticulture, science, advertising. The
database includes all Research Publications produced by the University of Waikato since 1998.

Listener Editor 1949 - 1967 Montague Harry Holcroft (1902-1993)

NZETC (New Zealand Electronic Text Centre)