A Provincial New Zealand Childhood (or, What I Did in the War): Part IV

Singing & Drowning

By Janet Kenny

“It was definite. My father’s good sister had declared the state intermediate school, where she had taught, to be unsuitable for me. Instead, I was to be enrolled at Bairncots, an Anglican preparatory school for girls. My mother took me along to meet the head teacher, an English Oxford graduate called Miss Broadwood. I could tell immediately that Miss Broadwood found neither of us quite what she was used to. Miss Broadwood preferred her girls to be either daughters of academics from the local agricultural college, daughters of the clergy or, failing these qualifications, to be exceedingly rich. My mother and I failed both these tests. Still, I was accepted and enrolled for the following year.”—Janet Kenny

Editor’s Note: This installment from her memoir-in-progress comprises the fourth column by New Zealand-born poet and singer Janet Kenny. In the June 2025 issue of Hubris, I introduced readers to Kenny’s poetry, subsequently inviting her to contribute to the magazine in the first person. Kenny’s is a “memoir of gasps,” as readers have discovered, emitted while “singing and drowning.” (For the first three installments of Kenny’s memoir, click on these links: A Provincial New Zealand Childhood (or, What I Did in the War), A Provincial New Zealand Childhood (or, What I Did in the War): Part II), and A Provincial New Zealand Childhood (or, What I Did in the War: Part III).

Eighteenth Gasp (Part Two)—Pantomime

“Stand up any child who can sing V For Victory,” said the pantomime dame. 

We were at the pantomime, and I wanted to stand up and sing. Unfortunately, I had never heard of V For Victory and was wildly jealous when a pasty child with ringlets put up her hand and said: “I will.” What’s more, I recognized her as one of the chorus children from the cast in the previous act. I was seeing my first rigged audition. She sang, with pathetic gestures: “Who’th that knocking at my door? Who’th that knocking at my door? It’th me. It’th me. Vee for victoree, knock, knock, knocking at your door.”

This sub-standard interlude did not detract from the delight of the show. The pantomime dame and the clown had hurled dough at each other. There was flour everywhere and both received full-face hits with large sheets of dough. Aladdin was a woman with well-developed thighs and a pronounced bust but the scene in the cave with the genie conveyed all the mystery and menace of the Arabian Nights. The pantomime was a real English pantomime that was somehow trapped down under by the war. 

Then there was Gladys Moncrieff in “Rio Rita” and “The Maid of the Mountains.” The chorus was made up of local amateur Thespians and singers. A well-known dentist in the chorus of bandits called out: “Where’s our Glad?” Then on came the star and the whole chorus called out: “It’s Glad. It’s our Glad.” We suspended disbelief to receive this wonderful, worn-out old singer who still had gold in her throat, as the mountain maid, or as Rio Rita. To my childish eyes, she was overweight, over the hill, and had all the characteristics that I had been trained to call common. She was also a compelling performer whose voice had a sublimity of sound, the like of which I have never heard since. Old gramophone records of Tetrazzini have something of the same quality.

There were also amateur performances of musical comedies. “Wild Violets” is one I recall, mainly for the extravagant gymnastics of another local dentist-comedian and the appearance of a local school mistress in a gym slip and pig tails. “The Vagabond King,” with its genuinely rousing choruses and emotive arias was my first inkling of the power of music-drama. Rudolf Friml was very close to something better. The soprano acted and sang like the professional she later became. She was also destined for a luridly publicized divorce from an international celebrity who later died as spectacularly as he had lived. Small towns hold these secrets. The fates enjoy the random selection of innocent travelers. 

My mother shared my love of stories and always took me to performances of one-act plays presented by the British Drama League. These still stand out in my memory because of the atrocious standard of the acting. The head librarian of the municipal children’s library invariably took the lead. This fact alone guaranteed the failure of the enterprise. It is a tribute to the power of theater and the inspiration of playwrights that I remember some of the plays with respect. Only some. I have sometimes discovered bound volumes of plays written for that virtuous institution. Many were distinguished only by their mediocrity. When, in “Die Meistersinger,” Hans Sachs reprimands young Walther von Stolzing for failing to respect the meisters, I sympathize with his message. The worthy amateurs who maintain a discipline so that it still exists for more talented individuals, are true servants of civilization.

Nineteenth Gasp—Hope

It was definite. My father’s good sister had declared the state intermediate school, where she had taught, to be unsuitable for me. Instead, I was to be enrolled at Bairncots, an Anglican preparatory school for girls. My mother took me along to meet the head teacher, an English Oxford graduate called Miss Broadwood. I could tell immediately that Miss Broadwood found neither of us quite what she was used to. Miss Broadwood preferred her girls to be either daughters of academics from the local agricultural college, daughters of the clergy or, failing these qualifications, to be exceedingly rich. My mother and I failed both these tests. Still, I was accepted and enrolled for the following year.

The school was situated in an old wooden house with large grounds. There were only two classrooms. Children of both sexes from five to seven years old were taught in one room, and girls from eight to twelve or 13 were taught in the other. There was a piano around which we sang and a fireplace from which cheap firewood shot forth huge sparks and embers. It was the best school I ever attended. At last, I was with companions who shared some of my interests. We put on plays and sang Gilbert and Sullivan. One girl was loud, disobedient, and uncouth. She was also fabulously rich. Miss Broadwood occasionally disciplined her, but respectfully. 

Most of the girls owned ponies and were enrolled as future pupils of the school for which Bairncot’s preparatory services were designed. I knew my parents lacked the means to send me there. There were a few of us, set somehow apart by our secret poverty. I can remember being told by Miss Broadwood once when I was chattering that she wanted none of my public-school-manners here, thank you.

We crept to the window of Miss Broadwood’s bedroom. She lived on the premises. We saw a crucifix over her bed. She was High Anglican and lived a life of self-denial.

Miss Broadwood’s handwriting betrayed her lack of experience. Although she must have been in her 50s, her writing was that of a good child. I had always written a wild unruly hand. I was determined to win Miss Broadwood’s respect. I slavishly copied her handwriting and, at the end of the first year, won first prize for handwriting. I finished her off by choosing a volume of Shakespeare comedies as my prize.

Miss Broadwood read to us as we pretended to be learning to sew. We worked by hand at blood-stained aprons. She read Stephen Leacock, and Conan Doyle’s White Company. She also read Olive Schreiner’s Life on an African Farm. She taught us Latin from Longmans Latin Grammar. The school library was a motley collection of British Imperial books such as Tell England, Girls’ Own Annual and Chums. Our science lessons were conducted with candles and jam jars. In the French class, serious little girls sang of “Fraira zharka dormy voo, sonnay lamattina, dang dang dong,” and: “soola pong darvinyong, longdy donsa, too tong rong.” 

We were all in love with the Reverend Mr. Chastley who gave us weekly Scripture lessons. He was English, young, handsome, and married to the fat daughter of an English bishop. I recognized them both years later when I read Anthony Trollope.

When he was absent, his classes were administered by Miss Chapel, a relieving teacher of sinister appearance who left out parts of The Lord’s Prayer. “Like Catholics,” the girls hissed to each other.

Princess Elizabeth got married and we were all ecstatic. A Scottish professor, father of one us, said of Prince Phillip after the radio broadcast of the wedding ceremony: “He has a deep voice for a young laddie.” We agreed rapturously.

When the poliomyelitis epidemic closed the schools, Miss Broadwood cycled dutifully to all the homes of her girls and supervised our home lessons. My mother served her tea from our best china. Miss Broadwood was gracious. Her visits blessedly coincided with the floral display of my mother’s sweet peas and wall flowers.

Twentieth Gasp—Disappointment

Miss Burns gave me a piece of hard shiny brown paper. I was crying and my nose was running. Miss Burns was the high-school careers adviser, and she had just told me that I couldn’t be an opera singer. I would have to be a teacher or a nurse.

“You need languages and intense study to be an opera singer.” She was triumphant.

Miss Burns was also the French teacher and had rapidly converted my excited anticipation into misery as she exercised her malice and complacency on the rows of victims in her charge. Would she have cared if she had known what a hunger she had failed to appease?

“You must have an exceptional voice that will carry over a symphony orchestra,” she said. “Very few people have such voices.”

Miss Burns was a large snobbish woman who never forgot that she belonged to a prominent local family. Miss Burns had traveled to Sydney on the Wanganella. “You should see the shoe departments in the department stores,” she told the class when she returned after the summer holidays. She was an uncultivated, large version of Miss Jean Brodie. She loved to dominate but had no message. “The finest leathers and such a variety.”

Miss Burns cycled to school in her tweed suits and velvet hats, her large posterior majestically poised on the tiny leather bicycle saddle, her well-bred legs and expensive brogues shown to advantage as she rotated the pedals.

My mother spoke of a social gathering where one woman said: “Only Cath Burns could get away with a hat like that,” and another woman had said: “I don’t think she’s getting away with it.”

Miss Burns taught French as though it were an abstract entity created for the express purpose of tormenting young memories. I cannot remember her speaking of France nor of anything French. We did occasionally file to the school assembly hall to listen to government radio broadcasts of French lessons to schools. The programs included records of piano music by Debussy and Pierre Bernac singing Gounod’s serenade and Tino Rossi the berceuse from Godard’s “Jocelyn.” Miss Burns evinced no interest in any of these. Back in the classroom, this heady taste of other places and other values was swiftly consigned to oblivion.

Miss Burns was also the teacher who interviewed parents and new pupils when they enrolled at the high school. Upon discovering my father’s occupation, she had immediately entered me for the professional course. There was Professional, Commercial, and Domestic Science. The pupil was not consulted. My mother was very proud at the recognition of the family’s status. It was simple. Girls from good families were cultivated, girls from respectable families were typists, and girls from the wrong side of the tracks were domestic. This was the pattern for girls in colonial New Zealand in 1949.

One day out of the blue, after receiving some incomprehensible government leaflets about “wonderful new career opportunities unfolding for young people today,” we were ordered to discuss our future careers with the school careers adviser. None of the women I knew, apart from my father’s good sister, had careers, and my mother always spoke contemptuously of my aunt and her friends as typical school-marms. Obviously, this was not an identity to embrace. I had already appeared as a singer at local music groups, encouraged by my piano teacher until my aunt advised my parents against such an unsuitable concentration of attention. I was sent to a new piano teacher. I had never seen or even heard an opera, but I had discovered Kobbés book of opera libretti and read it as I had read stories from the brothers Grimm. I loved to act, I loved painting, I loved playing the piano, I loved singing. I wanted to be an opera singer.

“What? One of those screeching females!” said a visiting bank official as I handed round the cake rack at home and answered the usual inane adult questions. “Like that awful Joan Hammond!”

“You would have to memorize large tracts of music,” said the unmusical Miss Burns. “You must train as a primary school teacher.”

There I was. Caught between pragmatic reality, my mother’s implacable hostility towards my aunt, and my own conviction that better things were possible.

Twenty-first Gasp—Desecration

After I had completed two years of the high school, my parents did something heroic. They realized that something was seriously wrong. I attended a weekly adult sketch-club where I produced credible pencil portraits in the company of dipsomaniac socialites, florists, and some real painters. One of the last-mentioned was a highly respected art teacher at the Technical High School. Despite my aunt, my mother and father decided to enroll me as a pupil at the Tech.

For my parents, this was a quantum leap. All their years of keeping up appearances would be destroyed. Only working-class children attended the Tech. Children of Bank Officers never did, under any circumstances. It is true that an older friend who had completed private boarding school would be attending Tech in preparation for proper art school, and this gave my parents courage. 

It was a disaster of course. I was the only girl in a class of lecherous street-smart boys and hopelessly out of my social depth. I hated the art classes. I hated painting bottles, and I hated being made fun of. Once an evil boy deliberately threw an eraser at me so that it hit my breast with an amazingly pneumatic sound. They all roared and hooted. I blushed until tears ran down my cheeks.

I forged letters from my mother excusing my absences from school. I went sketching in parks and the open countryside. My mother wrote a real note and was summoned by the principal to be asked whether the note was genuine. Of course it was, that time. Soon afterwards, the principal ran away with the blonde wife of a fashionable dentist. He was in worse trouble than I was. 

I was found unconscious by my bicycle one morning. My father cycled up to find that the body inside the circle of bystanders was that of his daughter. I had bitten my lip in the fall. A first-year medical student in the crowd muttered epilepsy. My father kept me home from school for a year in case I had public fits. I have never had one since the accident and I had never had one before. As I regained consciousness hours later, I muttered something about being knocked off my bicycle by a car. 

Nevertheless, I was kept at home. A year of wandering, of reading, of cycling, painting, film-going. Blissful anarchy. 

Confused and desperate, my parents allowed my father’s good sister to prevail. I was sent, at her expense, as a boarder to the school where she taught. The school was in a pretty seaside town, old by New Zealand standards, dominated by a mountain cone which journalists referred to as the Fujiyama of the south.

I had known the town as a holiday resort and looked forward to going there. I wanted to escape the misery my home-town school life had become. 

What I found was much worse. I found the horror of prison life, the mortification of the charity child, the banality of rural materialists, the bullying cruelty of the school matrons and a powerful manipulative head mistress who used me to dominate my father’s good sister. My aunt’s shamed reproaches were combined with those of the teacher-friend who shared her life. 

The head mistress was the daughter of a well-known reactionary politician. Her hair was a bright artificial yellow and set in unnaturally regular waves. Girls at the boarding institution often observed a certain important man’s car parked all night outside her flat and sometimes her speech was slurred and her gait unsteady. 

Ungenerous rumors suggested that my aunt and her teacher friend had an “unnatural relationship.” My aunt was servile towards the head mistress, daughter of a Sir, and indeed, never suspected the malicious gossip about her own life, nor the rumors surrounding the head mistress. She had boasted, before my arrival, about my perfection. Even had I been half as good as her portrait of me, I would have failed. As it was, after my year of freedom I was unable to fall back into the mindless unquestioning obedience expected of girls in that establishment. When reprimanded for keeping my eyes open during prayers, I foolishly asked how they knew. I was told by the head mistress, not to be a hypocrite when I truthfully denied having boys in my room after a school dance. 

My only boarder-friend was forbidden me by a rodent-faced sub-matron who implied that my relationship with the younger but more worldly girl was like that of my aunt and her friend. “Go away and leave her alone. She’s too young for you,” she said. If I was too innocent to fully understand the unjust insinuations, how was I to explain to my even more innocent aunt? Unfortunately, this particular friendship was the only boarding-establishment friendship of which my aunt approved. My friend’s well-connected parents were leaders of society in that province. 

It was essential that I produce a friend to accompany me to my aunt’s house on school outing-days. Desperately, I brought along anyone I could persuade to come and see how they lived. An endless procession of failures. Boring to me and shockingly inappropriate to my aunt. 

Instead of the nice girls whom my aunt hoped would become my friends, I found my few friends among the day girls. Wild, naughty girls. One exception was the good and popular head girl who came from a good family. I genuinely liked this girl. She couldn’t fail. She was born with every advantage. Everyone liked her and she liked everyone. Later, at university, I was amazed by her failure to grow or develop. She was formed and finished by her early success and happiness. She married a young man from the same background. We lost touch. 

Another friend is harder to write about. She was unhappy and tempestuous. She had an active sex-life with an old young man who, though still at school, was already a hero in mountaineering circles. At the age of 16, he had brought dead bodies down a dangerous mountain slope after an avalanche. I knew about my friend’s physical life. I was impressed and shocked. My aunt tried to break our friendship. I broke it myself years later, when, abandoned by her only real lover, she disintegrated into a trollop. 

I still feel guilty about this. I was not equipped to help her. Her mind became blowzy and boring. It was as though sex was a drug. Her father was a sexually obsessed sadist who beat his children and kept his exhausted second wife pregnant and downtrodden. I used to stay at this friend’s house on some school-outing weekends. Her father said I was a burden and that he would make me dig potatoes to pay for my keep. My friend bravely defied him. She married some respectable man with many material possessions. She always loved owning things. I hope she is happy. Her original lover married a French woman twice his age. He lives in the French mountains and thinks in French.

Another wilder girl who knew how to read Shakespeare so that it meant something, has failed to turn up on the world stage. I wonder if she is dead? She was too good not to succeed. She lived as a day boarder, just like a university student. She had a gas-ring in a bed-sitting-room, and she used to make coffee and smoke cigarettes. She played Lady Macbeth with evil elegance. I played the doctor. I based my performance on the general style of that droll English actor, Miles Malleson. Everyone laughed. I was irrationally hurt by the laughter. I had meant the doctor to be a rich comic character. Instead of earnest commendation I received mirth. The doctor should have been an eccentric foil for Lady Macbeth. Instead, Lady Macbeth became a straight player to the doctor-comedian. To my amazement, I won the role of Beatrice from my sophisticated rival. I had learned how I should play it by listening to her reading before my own at the audition. I felt like a thief.

The headmistress would not allow me to wear make-up for this role. As the stage designer, I did manage to wear emerald green and cobalt blue. “Blue and green must never be seen,” she said. I think my contempt showed. I also played Becky Sharp. I understood Becky Sharp.

When I came home for the holidays, I found my family strangely cold. They had learned to live without me. They were each in some kind of unhappy personal crisis. My mother, previously prettily plump, had become fat. My father had become grim and obsessed with his health. 

My brother wanted to be an engineer but lacked the means to enter university. He decided to accept the army’s offer of a free university engineering-place in exchange for his soul. That, at least, was how I viewed it. When a series of unhappy events convinced my brother that he should leave the army, my parents summoned my father’s good sister for a solemn family cabinet meeting. 

Already half-separated from them, I observed them with pity. Even the good sister seemed ill-equipped for reality. There is no easy way out of the military world. One of my father’s good connections was an eminent military person who arranged a quiet exit for my brother. My brother’s escape from a brutal institutionalized anonymity was seen by my parents as a tragedy. My mother failed to connect the death of her youngest brother with the chosen career of her son. Her brother and son were the two people she had loved most. This failure to connect cause and effect remains for me the major human mystery.

They put my poor brother in the bank. He hated it. Despite his mathematical skills, he made silly errors in his arithmetic. He left the bank. 

My father was furious. His life had been devoted to pleasing the bank and his good sister. Between us, my brother and I had profaned the two most important things in his life.

Last Gasp—The Departure

My brother and I each made lives that were freer than those of our parents. He graduated as an engineer, and I had a short but happy operatic career.

Only now do I appreciate the pain endured by my parents. Denied even the concept of self-fulfillment by economic depression, war, and shifting social values, they persevered. Both had undiscovered talents of which even they were only dimly aware. Totalitarian colonial conformity was their fate. We became separated by a gulf that only I could see. I wish they could have been less hurt. Some of the happinesses, seemingly available to them, were destroyed by ghostly snobberies and cruelties from an earlier time. The ghost of my parents’ unhappiness has clouded my life. The act of escaping from it is an extra burden of guilt. I now see them as innocents disappointed by experience. The memory of their steadfastness is a weapon I still carry with me.