In response to our recent article on the Choral Festival of the 1950s, Barbara Francis, a former OGHS pupil, kindly shares her personal memories of participating in this memorable event. Her article goes beyond reminiscing about school days, offering a captivating glimpse into her life's accomplishments and stories beyond Otago Girls'. We are excited to share Barbara’s journey, showcasing her many achievements and contributions following her time at the school.

This combined concert was held on both the 15th and 16th August 1952. As Eileen Wallis (Eileen Robson, pupil 1940-4, history teacher 1953-6) has recalled in A Most Rare Vision published in 1995 to commemorate the 125th anniversary, “In 1952, the musical event of the year was the combined Boy’s and Girl’s High School concert in the Town Hall.”  Both Dunedin papers Otago Daily Times and Evening Star published a review. One would have had the photo Roger Hynd sent. The Otago Daily Times began with: 

Variety and quality made the combined concert by Otago Girls and Otago Boy’s High Schools in the Town hall last night an unqualified success. Most of the programme was based on massed orchestral, choral, or band items.                                                                                                      

One of the highlights of the choral items was the singing of five Hebridean songs   (arranged by Kennedy-Frazer) by Otago Girls High School, beginning with the ‘Eriskay Love Lilt’, and were popularly received.  

While the more effusive Evening Star included:

The presentation of a combined musical concert by the Otago Boys’ High School and the Otago Girls’ High School enriched the cultural life of the city. Last night a good- sized audience in the Town Hall heard selections interpreted in an inspiring fashion. Perhaps the outstanding feature of the concert was singing by the massed choirs under the baton of Richard Whittington. But it would be invidious to attempt to single out any one performance for special praise, for the programme as a whole maintained a consistently high standard. The sweet offerings of the girls were ideally offset by the more robust interpretations by the boys. Chase Clarke, the girls’ conductor obtained excellent results.  

“Golden Sonata” by Purcell, played by Ron Gibson and Russell James (violins) Alec Sinclair (viola) and Iain Kerr (piano) was much appreciated by the audience, as was the playing of the   band. Invaluable assistance to the combined choirs and the massed OBHS was given by Iain Kerr. This fine young musician’s versatility was demonstrated when his school sang “Sea Gypsy” composed by Kerr himself. The audience gave him a hearty round of applause that was well-deserved.                                                                                  

The pianists were Gloria Manson and Wallace Woodley. The leader of the combined orchestra was Judith Barnett. A pleasing feature of the concert was the neat appearance of those participating. Line after line of white shirts and blouses looked well. The concert will be presented again tonight. 

As a fourth former I, then Barbara Smith, participated in that amazing concert which I will never forget. As well as singing the five songs with that huge combined choir and the “Eriskay Love Lilt,” from around six hundred and seventy girls, I also played the cello in the orchestra. Hearing Iain Kerr’s composition, first at the ‘dress rehearsal’ then both nights, was mind blowing. While the memory of singing Parry’s ‘Jerusalem’ and Elgar’s arrangement of what was then NZ’s National Anthem accompanied by Iain on Dunedin’s magnificent pipe organ still gives me goosebumps! After all these years, I still have my programme; the top message is from Iain Kerr, the lower signature is Alec Sinclair.                                                                                                                                                       

I think the photo was taken at the ‘dress rehearsal’ as there’s no conductors and various items on the empty seats. I’ve no idea where I am. Iain Kerr is at the organ. He currently can be found at  kerroy.com   I also knew Marion Frew who was ahead of me as we both were in the St Kilda Methodist Church Bible Class. Many years later met up again in the Christchurch branch of OGHS Ex-Girls when she was Marion Hynd and I was Barbara Bartlett. 

Two years prior to the concert, at the end of August 1950, I had arrived in Dunedin from the southern Hawke’s Bay town of Dannevirke where I’d been in my last year of primary school, as my father was transferred by the Justice Department to the position of a Supreme Court Registrar. Six months later, when still a twelve-year-old, I began as a new third-former at OGHS. Having spent the previous seven years and two terms at a school of around 350 girls and boys ranging in age from five to thirteen I found this school of 671 uniformed mostly teen-age girls with around 30 teachers, the majority wearing gowns and the imposing ‘Lady Principal’ Miss Fitzgerald somewhat overwhelming.                A few days later on Tuesday 6 February 1951 as Eileen Wallis wrote was, “the 80th Anniversary celebration in the Town Hall at which no fewer than 31 pupils from the first two decades were present. … Those from the first decade were seated on the stage with each presented with a posy of flowers by the youngest present-day pupils.” As I wouldn’t be thirteen until Easter, I was one of them. I still vividly remember feeling I was on another planet in this my first experience of Dunedin’s Town Hall, the staff also on stage, not only in gown, but academic hoods and mortar boards and I had to go up the steps to the stage clutching the posy which I then presented. The ceremony ended with the School Song. Although there’d been practices of it and there were printed words, another everlasting memory is participating in almost the entire Town Hall singing ‘The Chambered Nautilus.’ When it came to that final stanza, ‘Build thee more stately mansions’ I lost the plot!                                                                                                                                                               

Back at the school there were so many new experiences, beginning with different teachers for specific subjects. Mine were English, French, Maths, History, Geography, Science, Music and Homecraft. My favourite was Music. When in Dannevirke I’d had four years of music lessons at the local convent who fortunately arranged for them to continue at St Dominics across the road from OGHS where I not only joined the choir, but also began learning the cello progressing to the school orchestra. Later when Catherine (Kitty) Hey replaced Chase Clarke the Chamber Music Club began, listening to specific recordings or sometimes a live performance. I also joined the Student Christian Movement (SCM). Then there were the productions of the Drama Club which ranged from Shakespeare to G B Shaw. The highlight for me was the 1953 Coronation year school-wide ‘Pageant of the Queens of England.’                                                                                                                                                                                           In 1956 as my father was now Registrar of Napier’s Supreme Court, I began at Wellington Teachers’ College for the two next years, followed by a year teaching in Napier. I also kept my SCM involvement and at the end of 1958 was selected as one of three NZSCM members to attend a world-wide SCM Conference in Rangoon Burma (now Myanmar). As well as spending time in Burma I also visited other SE Asian countries.                                                                                                                                               Returning to NZ, having been granted a year’s leave from my teaching bond, I was an SCM Travelling Secretary initially sharing details of my SE Asia experiences, including speaking to the full OGHS Assembly, then chatting with Miss Fitzgerald and morning tea in the Staff Room. Later was organising activities in the then five Teachers’ Colleges. I returned to teaching in Wellington for the next 4½ years before being married and moving to live in Christchurch for the next 41 years. When I was fifty I returned to full-time teaching at a Christchurch intermediate school with a year 8 class, as well as being responsible for music across the school.   

Having retired from teaching in 2005, I now live in Wellington, where in 2009 when aged seventy-one, I embarked on a new career as a researcher. Sparked by a research grant from the New Horizons for Women Trust I began working with letters archived in the Alexander Turnbull Library from a remarkable woman, Agnes Moncrieff who I’d met in my SCM days. Agnes had written these from China when working with their YWCA from 1930-1945. Although there was a 40-year age gap Nessie, as she was also known, became a good friend until her death in 1988.

At the request of the Wellington YWCA, I wrote a biography Our Secretary in China which they published in 2010. Later, Fergus Barrowman of then Victoria University Press, knowing Nessie had been a MA graduate in 1921 and also vice-President of the Student Association, suggested I do further research and also edit the 240 letters. The majority of them were from Nessie typed in small font or handwritten on very thin paper to her mother in Carterton. There were also several to her good friend Eva Skinner, wife of Dr H Skinner, Director of Otago Museum, whom she'd first met when in Dunedin 1928-9 training to be a YWCA Secretary prior to going to China, which had been returned  to her on Eva’s death in 1963. There were also copies of reports Nessie sent to the NZ YWCA, along with letters received from the YWCA of China expressing their gratitude for all she was doing for them in those turbulent years when Japan invaded China. In 2017 was the book ‘You Do Not Travel in China at the Full Moon: Agnes Moncrieff’s Letters from China 1939-1945, edited by Barbara Francis,’ explained as a “story of fortitude and adventure published on the centenary of her enrolment at Victoria University.”                                                                                                                                                           

Last year, my third book, Titus Angus White & the Māori Captives on Waitematā Harbour 1863/4 was published by Atuanui Press. This had begun as a biography of my great, great, grandfather who when twelve had arrived in New Zealand with his parents and siblings from County Durham, England at the end of 1835 to settle in the Hokianga. Growing up with children from local iwi, he became fluent in te reo Māori. After experience in Sydney and Auckland as a builder, when thirty-four he’d become a colonial government ‘Native Interpreter.’  As I then discovered in my research, six years later he’d been appointed by the government Superintendent of the 182 Tainui men erroneously captured at the November 1863 Battle for Rangiriri during the invasion of Waikato. They were then incarcerated in an adapted coal hulk on Auckland’s harbour for 8 months. As the invasion headed south the first captives were joined by another 46 making a total of 228.Also aboard was Superintendent White, who was required to send a daily written report to the ‘Native Minister’ which fortunately are archived.                                                                                                                

This unexamined event of early colonial history became the main content of my work. Along the way a Tainui Māori leader suggested I write a ‘story for Pākeha telling what had happened.’ Titus Angus White & the Māori Captives on Waitematā Harbour 1863/4 was launched in November 2023 to coincide with the 160th anniversary of the Battle for Rangiriri. While at Rangiriri for the Kīngitanga’s commemoration event, at the request of the Tainui leader I presented a copy of my book to Kīngi Tūheitia. Eight months later, my full research manuscript Kīngitanga Captives 1863/4 was lodged with the Waikato-Tainui Resource Centre.      

At the beginning of this year I was somewhat embarrassed when an article from a lengthy telephone interview which I thought was going to be about the recent book was published in the Listener. The heading included the, “85-year-old has turned her attention to righting misconceptions over the Waikato War”; but the article focused more on events in my 85 years. Frequently the information differed from what I'd said!  However, accurate is, “Otago Girls' High School with amazing teachers shaped my life by giving me strengths and skills that became my foundations, … although I hadn't yet grown up enough to knuckle down”.  I loved all there was to experience at Otago Girls High School. I'm certain, that somewhat later in life, it’s those skills that have enabled me to enjoy the challenges of this new career.