had overpowered her desire to travel. As she would write in the introduction to a radio talk, broadcast in 1943:
The itch for travel is a chronic disease—incurable, insistent, sometimes flaring up, sometimes more or less quiescent…The cure is at best temporary, the treatment curious. For a comfortable home, a rational existence, an ordered routine, & a chosen circle of friends; the patient must substitute a jolting train, a heaving ship, a muddled surge of complete strangers, & an incoherent mode of life…Tormented, during treatment, by blistered heels, lost luggage & a perpetual search for somewhere to lay his head, why does this odd creature desire so ardently the renewal of all the uncomfortable conditions?
The itinerant existence was one she loved, especially with the Rhodes family, who enjoyed a particularly indulgent version of it. Moments of ‘arrival’ made the ordeals of travel melt away. ‘For the incurable & unrepentant traveller; a landfall, a foreign port, the great white lights of a foreign city still unexplored, or the modest lamps of a strange village at the end of a darkling road—these things are happiness.’ But this was happiness she would not experience again for many years. Her father was old and increasingly dependent, and in her travels she had witnessed the seeds of the Jewish Holocaust and the rise of the Nazi Party’s machine in Germany. The Second World War, which began in September 1939, would change Europe’s frontiers to frontlines. It would stop elective travel and force New Zealanders, other than military personnel, to remain at home.
‘It can’t be explained,’ Ngaio wrote of the addiction to travel. ‘It can be appeased in peace time only by indulgence; or in these bad days of war by some such counter-irritant as hard work.’ To stem her desire to travel, Ngaio would work in the theatre and on her books. New Zealand amateur and repertory theatre, thrown back on its own resources, would prove fertile ground.
Ironically, too, although the war interrupted so many things, it did not affect the ascendancy of the detective novel. People continued to read crime fiction while bombs rained down and vast casualty lists were posted. Special pocket-sized editions of detective novels were produced for easy reading in bomb shelters, and lending libraries posted crime sections close to bunker entrances. The demand for intriguing puzzle plots would soar.
Photos
Ngaio Marsh in dame school uniform with her spaniel, Tip, and with dolls, c. 1900. St Margaret’s College (SMC 1-4e)
Ngaio’s mother, Rose Marsh, c. 1910. St Margaret’s College (SMC 1-4e)
Ngaio as head prefect at St Margaret’s College, Christchurch, c. 1914. St Margaret’s College (SMC 1-4e)
Ngaio Marsh with Allan Wilkie, c. 1920. St Margaret’s College (SMC 1-4e)
Ngaio Marsh reclining in a chair, c. 1933. Photograph by William Sykes Baverstock, ATL, PAColl-0326-09
Ngaio Marsh with the Rhodes and Plunket families on seaside holiday in Birchington, Kent. Nelly Rhodes is at the centre, with Toppy Blundell Hawkes, Ngaio Marsh and Tahu Rhodes to her right. In front are Denys, Teddy, Eileen and Pam Rhodes, c. 1930. ATL, PA Coll-9232-08
Ngaio Marsh’s painting In the Quarry, c. 1935, featured on the front cover of Art New Zealand, Number 78/Autumn 1996.
Ngaio Marsh’s painting, Native Market, Durban, c. 1933. Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology
The 1936 Group Exhibition in Christchurch, Ngaio in the centre, wearing tie and beret. Left to right: Rata Lovell-Smith, Phyllis Bethune, Mr Bethune, Dr Lester, Billy Baverstock, Margaret Anderson (holding Toss Woollaston’s Figures from Life), Mr Henderson, Rosa Sawtell, Louise Henderson. Photograph by Olivia Spencer Bower, Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu
Mannings family photograph (right to left): Stella, John, John (senior), and in front Jean and Roy with Pekinese dogs Misty and Chee-Chee, c. 1946. Collection of Jean Crabtree
Ngaio
The itch for travel is a chronic disease—incurable, insistent, sometimes flaring up, sometimes more or less quiescent…The cure is at best temporary, the treatment curious. For a comfortable home, a rational existence, an ordered routine, & a chosen circle of friends; the patient must substitute a jolting train, a heaving ship, a muddled surge of complete strangers, & an incoherent mode of life…Tormented, during treatment, by blistered heels, lost luggage & a perpetual search for somewhere to lay his head, why does this odd creature desire so ardently the renewal of all the uncomfortable conditions?
The itinerant existence was one she loved, especially with the Rhodes family, who enjoyed a particularly indulgent version of it. Moments of ‘arrival’ made the ordeals of travel melt away. ‘For the incurable & unrepentant traveller; a landfall, a foreign port, the great white lights of a foreign city still unexplored, or the modest lamps of a strange village at the end of a darkling road—these things are happiness.’ But this was happiness she would not experience again for many years. Her father was old and increasingly dependent, and in her travels she had witnessed the seeds of the Jewish Holocaust and the rise of the Nazi Party’s machine in Germany. The Second World War, which began in September 1939, would change Europe’s frontiers to frontlines. It would stop elective travel and force New Zealanders, other than military personnel, to remain at home.
‘It can’t be explained,’ Ngaio wrote of the addiction to travel. ‘It can be appeased in peace time only by indulgence; or in these bad days of war by some such counter-irritant as hard work.’ To stem her desire to travel, Ngaio would work in the theatre and on her books. New Zealand amateur and repertory theatre, thrown back on its own resources, would prove fertile ground.
Ironically, too, although the war interrupted so many things, it did not affect the ascendancy of the detective novel. People continued to read crime fiction while bombs rained down and vast casualty lists were posted. Special pocket-sized editions of detective novels were produced for easy reading in bomb shelters, and lending libraries posted crime sections close to bunker entrances. The demand for intriguing puzzle plots would soar.
Photos
Ngaio Marsh in dame school uniform with her spaniel, Tip, and with dolls, c. 1900. St Margaret’s College (SMC 1-4e)
Ngaio’s mother, Rose Marsh, c. 1910. St Margaret’s College (SMC 1-4e)
Ngaio as head prefect at St Margaret’s College, Christchurch, c. 1914. St Margaret’s College (SMC 1-4e)
Ngaio Marsh with Allan Wilkie, c. 1920. St Margaret’s College (SMC 1-4e)
Ngaio Marsh reclining in a chair, c. 1933. Photograph by William Sykes Baverstock, ATL, PAColl-0326-09
Ngaio Marsh with the Rhodes and Plunket families on seaside holiday in Birchington, Kent. Nelly Rhodes is at the centre, with Toppy Blundell Hawkes, Ngaio Marsh and Tahu Rhodes to her right. In front are Denys, Teddy, Eileen and Pam Rhodes, c. 1930. ATL, PA Coll-9232-08
Ngaio Marsh’s painting In the Quarry, c. 1935, featured on the front cover of Art New Zealand, Number 78/Autumn 1996.
Ngaio Marsh’s painting, Native Market, Durban, c. 1933. Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology
The 1936 Group Exhibition in Christchurch, Ngaio in the centre, wearing tie and beret. Left to right: Rata Lovell-Smith, Phyllis Bethune, Mr Bethune, Dr Lester, Billy Baverstock, Margaret Anderson (holding Toss Woollaston’s Figures from Life), Mr Henderson, Rosa Sawtell, Louise Henderson. Photograph by Olivia Spencer Bower, Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu
Mannings family photograph (right to left): Stella, John, John (senior), and in front Jean and Roy with Pekinese dogs Misty and Chee-Chee, c. 1946. Collection of Jean Crabtree
Ngaio
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