Aunt Daisy

Maud Ruby Basham MBE (née Taylor; 30 August 1879 – 14 July 1963), usually known as Daisy Basham or professionally as Aunt Daisy, was a well-known New Zealand radio broadcaster from 1930 to 1963. She was born in London, England, and her family emigrated to New Plymouth in 1891. She married Frederick Basham in 1904, and they had three children.

During the 1920s Daisy broadcast programmes on the lives of composers illustrated with song.^[1] She was initially on the Government YA network and the private Friendly Road station in Auckland run by Colin Scrimgeour (Uncle Scrim), but she is remembered for her time on the ZB network (commercial, but run by the government) from 1933 to 1963. she averaged 202 words a minute during her shows and her morning show opened to the song 'Daisy Bell' and the greeting "Good Morning, Good Morning, Good Morning everybody".

In the 1956 New Year Honours she was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire for services in the fields of entertainment and broadcasting.^[2]

A recipe book, "The Aunt Daisy Cookbook with Household Hints" was a natural result of the popularity of her show, edited by her daughter Barbara Basham. It ran to several editions, and is still being reprinted almost 40 years after her death. Seven others of her cookery books were also published. The cookbook was reprinted in 1977, edited by her daughter Barbara Basham and published by Hodder and Stoughton. 2010 saw the 22nd reprint of the book ^[3]

In 1963, Aunt Daisy died at the age of 84 years. She was still broadcasting up to a few days beforehand.^[4]

References

External links

• Biography in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography
• Aunt Daisy from the 1966 Encyclopaedia of New Zealand
• The Aunt Daisy Story