She was nothing short of a marvel. During her astonishing 32 years as editor of New Zealand Woman’s Weekly, Jean Wishart took the magazine from a modest black-and-white newsprint journal in 1952 to a robust publication, which regularly sold around a quarter of a million copies each week at the time of her retirement.
So firmly was she associated with the Weekly that few could imagine anyone else ever sitting in the editor’s chair. But Jean, who died on November 16 at the age of 96, was the last person to claim she had done anything out of the ordinary. She was an extremely modest woman.
My introduction to Jean came during a two-year stint as a young reporter with special responsibility for the Weekly’s “Pixie” and “Teenage” pages in the late 1950s. By then, she had been at the helm for six years and had already turned the magazine into what was known as “the best little sixpence-worth in New Zealand”.
By the time I returned to the fold in 1976 to become her assistant, she had seen off such competing women’s titles as The Ladies’ Home Journal, Eve and Thursday, not to mention general-interest periodicals The Freelance and Weeky News. Jean was at the top of her game.
What was the secret of her extraordinary success?
I believe it was principally due to the value she placed on her relationship with readers. Jean was smart. She had an acute news sense. She was a shrewd businesswoman, but above all, she respected her readers, took note of their opinions and where deemed appropriate, acted on them.
She also encouraged readers themselves to contribute to the magazine. In return, they saw her as their friend, someone they trusted, someone for whom many had a genuine affection.
Jean never preached or imposed her views, but her pleasant face together with a brief letter at the front of the magazine somehow set the tone for the pages that followed. In person, she was ladylike, immaculately groomed and beautifully spoken – even in her nineties, her voice had barely changed – with a reserve that may have been based on shyness but which also masked a lively sense of fun.
She took a keen interest in fashion. As may be expected, however, her own style was strictly classic. Days before she died, she told me that she had hung on to some of her favourite 1970s pussycat-bowed blouses in the belief that particular look might come back again.
Readers knew her simply as Jean, but she was always “Miss Wishart” to her staff. I will never forget the day she politely requested that I drop the formality. It felt inappropriate to do so. Disrespectful somehow.
I could barely get the word “Jean” out of my mouth.
Certainly the Weekly in the Wishart era was never exposed to the kind of competitive pressures faced by later editors as more and more titles hit the newsstands. But deadlines still had to be met and in the pre-digital era when pages needed to go to production well in advance of publication, this could pose many challenges for topical content.
Although most of the Weekly’s stories were written by staff, the safe arrival of material from overseas and elsewhere in New Zealand depended on the efficiency of the mail service. A postal glitch in Britain, for instance, or fog at the airport might place an eagerly awaited royal feature in jeopardy. (Jean’s justifiable enthusiasm for royal coverage led people to joke that the Weekly had a hot-line to the palace.)
The time it took for the magazine to be printed could also cause embarrassment.
I remember when a celebrity marriage folded just as the issue with a story about the couple’s blissfully happy union went on sale. Jean kept her cool. Her composure never faltered. Whatever the crisis, I never heard her utter even a mildly rude word. She was unflappable.
While aware that a magazine must move with the times, she instinctively knew that sudden, dramatic changes would be a turn-off. Changes came – she saw to that. But they came in a measured way, in response
to what she perceived readers would accept.
During the 1970s, with feminism in full cry, legislative changes that advanced women’s causes and women themselves becoming more outspoken, Jean sensed that the time was right to tackle contentious subjects such as rape, child molestation, even abortion.
At the same time, the hippie movement was inspiring renewed interest in home crafts, so in keeping with her aim of producing a balance of material “with something for everybody”, she set needles clicking throughout the nation with a series of bonus booklets featuring knitting and crochet patterns for fashion garments and children’s toys.
Although it has never lost its identity as a Kiwi icon, the New Zealand Woman’s Weekly today bears little resemblance to the magazine Jean Wishart knew. Greater use of colour, glossier paper and up-to-the-minute production systems have given it a visual appeal and the kind of immediacy Jean would have viewed as an impossible dream.
Nevertheless, she produced a publication that was in tune with the times – and her readers loved her for it.
