Joan Faulkner-Blake (30 January 1921 – 6 March 1990) was a professional New Zealand broadcaster in the mid to late twentieth century.

Life and career

Faulkner was born Joan Isabel Faulkner to Edward Ernest Faulkner and Rhoda Vera Faulkner (née White) in

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

Waikato Waikato () is a Regions of New Zealand, local government region of the upper North Island of New Zealand. It covers the Waikato District, Waipa District, Matamata-Piako District, South Waikato District and Hamilton, New Zealand, Hamilton City ...

. After training as a journalist on the Dominion newspaper in

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by me ...

and marrying Norman Blake at Napier in 1941, Faulkner spent much of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

working for the Hawera Star in

Taranaki Taranaki is a region in the west of New Zealand's North Island. It is named after its main geographical feature, the stratovolcano of Mount Taranaki, also known as Mount Egmont. The main centre is the city of New Plymouth. The New Plymouth Dist ...

. From 1944 to 1948, she and her husband leased the Dawson Falls Lodge,

Egmont National Park Egmont National Park () is located south of New Plymouth, close to the west coast of the North Island of New Zealand. The park covers Mount Taranaki and its slopes. The park was first created in 1881 as a forest reserve and went on to become ...

, and there she gained an appreciation for the flora and fauna and traditional lore of the region’s National Parks. After gaining overseas experience as a

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

, Faulkner returned to write syndicated columns in four main-centre newspapers for ten years in the 1950s. Her "New Zealand Newsletters" found audiences in Britain,

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

, and South Africa from 1961 to 1985. She ran a "Behind the Headlines" commentary on current affairs on

NZBC The New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation (NZBC) was a publicly owned company of the New Zealand Government founded in 1962. The Broadcasting Act 1976 then reformed NZBC as the Broadcasting Corporation of New Zealand (BCNZ). The corporation was ...

commercial network for 14 years, gave regular book reviews on the YA stations, and for 11 years was a regular panellist on ''Sunday Supplement''. She edited education programmes on the

National parks of New Zealand The national parks of New Zealand are protected natural areas administered by the Department of Conservation (DOC). The first national parks established in the country were all focused on mountain scenery. Since the 1980s the focus has been ...

and the legends of

Lake Taupo A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much larger ...

and

Mount Taranaki/Egmont Mount Taranaki (), also known as Mount Egmont, is a dormant stratovolcano in the Taranaki region on the west coast of New Zealand's North Island. It is the second highest point in the North Island, after Mount Ruapehu. The mountain has a secon ...

, which are still available today, and in the 1970s produced a documentary series for

Radio New Zealand Radio New Zealand ( mi, Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa), commonly known as Radio NZ or simply RNZ, is a New Zealand public-service radio broadcaster and Crown entity that was established under the Radio New Zealand Act 1995. It operates news and c ...

that looked at the legend of the mountains and traditions surrounding them. She gave many workshops and courses on writing and journalism, and she inspired the creation of writers' groups at Stratford and

New Plymouth New Plymouth ( mi, Ngāmotu) is the major city of the Taranaki region on the west coast of the North Island of New Zealand. It is named after the English city of Plymouth, Devon from where the first English settlers to New Plymouth migrated. ...

. In 1971, she was named "New Zealand Woman of the Year".

References

Obituary
''Daily News'' 9 March 1990 by Shirley Bourke Linda Blake, Queenstown (daughter) {{DEFAULTSORT:Faulkner-Blake, Joan 1921 births 1990 deaths New Zealand television presenters New Zealand women television presenters New Zealand television journalists New Zealand women journalists People from Cambridge, New Zealand