Spectrum 543. Girls of the silver dollar

Rights Information
Year
1986
Reference
18416
Media type
Audio
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Rights Information
Year
1986
Reference
18416
Media type
Audio
Duration
00:33:34
Credits
RNZ Collection
Margaret Duirs MacNab, 1900-2001, Interviewee
Jack Perkins, 1940-, Producer

When the United States Marines arrived in Wellington during World War II, official concern grew about the spread of venereal disease. Nurse Margaret MacNab was
given the job of visiting Wellington's brothels and serving notices on
girls suspected of carrying "social diseases".

Jack Perkins interviews Margaret about her role once United States Marines started arriving in June 1942. The Health Department was aware however, that the thousands of young men could cause an epidemic of venereal disease.

Margaret says 'social hygiene' had been almost a taboo subject during her training. She found the American soldiers very young and more emotional the New Zealand men, and they were hungry for female company.

She explains how the men were supplied with condoms as they disembarked from their troopships and there were 'blue light' stations where they could be treated before returning to the ship, if they had visited a brothel. If a man contracted a venereal disease he had to supply the name of the woman or address to New Zealand health authorities. She explains how some women were only identified by a physical description and she then had to work out who they were.

She developed quite good relationships with the sex workers in Wellington - other nurses performed similar roles in Auckland and Christchurch. She had to serve notices on the girls who then had to report to hospital for treatment.

She says Upper Willis, Taranaki and Abel Smith Streets were fairly sordid areas with many brothels but she also had to serve notice on a woman staying in one of the city's best hotels. She says she was not supposed to be concerned at all with patient's morals but simply with their physical health.
American military police once picketed a notorious house in Upper Willis St to try and keep their men away from it. She describes the poor health of some of the women.

She describes the reaction of the police when she asked if something could be done about the worst brothels. The law meant they couldn't act unless money was seen changing hands.

Dr Hubert Smith, a Yorkshireman, was the Medical Officer of Health at the time in Wellington, and he and Margaret had a lot of sympathy for the prostitutes.

She talks about a hotel in Cuba St nicknamed "The Cat's Parlour', where girls from the brothels would go to pick up men. Margaret describes the ward at Wellington Hospital where the women were treated and regarded as outcasts by the nursing staff. She tells the story of a man who named a woman as having infected him, as a form of revenge.