The freewheeling Girl in Red
Cyclist and variety performer Nita Rosslyn took New Zealand by storm in 1935, helped by rumours that she was really a man and a spy, writes Tina White.
As the ship Sultan Star docked in Auckland, a diminutive woman in red, wheeling a bike, stood out among the disembarking passengers.
She was destined to make headlines around New Zealand in the following months.
Known at times as ‘‘the singer a-wheel’’, this was Manchester-born Nita Rosslyn, variety-show performer, intrepid traveller, gifted selfpromoter and person of mystery.
Her nickname was the Girl in Red, because of her scarlet uniform of close-fitting cap, buttoned jacket and skirt, cycling gaiters and boots.
She’d started her adventures in 1930, biking around Britain with a well-publicised five shillings to her name. Having completed that tour, she’d been presented with a sturdy new bicycle by the British Cycles, Motorcycles and Traders Union, at the 1934 Olympia Hall trade show in London.
Now, in March 1935, she was out to conquer New Zealand.
Nita was a quaint-looking person who never took her cap off and was never seen wearing anything but her red uniform festooned with souvenir buttons and pins.
She met the mayors of towns she visited, and stayed in private homes, but her hosts got no closer to knowing her than anyone else; she kept the bike in her bedroom each night and insisted a breakfast tray be left outside her door.
Onstage, it was different. She told reporters the theme of her cycle marathon was to prove ‘‘variety wasn’t dead, in spite of the talkies’’.
In a series of performances at town theatres, ironically in between movie showings, she would sing delightfully in several languages, accompanied by her banjolele (a cross between a banjo and a ukulele), tell funny stories of her travels and hand out sixpenny photo cards of herself. Audience admission was a mere silver coin each.
The Evening Post described her after her Opera House appearance in three words: Pep, Personality and Pluck.
Everyone was curious about this Girl in Red – although she was actually 31 at the time. Was Nita Rosslyn her real name? Had she really cycled all around England and much of the rest of Europe, alone? What about, well, female problems along the way? And did she have an extra red uniform or did she wash and wear the same one?
According to her publicity, Nita’s nifty new bike featured ‘‘lever brakes, internally geared rear hub, full chain guard, saddlebag carriers and a carbide lamp. It had carried her over foreign roads in all weathers and all times of the day’’.
Along her route, the bike was often displayed in shop windows, and her name lent to ads for Raleigh, BSA and other brand-new models.
In Wairoa, Nita received the week-old news of her mother’s death, back in Manchester – but undaunted, she travelled on.
From town to town and stage to stage she went, until on December 4, 1935, her wheels slipped on some loose metal down the Whangamoa Hill in Nelson and she fell heavily, suffering concussion and contusions. As she rested in Nelson Hospital, new rumours flew – it was said the Girl in Red had been unmasked as a man and a spy, that secret maps were hidden in the handlebars of her bike.
These whispers just made Nita more fascinating to the public.
Bound next for Tasmania and Australia, Nita Rosslyn left New Zealand in 1936, and apparently vanished.
But she hadn’t. She’d simply settled down.
After having toured Spain, Norway, Sweden, South America, Canada, the US, New Zealand and Australia, she finally alighted in Hervey Bay, Queensland.
Possibly in Brisbane, she had met Frederick Freestone Phillips, a 44-year-old farmer and World War I veteran. In 1939, they were married.
She died in 1978; Frederick four years later.
Rosslyn had indeed been Nita’s real name: her English parents were Albert Rosslyn and Marie Scholes.
In a memoir describing her days of fame, the Girl in Red had written: ‘‘I have had accidents, a broken jaw and head injuries. I have been without food for two days; I have cycled 105 miles in a day, and gone straight on to the stage to earn my way.
‘‘For the first few weeks I suffered agony from cramped limbs, and often I had to be carried from the meal table because my legs had locked; but now I’m remarkably strong.’’
Dangers she’d faced included knife-wielding hotel invaders in Brazil and earthquakes in Chile. Distinctive in her red uniform, Nita had ‘‘caused a stir’’ in Ireland, where she was thought to be a Communist.
‘‘However, I’ve met all sorts of people – sometimes distinguished people in mansions, sometimes povertystricken people in the slums, and I’ve enjoyed it all immensely.’’
Today, Nita’s famous red bike hangs on display in the Hervey Bay Historical Museum.