Marion's Festive Song - My Christmas Claim To Fame

Meet the real woman behind a classic kiwi holiday tune

- Julie Jacobson

Sticky Beak the Kiwi was THE Christmas song of the early 1960s, on high rotation in radio stations across New Zealand.

The singer was Julie Nelson, a 14-year-old schoolgirl from Gisborne plucked from obscurity − as old newspaper clippings note − by a couple with an eye for talent.

“The girl intends to go places,” said one, circa 1962. “There is a quiet determination about Julie Nelson; she knows where she’s going and how to get there. Gisborne, it is considered, will be proud of her in the not too distant future.”

Marion Banks laughs at that. Nothing, she reckons, could have been further from the truth. And she should know – Marion is, or was, Julie.

Now 73 and living in Greytown, opposite the primary school she attended, Marion shakes her head.

She had no burning ambition to make it big as a recording artist, she says. It was the 1960s after all − boys, back-combing, beehives, milk bars and miniskirts were far greater priorities for a teenage Marion.

The youngest of three, Marion was born in Gisborne and moved to Greytown with her family when she was seven, later moving back to the east coast for high school. For several years, from 1961 to 1963 she was feted as one to watch – our version of Helen Shapiro– performing at functions such as 21sts and engagements and recording a number of singles, including the iconic Sticky Beak, written by folk singer Bob Edwards and set to music by Neil Roberts.