The beginnings and development of a New Zealand music: The life ...

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Music for the credit of the University,
and the whole system being what it was,
Kitson provided the safest means of
doing this."44
The only obstacle remaining in Lilburn's way before he could
finalise his plans for overseas study was finance, and again, it was the
winning of the Percy Grainger Competition that helped:
" it was enough to impress my family that
there might be a bit of money in it you know.
Not only that but my father had a letter from
the President of the Farmers' Union congratulating
him on his son's musical success. And I think
it shook him a bit because he couldn't believe
it. He used to say, if it had to be music couldn't
it be the bagpipes! ••• Yes~y father agreed to
send me to London on the strength of this Percy
Grainger prize. He agreed to give me an allowance
of£3 a week, which wasn't lavish. And he gave
me a two-berth cabin to go in because he thought
his brother who might be in Auckland might come
to see me off - I wasn't going to be seen off in
anything less than a two-berth cabin. And so I
went in July '37. It took six weeks I think on
the old Ruahine. 1145
44 Douglas Lilburn, Text of address to students at the first Cambridge
Summer Music School, January 1946. Unpublished typescript p.l0.
45 Douglas Lilburn in Fragments of a stolen conversation. op. cit.
p. 19.