Armed with violin close to frontline fire

Cyril Pasco even used music to teach mathematics. Photo / Janna Dixon

Cyril Pasco, Kiwi Concert Party member. Died aged 92.

Cyril Pasco was one of the last two surviving original members of World War II's Kiwi Concert Party.

Born in Invercargill, Cyril enlisted voluntarily and was sent to Crete and Malta, serving with New Zealand's first echelon from 1939. Later he served in Italy and the Western desert.

Under the leadership of Terence Vaughan, the Kiwi Concert Party was formed as New Zealand's Entertainment Unit in 1941, and Cyril was there at its inception.

As a mobile, self-contained unit - yet fully infantry-trained and armed - it was the function of "The Kiwis" to take music and comedy revue to the New Zealand Division in the field.

Often working under fire near the frontline, for four years the group followed the path of hostilities through the Middle East and Italy.

For some of that period, Cyril's violin became the Kiwi Concert Party's lead instrument. Trained as a classical violinist, he was required to be much more musically embracing with the Concert Party.

He was called upon to deliver up big band music and swing as confidently as the classics. As he said, "I played that instrument the way it shouldn't be played. Even in the Western Desert, the violin went too. When we weren't performing, we got together in a tent and had a bit of a hooley. And even on Christmas Day we had Christmas dinner - and then, I played."

After the war, Cyril became the holder of the regimental record, which a member of the Kiwi Concert Party had bequeathed to him, but which officials considered lost.

He returned it to the Army so they could correct their approximate journals. Cyril also bequeathed to Auckland War Memorial Museum his collection of Concert Party manuscripts, programmes, letters and press cuttings.

Cyril married Beryl Wilson in 1939. He had met her on the wharf at Bluff when she arrived on a boat from Tasmania. She was a circus performer. The couple had two children - a son Chris, and daughter Gay. Both parents became founding members of the Little Dolphin Theatre in Onehunga.

Cyril became a second-hand dealer in Onehunga.

Later, he trained as a teacher serving in primary schools around Auckland.

He was renowned for his ability to teach everything through music - even maths - often inspiring several generations of the same family. At Onehunga Primary, he started Saturday morning music classes: "Bring your own instrument" was his motto, and parents lent a hand.

Later still Cyril developed his own music therapy in rest homes, sometimes appearing in an orange suit with a green tie. He was not a shy man.

After a performance in Malta during the war, a gozo boat in solid silver was given to the Concert Party and became the group's mascot.

That little boat, a model of a traditional Maltese vessel, now rests at Waiouru's Army Museum.

As a final valedictory, Chris entered two Cyril Pasco songs into the APRA Uke-can-do-it Songwriting competition. Winners will be announced on November 21 at a national ukulele festival.

Beryl Pasco died a few weeks before her husband. He is survived by his son and daughter.

- SELWYN FOUNDATION AND STAFF REPORTER