View of the 'old woman who lived in a shoe' float parked in a street before the start of the 1933 Christmas pageant. Mounted on a wagon drawn by two Clydesdale horses, there are 10 'children' as well as the 'old woman'.

When Edward Hayward conceived of the Adelaide Christmas pageant, he envisaged the procession to contain fairy tales and nursery rhymes come to life. One of these nursery rhymes was the Old woman who lived in a shoe.

In the lead-up to the first pageant John Martin's ran a clever marketing campaign in The Advertiser and on radio stations 5AD and 5DN. The campaign followed the journey of Father Christmas from his home in the North Pole to Adelaide for his participation in the pageant and his arrival at the 'Magic Cave'.

According to this campaign, the Old woman travelled a fair distance to make it to Adelaide for the event.

An update from Constantinople, Turkey, reads:

Father Christmas left here today, and took the Old Woman and her Shoe, together with all her children, on his aeroplane. He is now headed for Bombay. His reason for taking the Old Woman is that he wanted her and her family to appear in the grand Pageant in Adelaide next Saturday morning (The Advertiser, 14 November 1933, p. 1).

Originally a horse drawn float, the Old woman's accommodation has been renovated over the years. For a more contemporary version of the float see photograph B 64192/62.

John Martin & Co.

'60th John Martin's State Bank Christmas pageant 1933-1993', Sunday Mail, 31 October 1993, 24 p. supp.

Adelaide's once-a-year day, Adelaide: Commercial Printing House, 1978.

'Street pageant delights crowd', Advertiser, 20 November 1933, p. 16.

A touch of magic [videorecording] : [the story behind the Christmas Pageant], West Lakes?, S. Aust. : Cine News Productions, 1993.

Credit Union Christmas pageant

John Martin's first pageant: 1933 [State Library of South Australia]