Partner Pietertje Maria Hoogland, Sylvia Bagnall
Queer Places:
Paekākāriki 5034, New Zealand
Coral Trimmer (born 1930) was born into a family of professional musicians,
and by the age of nine she was playing violin solos with the Petone Symphony Orchestra.
Though she is also fluent with piano and flute, it is her virtuosity on the harmonica that has been astonishing audiences since 1944.
She performs across a wide variety of musical genres including classical, blues, jazz, folk, and rock 'n' roll.
In the early days Coral performed on stage in New Zealand with various entertainers such as Howard Morrison, regularly on NZ radio, and was New Zealand Television's first live instrumental performer. She promptly won the Australian Amateur award for best performer in Australia, performed for a season at the Theatre Royal in Brisbane with George Wallace Junior and went on to be the supporting act for the famous Johnny O'Keefe.
In 1953 Pietertje Maria Hoogland boarded a ship and arrived in Auckland. She had no money to speak of and no real education, so for the first year or so she lived in a garage at the back of somebody’s house and washed dishes in one of the local fish restaurants. One day, a very beautiful and shy-looking girl walked in and Riet was instantly smitten. Coral Trimmer was mightily impressed by the tall Dutch woman, who dared to come up to her and tell her that she was gay and was attracted to her. At the time, New Zealand was as conservative as Holland, and Coral had never met anybody this forthright before. For a year, the two women travelled the country. Working where they could, pretending to be just friends, but having the time of their lives. Then they settled down in Auckland, where they started a small translating business. Riet, who spoke five languages, took the lead, while Coral supplemented their income by singing and performing in pubs and clubs.
In 1955, television came to New Zealand, and Coral appeared on the very first programme ever broadcasted. She started to dream about a proper career in show business and for that, New Zealanders and Australians at that time believed, you had to be in the centre of the cultural universe: London.
In 1960, she left. Riet stayed behind. It was impossible for her to go back to Europe, the continent of her nightmares, where so much had happened. Coral went anyway and that was the great regret of her life. Because when she came back, ten years later, Riet was dead. She had died of cancer at the age of 49.
In 1960 after three years studying harmony and composition in Auckland, Coral performed with the Alex Lindsay String Orchestra - a concertino for harmonica, harp and strings especially written for her by Dorothea Franchi. When she arrived in the United Kingdom, Coral's agent changed her name to Coral Kaye, and under this alias she toured extensively with the then popular Variety Shows. These shows would always have a residential orchestra, and with them Coral's virtuosity was displayed performing a variety of genres - mainly a mixture of light classical such as Brahms Ritual Fire Dance, popular songs of the day and jazz. Coral continued to work extensively in England at theatres such as The Windmill, City Varieties, on the Valley Circuit, and for BBC radio.
In 1961 she completed an extensive War Office tour of the Middle East with the Stan Stennett Show.
Hanging up her harmonica in 1964, Coral retrained in Wellington as a potter, and then opened a successful pottery business in Melbourne.
By the 90s she couldn't resist the pull any longer and returned to show business on the Melbourne circuit, playing regular clubs and venues, and on ABC radio, often as a duet with the wonderful pianist Celia Rowley.
In 2019 Coral returned to New Zealand where she lives in Paekākāriki close to her brother, ballet dancer Sir Jon Trimmer. As of 2022, she is in a relationship with Sylvia Bagnall.
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