Corinne (aka “Coreen”) Beatrice Bain was born on 6 September 1917, the daughter of William and Maude (nee Sandliands) Bain. The family lived at 6 Queen’s Drive in the Dunedin suburb of “Sunshine”, near Anderson’s Bay.

She not only won national titles in ladies, pairs skating and ice-dancing in 1947 and 1948, but in her sporting career Corinne also won several national speed skating titles, the 1948 New Zealand Women's Skiing Championships, runner-up in the New Zealand doubles tennis championship and two Otago Bronze Golf Championships.

She attended Musselburgh School and Columba College before studying commerce at Otago University, becoming a member of the Faculty Committee. At University she joined the University Ski Club, achieving third-place in the Women’s Cross-Country Race at the 1937 University Ski Championships at Mount Cook.

Becoming a member of the Otago Ski Club, in 1946 she was the Champion New Zealand Half-Mile Ice-Skater. The following year Corinne was second in the Women’s Slalom at the New Zealand Skiing Championships, held on Mt. Egmont. In 1948 she won the national ski and ice-skating titles while in 1949 she represented Otago at the New Zealand Ice-Skating Championships at Ranfurly, after winning the South Island women’s downhill ski title on Coronet Peak. Also a member of the Dunedin Badminton Club, the Otago Squash Club and an Otago tennis representative, she married James Hogg Gilkison in 1939 and had two sons, Graham and James.

Corinne died on 4 June 2014 at the age of 96 years. The Dunedin Ice Stadium has created the Corinne Gilkison Trophy and named the Corinne Gilkison ice-hockey rinks in her memory.

Picture: Corinne Bain, far right, a member of the Otago University Ski Club.