According to Dame Edna's autobiography, Madge Allsop was born Marjorie Kiri McWhirter in Palmerston North, New Zealand. Her date of birth has not been confirmed, although the fact that she was reportedly orphaned in 1931 "at a young age", as a result of the Napier earthquake, implies that she was born in the mid-1920s (and is, therefore, about the same age as Dame Edna herself). Madge then lived with an aunt until the age of ten, when she moved to Melbourne, Australia. It was while attending Moonee Ponds Girls' Grammar School that she met young Edna Mae Beazley, who took pity on her and became a reluctant friend. It is recorded that the young Madge's cardigan, before it was burnt in the school incinerator, yielded some seeds that took root in the school grounds and produced Australia's first kiwi fruit tree.