Holidays At Home Can Be Enjoyable, Too

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 241, 12 October 1942, Page 2

Holidays At Home Can Be Enjoyable, Too

A lot of New Zealanders will spend their holidays at home this year. Restrictions on travel will account for it. to say nothing of the heavier demands made on the purse by taxation and war funds. It is the same elsewhere. In Britain, organisations set up to encourage recreation of various kinds are realising that enforced holidays at home make their work all the more necessary. In the words of the English Listener, they arc trying "to counter our inability to seek recreation abroad by bringing recreation to us in our home towns and villages."

By Cyrano

The more I read of life in Britain in these years of war, the more I am impressed not only by the size, but by the variety of the national effort. Fleets and armies have to be raised and fed; merchant ships built; a prodigious quantity of munitions made; home defences manned; substitutes found for many articles cut off or in short supply. The life of the people is turned upside down and inside out. Yet the work of directing education and recreation not only goes on, but is extended.

There is education in the army, and actors and musicians travel around entertaining the troops. "All over the country this summer, in remote villages as well as big towns," said the Listener in July, "the chance will be presented to the people of hearing good concerts, seeing good plays, and visiting exhibitions of good pictures." What a reserve of energy, enthusiasm and ideas there must be in the community!

Interest Close By

As the Listener says, this has a bearing on holidays at home. Holidays are given to us for a rest from work, and most of us seek that rest in change of scene and occupation. We go away from home. We enjoy seeing new places and new people. But if we can't go away we can get a rest in other directions. We can make the acquaintance of new ideas, new forms of recreatioru and entertainment, or return to old ones. We can read new books, or the old ones that long ago we put on our shelves till we "had time"; we can try new games or attempt to recapture our sometime skill. We can see more of our friends and more of our neighbourhood. It is surprising how much interest there is round the corner if you know how to look for it.

It is notorious that some English people emigrate without having seen famous places at their own doors; and I am sure there are New Zealanders who go far afield every summer without having explored adequately the attractions within a few miles of their homes. I confess that while I know most of New Zealand and have been round the world, there are interesting places within easy, or fairly easy, reach of my native city in New Zealand that I haven't visited.

However, I must also confess that, as spring stirs in the blood, I feel the call of the road. I do want to travel this summer, to fill in some of the gaps in my knowledge of New Zealand, to find myself lying in a train with a book on my knee, the countryside sliding past through the unhampered day, and a new place to see at the end of the journey; or in a car, independent of time-tables, able to stop and inspect and admire when I want to, living for a while, as it were, in the sun and wind of freedom, and letting them play upon me. There is even excitement in the thought of a meal in a strange place; one might light on that very rare thing in New Zealand hostelries, a new dish. More exciting may be the resting place for the night, and especially getting up in the morning to see a new mountain or lake through the window.

Overdoing It

But if it isn't to be, does it matter greatly? It is a small thing to miss in a time like this. And perhaps there are compensations. To stay at home is to lessen the risk of pursuing pleasure into the realm of pain. I once returned from a strenuous summer holiday in a state of semicollapse. My doctor was sympathetic but frank. "Every February," he said, "I get a number of cases like yours. You live a sedentary life for eleven months in the year, and then you tear about the country in trains and cars, and believe you're enjoying yourself, when really you're wearing your nerves to a frazzle."

I often think of the couple whose dash from the city to a distant resort was described to me by one who saw them arrive and leave. They drove fast all day, much of the way through magnificent scenery, and arrived in time for dinner. She wife, tired out, went to bed immediately afterwards. They left for home next morning. The man was enthusiastic about his car, and no doubt talked a lot on the subject to his friends. It is less certain that he said anything about the scenery. There should be less of this sort of

thing in the coming summer. The Woman's Point of View That wife is an important factor in the holiday question. Men and women don't always enjoy the same kind of holiday, or need it. I suspect that if mothers who go camping every summer were to say exactly what they thought of it, some families would be surprised and even shocked. Is it always fun for a woman who has been standing over a stove all the year to stand over a much less convenient one in the annual holiday? It may not be a great hardship for some women to stay at home quietly this year, if "quietly" is a possible condition. The other day I met a man who W9rks in the city and lives some miles out. "My wife and I," he said, "are going to have a holiday in town. We are going to a boardinghouse, if we can get in. My wife says her chief idea is to eat meals she hasn't cooked or seen. At home we hardly ever go out. Transport and work are against it. When we stay in town we will see some of our friends, and not be worried by catching last trains. We will do a few movies— we haven't seen one for months— wander about the parks, and sit in the sun, if there is any. They tell me the cherry trees in the Gardens are wonderful. I've worked in this town for years, but I don't know half of it."

Holiday Philosophy

Not a bad holiday. Do you remember the story of the retired naval captain who settled down with a man-servant in a cottage by the sea? The man had orders to call his master early every morning with something like this formula: "The Admiral's compliments, sir, and he would like to see you." The captain would open a vengeful eye and reply: "Tell the Admiral to go to hell!'* and turn to sleep again. There i" much holiday philosophy in this storr. Fortunately, if you have the righ' temperament, it is still possible to enjoy a holiday in spite of Hitler.